Africa-Press – Eswatini. For the upcoming season, the government has prepared at least a combined total of E42.2 million to meet farmers halfway in the farming input subsidy and tractor hire service programmes.
In an interview with this publication, Principal Secretary (PS) in the Ministry of Agriculture Sydney Simelane said government has prepared E32.2 million for the input subsidy programme and E10 million for the tractor hire service programme. Simelane stated that they were projecting that at least 5 000 to 6 000 farmers would benefit from this programme (input subsidy). He highlighted that the number of beneficiaries have declined when compare to the previous season. He said such was caused by the fact that last year government received a loan assistance of E112 million from the African Development Bank. He said the loan made it possible for the 11 519 farmers to benefit. He said unfortunately this year it was not the case hence the decline of beneficiaries from 11 519 to 5 000 or 6 000 beneficiaries.
Contribution
Last Thursday, the Minister of Agriculture Jabulani Mabuza announced that this year’s government contribution towards the farming input subsidy programme will go back to normal budget of 50 per cent. Mabuza highlighted that in the past season, the cost of inputs for one hectare stood at E14 000 and the government contributed E9 100 (65 per cent) and farmers E4 900 (35 per cent) of the cost of the full package as a means of cushioning farmers against the high input costs that were experienced in the previous year due to the effects of COVID-19 and the Russia-Ukraine war, which both had very negative impacts in economies worldwide; raising the prices of fuel, commodities and inflation in general. “This was a shift from the usual 50 per cent split between government and farmers and had it not been for this intervention by government, a lot of farmers wouldn’t have been able to go back to the field last planting season,” said the minister. He further announced that for subsidised tractor hire services, government shall contribute E180 for a tractor hour while the farmer will contribute E400 and the deadline is when the budget has been exhausted where farmers would be expected to pay the full price of E580 per tractor hour.
Advantage
He said farmers were, therefore, expected to pay E400 for all tractor services per hour from Monday. Again, payments may be done at Regional Development Agency (RDA) through MoMo and e-Mali or Eswatini Bank. “Benefiting from the limited budget will be on a first come first served basis and let me take this opportunity to thank you once again and encourage farmers to take advantage of this opportunities and pay immediately to avoid being left out for both inputs and tractor hours,” said the minister.
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