A total of 21,374 farmers are set to benefit from the Farmer Input Support Programme (FISP) in Petauke District of Eastern Province.

The district commenced the FISP registration exercise for the 2024-2025 farming season in September and is expected to be concluded this month. 

ZANIS reports that District Agricultural Coordinator, Robbie Musendo, says out of the 21,374 beneficiaries, 18,245 have been given authority to deposit their contribution which is 85 percent of the entire beneficiaries.

Mr Musendo further indicated that 16,503 beneficiaries have already deposited funds for them to access inputs from agro dealers and that 11, 597 farmers representing 54 percent have already collected their inputs from the agro dealers.

“In terms of the deposits, we are expecting that this Saturday we should be able to wind up,” he said.

Mr Musendo explained that out of 64 agro dealers that registered in the district only 26 are active in the distribution of the inputs and that only four have all the inputs including fertiliser which is delaying the process and also causing long queues.

“We have all the seeds in the district but for fertiliser we have a bit of a challenge,” he said.

He disclosed that some farmers are queuing up as early as 04:00 hours for them to have access to the farming inputs on time. 

Mr Musendo however revealed that most of the agro dealers were hoping to get the inputs from the national suppliers, but due to the failure by most of the agro dealers from other districts in the last farming season to comply with the national supplier’s terms, it has led to the low flow of the inputs. 

“We hear that the national suppliers do not want to give agro dealers the inputs but are doing the redeeming themselves,” he said. 

He has since called on agro dealers to be compliant whenever they are entrusted with such opportunities.