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Agriculture Minister Dora Siliya
Agriculture Minister Dora Siliya says Government will support 1,609,187 farmers under the Farmer Input Support Programme in the 2016/2017 farming season
Ms Siliya has told Parliament in a ministerial statement that of the total targeted beneficiaries, one million, six hundred and sixty six farmers will be supported under the conventional system in the sixty four districts while the remaining 602,521 farmers in 39 districts will be provided with the subsidy under the e-voucher system.
Ms Siliya says the total cost of FISP under the conventional system and the e-voucher system is K3.14 billion.
She says the ministry has registered 422 agro dealers to participate in the e-voucher system in the 39 districts who were selected through a competitive national tender.
Ms Siliya adds that five banks namely ZANACO, Barclays bank, Banc ABC, ECOBANK and UBA bank have been contracted to print 368,832 Visa cards for the newly included districts under the e-voucher system.
And Ms Siliya says a total of 85,337.4 metric tonnes of Compound D fertilizer has been distributed to all the ten provinces as at 29th November,2016 under the conventional Farmer Input Support Programme (FISP).
She says this represents 89% distribution against the target of 96,092 metric tonnes.
Ms Siliya further states that a total of 34,426.8 metric tonnes of urea has also been distributed representing 39% of the target of 87,160 metric tonnes.
She says under the e-voucher system, 233,689 farmers already have the cards and will be activated in the next few days.
Ms Siliya adds that the 171,832 new visa cards for newly added districts have been printed out of the target of 368,832, while the balance of the cards is being printed by the participating banks.
She says the distribution of the cards will start tomorrow 30th November.