By Isaac Jim

Blantyre, August 14, Mana: Government through the Ministry of Agriculture is migrating small holder farmers from Affordable Inputs Program (AIP) to commercial farming as one way of achieving the Malawi 2063 (MW2063) vision of having an agricultural sector that is commercially driven.

In an interview with Malawi News Agency on Tuesday, Agriculture Minister, Sam Kawale, says that among other migrated beneficiaries are elderly and people with disability, commercial farmers who have 20 hectares or more of land and those with large pieces of land for mechanization.

“The migrated farmers from AIP to other programmess like Social Cash Transfer include the elderly and people with disabilities who find it difficult to cultivate, that is managed by the Ministry of Gender and over 300,000 households are expected to benefit from K36 billion that is put in place,”

“Commercial farmers with 20 hectares or more, with already available irrigation land and equipment, will have access to K20 billion financing from National Food Reserve Agency (NFRA) and those with large pieces of land who want to use mechanization will be encouraged to access Agricultural Commercialization (AGCOM) funds, which are close to K600 billion,” he said.

Kawale further says that there is K60 billion that is set to help youths, women and people with disabilities who want to start agro businesses.

“Youths, women and those with disabilities interested in starting agro businesses will access K60 billion through the Youth Entrepreneurship for the Future of Food and Agriculture Program (YEFFAP),” he added.

Agriculture Specialist, Tamani Nkhono recommends the development and said this is how he thinks that subsidy could have been designed from the beginning.

“The setup is ok, looking at the fact that subsidy is now reaching all categories of farmers is reaching those that are not able to produce, large scale and medium scale farmers, those have gone to social cash transfers. This is how the subsidy could have designed from the beginning,” he explained.

Nkhono added that the current setup is going to have impact in terms of food security and development of the country.

“What was happening with subsidy was more less like distorting the market as it was giving advantage to one class of farmers at the expense of others but also the resources going to the subsidy programme were more geared towards consumption than commercialization. There current setup will therefore going to bring impact in terms of food security but support those with ability to produce,” Nkhono added.

The universal subsidies existed from around 1990s (ADMARC’s Implicit taxation and Starter pack) while targeted subsidies started in the late 1990s and continue to date, including the Targeted from Input Program (TIP) and the Farm Input Subsidy Program (FISP) that the current government changed it to Affordable Inputs Program (AIP).