The General Agriculture Workers Union (GAWU) has called for a rethink of the strategies used for the distribution of fertiliser under the Fertiliser Subsidy Programme (FSP). That, it said, was necessary for the sustainability of the Planting for Food and Jobs (PFJ) initiative, one of the government’s flagship programmes designed to improve agricultural productivity in the country.
With particular reference to subsidised fertiliser for farmers, the union argued that subsidy was a development tool that the country should not allow to be abused at the expense of the majority of the people who are meant to benefit from it.
“Today there is no subsidy anymore or the subsidy has no effect because the fertiliser is smuggled out. Once it is a subsidy, it must get to a target group and so if it does not get to them, then it cannot be counted as subsidy,” the General Secretary of GAWU, Mr Edward Kareweh, said in an interview on July 30, 2021, in reaction to the bruohaha over the fertiliser subsidy and its access in the country.
Reacting to similar calls by a sister association, Mr Kareweh said the agitations could be born out of frustration.
“If the ministry has also come out to say the fertiliser is being smuggled, then it is confirming the product does not get to the farmers,” he said.
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