Government has disclosed that the Department of Agriculture Research Services and Malawi Bureau of Standards (MBS) will be testing fertilizer and seed before the inputs are dispatched from suppliers’ warehouses to retail outlets.

Minister of Agriculture Sam Kawale said this in Parliament when delivering a ministerial statement on progress of this year’s Affordable Inputs Programme (AIP).

Kawale said the move aims at ensuring that the dispatched fertilizer and seed are of optimal quality.

He said: “My Ministry will be checking on the quality and quantity of inputs that smallholder farmers will be accessing in the programme.”

He added that government has engaged extra contractors like the Malawi Defense Force to fast-track the transportation of the inputs to farmers.

In this year’s AIP, each beneficiary is earmarked to access a 50 kg bag of NPK; a 50 kilogram (kg) bag of Urea; either 5 kg of maize seed or 5 kg of sorghum or 5 kg of rice seed, depending on the farmer’s preference. Kawale added that the  Ministry will provide a chance of some livestock beneficiaries to access two female goats in Balaka and Rumphi districts.

According to Kawale, mobile retailing will be organised in areas where there are no permanent and temporary selling points.

“As earlier on stated that retailing of fertilizers to beneficiaries will be done by the Smallholder Farmers Fertilizer Revolving Fund of Malawi (SFFRFM) through the electronic system that scans the beneficiary’s NID to reveal packages to be accessed,” said Kawale.

President Lazarus Chakwera is expected to launch this year’s AIP on Saturday in Dedza District.

2.5 million farmers are expected to benefit from this year’s AIP.