Farmers need support, not threats, Kalaba urges govt
By Thandizo Banda
GOVERNMENT should stop threatening farmers with deregistration from the Farmer Input Support Programme (FISP) but instead address the flaws in the ongoing crop buying exercise by the Food Reserve Agency (FRA), says Citizens First (CF) president Harry Kalaba.
Last week, Agriculture minister Reuben Mtolo Phiri warned farmers that failure to sell a minimum of 10 50 bags of maize to FRA could result in their deregistration from FISP as a consequence for non-compliance to agreements.
However, Kalaba advised the United Party for National Development (UPND) administration to desist from stressing farmers who were already traumatised by the numerous challenges they faced in the last farming season.
Speaking in an interview with The Mast at the weekend, Kalaba said most farmers under the FISP were being subjected to sleeping at satellite depots for several weeks because of inadequate staff and accessories used in buying the grain such as scales and grain bags.
“What is he [Phiri] talking about? Let him concentrate on increasing the number of buyers and provide them with necessary tools. Government is struggling to buy the staple food nearly in all parts of the country,” Kalaba said.
He said he personally had toured FRA markets and interacted with farmers in Luwingu, Kasama and Mwansabombwe districts where FRA was evidently failing to effectively carry out its mandate.
Kalaba doubted FRA’s capacity to attain its target of over three million metric tonnes given its dismal performance at the beginning of the exercise.
On Saturday, a farmer in Sinda District of Eastern Province, Laiva Zulu, warned the UPND administration that its mismanagement of FISP could cost it the 2026 general election.
Zulu said it was unfair and cruel for Phiri to threaten to remove farmers from FISP for failing to sell 10 bags of their maize harvest to FRA.
He said the minister should look at the challenges the farmers had faced, including drought, which had forced them to incur debts in order to survive, and they were forced to repay those debts using this year’s harvest.
