About 5000 Kalomo farmers who were bonded by selling not less than 10 x 50 kilograms bags of maize to the Food Reserve Agency (FRA) as a guideline to access the farmer input support programme (FISP) for this farming season have so far redeemed their e-voucher codes to get their farming inputs for this year.
District Agriculture Coordinator Chisha Sikazwe disclosed this in an interview with ZANIS in Kalomo, stating that out of the 8,500 farmers that sold their maize produce to the Agency, 4,890 farmers have so far redeemed their e-voucher codes with the selected local Agro dealers to get the inputs.
Mr Sikazwe further adds that the remaining farmers out of its 31,000 FISP target are yet to make deposits to access the 2025/26 under FISP.
He says 20,000 small scale farmers have since been put in the system with the process to tag all the farmers expected to be sped up before the actual rain season intensifies.
Meanwhile, some farmers found redeeming their vouchers thanked the Government for the timely release of the inputs saying this would enable them to adequately prepare for this farming season.
“This is a timely move by this government by giving us fertilizers and seed at this time in October, it will enable us to prepare our fields adequately before the rainy season. We really thank the government for this,” said Phebby Michelo, a Kalomo farmer.
Farmers who sold their maize to FRA were bonded and automatically tagged to the Zambia Integrated Agriculture Management Information System (ZIAMIS) with their K400.00 upfront contribution towards FISP being deducted and are now redeeming their subsidized e-vouchers worthy K 8,400.00 with Agro dealers of their choice to get the inputs for this farming season.
