Prioritising e-voucher system for FISP

Sun, 15 Oct 2017 11:30:19 +0000

By Mwiine Lubemba

(Not the Paramount Chief Chitimukulu)

THE development prospects of Zambia are intrinsically linked to the performance of the agricultural sector. This therefore is contrary to the prescriptions of the economic orthodoxy once propagated by the IMF and World Bank that held sway in the last two decades.

Zambian government should get more actively involved in the agricultural sector, if the country is to achieve overall development. Among other things, the IMF and World Bank asked for deregulation and the withdrawal of the state from most economic and utility services.

But in stark contrast, the Indaba Agricultural Policy and Research Institute (IAPRI), a great critic of government’s Farmer Input Support Programme (FISP) endorsed the rolling out of a fully-fledged electronic voucher (e-voucher) system, the country’s premier capacity building institution, is urging the Zambian government to get more involved in the agricultural development issues.

In developmental states, such as China, the world has seen rapid growth, which has resulted from the State playing a controlling role in development while permitting private ownership and entrepreneurship at the same time. An active state is not necessarily a repressive one.

The world is also beginning to realise that so-called ‘free market’ governments mostly in the West also exercise a tremendous amount of control through protectionist measures – and these

are primarily to do with agricultural trade.

Driving home the point even harder, Zambia’s Minister of Agriculture Dora Siliya said that Government would start the distribution of farming inputs by 15th October, 2017 in order for farmers to prepare adequately for the 2017/2018 farming season.

Speaking on the sidelines of the Specialised Technical Committee (STC) on Agriculture, Rural Development, Water and Environment in Addis Ababa, the Minister of Agriculture said that government had put in place mechanisms to ensure that the challenges faced last year in distribution of funds and farming inputs were addressed.

She said K200 billion had been set aside this year for the 2017/2018 farming season. She further urged Zambians to take agriculture as a business and not only grow food for their household consumption.

She also said that government had this year devised a mechanism to separate vulnerable farmers from those who were in farming strictly for business. She further advised that her ministry had recommended vulnerable farmers – those who could not manage to raise K400 prerequisite amount on their own for the e-voucher FISP support to the ministry of community development for assistance.

The minister emphasised that the e-voucher system for FISP was a project that government had put in place to ensure timely and effective distribution of resources to farmers.

And in tandem with the way her colleague, the minister of agriculture does things – the Minister of Community Development and Social Services Emerine Kabanshi said that 600,000 households in 109 districts would benefit from the social cash transfer programme this year. She said that this would help reduce poverty levels in most parts of the country.

 She also said that social protection programmes were vital because they significantly reduced vulnerability of disadvantaged groups – including those who could not manage to self-raise K400 prerequisite amount for the e-voucher FISP support consideration.

The Community Development minister also stated that she would closely monitor social protection programmes in all districts across the country. This was in line with President Edgar Lungu’s quest to reduce poverty levels in the country which had dropped from 60 percent to 54.4 percent.

Meanwhile, the Jesuit Centre for Theological Reflection (JCTR), has advised the Community Development Ministry to target the right people in the social cash transfer if the intended benefits were to be realised. JCTR further acknowledged that the implementation of the electronic single registry of beneficiaries for all social protection programmes was a welcome move as it would ensure that only the deserving beneficiaries accessed social protection.

Budget slashing and spending freezes often came at the expense of the health and education sectors, disproportionately affecting the most vulnerable citizens. However, in next year’s budget JCTR noted with interest, an increased allocation to social cash transfer from K552 million in 2017 to K721 million in 2018.

Usually a shy and taciturn institution, IAPRI, this year, decided not to mince its words, when the agricultural think-tank said that complete e-voucher system implementation would be a much more cost-effective way of providing input subsidies to Zambian farmers and addresses many of the problems associated with the conventional format.

The e-voucher system for FISP was chosen to highlight the importance of subsidies in agriculture to overall development in Zambia and why the Zambian government should play an active role in the sector.

“What is abundantly clear is that the traditional FISP conspicuously failed to deliver on its mandate of increasing productivity and reducing rural poverty,” IAPRI said in a statement.

The Zambian government would spend K2 billion to implement a fully-fledged e-voucher system during this year’s farming season. According to Finance Minister Felix Mutati, a process to procure a technology platform to roll out the programme targeting 1.6 million smallholder farmers, was already underway. IAPRI said that after 15 years of running FISP at great cost, crop yields remained low (below 5 tons per hectare) and rural poverty remained stubbornly high at around 78%.

According to the institute, the new system has other significant benefits, besides growing agriculture and lowering rural poverty. This includes providing farmers with the freedom of choosing inputs of their choice.

“The new system gives hope of significant growth of a more diversified agricultural economy and accompanying decline in rural poverty,” IAPRI said.

On resolving delays in e-voucher activation and other teething problems which surfaced during last year’s pilot programme, IAPRI recommended linking the farmer contribution of K400 for automatic activation. It recommended an effective monitoring system to provide swift trouble shooting ability.

A core message by IAPRI is that improving the productivity and economic returns of agriculture has immediate effects on poverty and hunger in at least three important ways: it increases the productivity and incomes of the majority of Zambia’s poor who work primarily in agriculture; it reduces food prices which affect real incomes and poverty in urban areas; and it generates important spillovers to the rest of the economy.

Therefore, IAPRI starts from the basis that agriculture and therefore the growth of it is part of the key to Zambia’s development – and it is a sector that the government cannot withdraw from or leave to the private sector and peasants alone. In fact, the country needs to move beyond strategy, IAPRI urges, and focus on e-voucher system for FISP implementation, with infrastructure development as a key pillar.

This point was re-echoed by many, Zambia is a rich country. Our poverty is self-inflicted. One could not understand how agriculture provided 60% of the total labour force in Zambia and yet we don’t have the political will and mindset to improve the sector; it’s really a problem.

If agriculture is not backward, it can be an engine for growth. All developed economies world over have powerful agricultural sectors. In fact, food production is more strategic than copper; and food is going to be a very important and strategic factor in development in the future. So the Ministry of Agriculture officials, financial institutions, agro-dealers and smallholder farmers had better have their act together to ensure the successful e-voucher system’s roll-out countrywide.

Overall, the main aim of IAPRI’s endorsement of the rolling out of a fully-fledged e-voucher system is to measure and empirically assess capacity in relation to the development agenda in Zambia’s 10 provinces.

This year’s FISP, which focuses on capacity development for agricultural transformation and food security in 10 provinces, seeks to bring political, policy, research, investment, and capacity development attention to the e-voucher system implementation, monitoring and tracking of issues that impact agricultural transformation and food security.

While growth in Zambian agriculture has been relatively strong in recent years, IAPRI understated the fact that the food security situation in the country is still unpredictable.

This is partly because land productivity has not increased, only the extent of cultivated land has. There is therefore the need for sustainable intensification of agriculture by government so that more output can be obtained from the same area. IAPRI in a subtle way advised that Zambian agricultural productivity is constrained by effects of climate change, endemic diseases such as malaria and HIV-Aids, which have weakened the labour force. Livestock diseases have also played a part.

“Furthermore, agricultural producers are marginalised in society, and young people no longer wish to farm, preferring to live their lives in urban areas.” As a result, inferred IAPRI, “rural areas can become depopulated, with agriculture being carried out largely by the old or the very young”.

Interestingly, all this is happening at a time when Zambia has become the fastest urbanising country in the sub-region. And though the country currently has some of the continent’s fastest growing economies, the Minister of Agriculture urges that the way in which farming is done will have to adapt in order to feed the urban poor.

Multi-facility farming blocks and peri-urban agriculture should be encouraged in all the 10 provinces, where today such activities are marginal and even shunned in some cases.

For those who are not aware of the agricultural think-tank, IAPRI was established in October 2011, and is a non-profit Zambian company limited by guarantee which collaboratively works with public and private stakeholders in the agricultural sector.

IAPRI is led by a local board of directors drawn from various state and private sector stakeholders. IAPRI’s vision: A Zambia free of hunger, malnutrition and poverty through sustainable agricultural transformation. Its mission: To provide evidence-based policy solutions through high quality research and outreach services for the transformation of Zambia’s agricultural sector to achieve sustainable broad-based pro-poor growth.

IAPRI’s mandate is to utilise empirical evidence to advise and guide the Government of the Republic of Zambia and other stakeholders on agricultural investments and policies. The overarching goal of IAPRI’s policy analysis and outreach efforts is to identify policies and investments in the agricultural sector that can effectively stimulate inclusive economic growth and poverty reduction.

This is achieved through three core operational activities: producing trusted, impartial, and high-quality research on agricultural, food, and natural resource policy issues in Zambia and the wider Southern Africa region; integrating research findings into national, regional, and international programs and policy strategies to promote sustainable agricultural growth and cut hunger and poverty in Zambia; and supporting the development and strengthening of capacity for policy research, analysis and outreach of public and private institutions in Zambia.

In summary, the endorsement by IAPRI of the rolling out of a fully-fledged e-voucher system, should be nice music to the ears of the government officials in the Ministry of Agriculture. But cynics and critics of the fully-fledged e-voucher system together with the UPND and its supporters now have egg on their faces.

 Needless to say, the Zambian government has done two things right: It has invested in capacity building and is using it; and it is also implementing its policies right by prioritising the e-voucher system for FISP. – Just a thought