06 Sep 2021

Government is in the process of starting a transformative food production programme to replace the Integrated Support Programme for Arable Agriculture (ISPAAD).

In a statement delivered in Parliament on Thursday, the Minister of Agricultural Development and Food Security, Mr Karabo Gare said the new sustainable arable farming programme would be efficient and cost effective.

The programme, he said, was designed with the intent to enhance agricultural productivity and output growth as well as promote inclusivity in agricultural production and improve social capital base. One of the key component of the new programme, Minister Gare said, would be to increase the yield of selected crops through the introduction of output based encashment while implementing a robust promotion of climate smart agriculture.

He added that the new programme would promote investment in crop production by increasing agricultural commodities in the product space from four to at least 10 products by 2024. That, he said would be done through promotion of post-harvest handling and marketing of key rain-fed crops.

He said the programme would also focus on promotion of procurement of farm produce through Economic Diversification Drive (EDD) and facilitation of contract based production.

Also, he indicated that the programme would further promote agro-ecological production by aligning four of the eight Agro Ecological Zones according to commodity potential by 2024, in order to maximise production.

“The programme aims to strengthen farmer’s position in the food supply chain by reviewing the current farmer’s committee structures and capacitating the Agricultural Management Associations (AMA) as well as promoting a robust public and private extension service base,” he said.

He indicated that designing of the programme had been finalized, adding however the ministry had realised that even though it was ready to be implemented, it would not be feasible in this coming ploughing season which resumes next month (October).

That, he said was because farmers had not been informed about the new programme, therefore it might cause confusion and frustration among them and input suppliers to learn and implement the new programme at the same time.

Again, he said the ministry also needed more time to communicate the new programme before implementing it so that there would be proper buy-in and understanding of the new parameters. ENDS