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This year’s Presidential Well-wishers Agricultural Input Scheme has been broadened to include other crops in an effort to improve the country’s food security.The Minister of Agriculture, Mechanisation and Irrigation Development, Dr Joseph Made said the input scheme will now include cotton and soya beans, a move which he said is aimed at increasing food security levels in the country.
The programme, which is set to continue targeting all farmers in communal areas as well as small scale farmers, will see farmers getting 10 kgs of seed maize and two 50 kgs of fertiliser, while cotton and soya beans farmers will get 20 kgs of fertiliser and 25 kgs of seed.
Dr Made said government is committed to paying farmers who delivered their grain to the Grain Marketing Board (GMB), adding that they have so far disbursed US$48 million to farmers while the outstanding US$37 million will soon be settled.
Meanwhile, the new producer price of wheat has been pegged at US$500 per metric tonne, up from last season’s US$460. – ZBC.
Online Reporter