Farmers in Mkushi district have begun receiving their 2012 maize transaction payments from the Food Reserve Agency (FRA) during the course of last week.
Mkushi District Commissioner Christopher Chibuye confirmed the development in a statement issued whilst gracing the Agro-dealers Seed Fair in Masansa over yesterday.
Mr Chibuye elaborated that Farmers had started receiving payments from FRA through Stanbic and ZANACO Bank branches which are being used as pay points for the exercise.
He said that farmers were being paid from the K1 billion FRA monies at ZANACO, as well as from the K640 million at Stanbic bank.
He further mentioned that he had been reliably informed that the FRA had allocated another K3 billion towards catering for farmers in the district, adding that the money would be deposited at the two selected bank branches in the district.
Mr Chibuye noted that the run up to the FRA payments to farmers had been characterized by various challenges which had raised a lot of apprehension amongst farmers.
He cited the delays in the early part of the marketing season during which the procedures were negatively affected by the shortage of empty grain bags.
The District Commissioner said that during his attempts to address that challenge, he had personally gone to meet highly placed FRA officials until the matter was addressed to some reasonable extent.
Mr Chibuye said there had also been incidences of farmers publicly expressing their anger for delayed payments, saying he is glad that farmers had finally begun getting their money.
The DC disclosed FRA payments to farmers following a query which was prompted by the Chairperson for the newly formed Mkushi Agro- dealers Association (MUKADA) Wilfred Simposya.
During the district’s first ever Agro-dealers Seed Fair in Masansa, Mr Simposya had appealed for the intervention of the District Commissioner to helping speed up FRA payments to farmers.
Mr Simposya said that he felt compelled to make this appeal in view of the business climate for Agro-dealers which he realised could be much healthier if farmers received prompt payments from their transactions with FRA.
ZANIS
PF is an irresponsible government..why punish innocent farmers to this extent.The rains ar around the corner yet proceeds of agric products are unsettled–how do expect a poor farmer to prepare for farming season.??
This government of Micheal does not appreciate tat agriculture is the basic survival industry in zambia therefore requires serious attention.