FIRST EVER ALPHA COMMODITIES OUT-GROWER SCHEME LAUNCHED IN CHISAMBA

By Freeman Mwenge

ALPHA Commodities has launched its first ever maize out - grower scheme to be implemented during the 2023/2024 farming season targeting emergent farmers in Chisamba District.

The pilot scheme is meant to provide farming inputs to emergent farmers who are not beneficiaries of the Government Farmer Input Support Programme (FISP).

To implement the scheme the company has partnered with Pannar Seed Zambia and Seed Co Zambia Limited with more than K9, 000 worth of farming inputs to be provided to emergent farmers to grow maize.

Speaking to scores of farmers who gathered at the Block Extension Office in Chisamba, Alpha Commodities Regional Sales Manager Tizifa Ngoma said the company would also help deserving emergent farmers to find a ready market for their yield.

Mr. Ngoma said the scheme was a loan meant to fund farmers who owned at least 5 hectares of farmland.

“Our target for this programme is farmers with 5 hectares of farmland and above. We want this programme to be run very efficiently. It will be a model of its kind where monitoring and supervision is done so if we go down to less than 5 hectares, we may have a challenge on the numbers they will be too big,” Mr. Ngoma said.

He further said the scheme was composed of 4 bags of compound D fertilizer,4 bags of Urea fertilizer and 20kg of maize seed.

Mr. Ngoma said the package also contained packs of chemicals including pesticides and weed killers as well as insurance.

“We want it to be a complete package where our farmers should have very little to cry about,” Mr. Ngoma said.

He said only farmers who owned land were eligible to access the scheme as they would be required to use their land as collateral.

Speaking at the same event, Chisamba District Agricultural Coordinator Belvin Muntanga urged the farmers to take advantage of the out-grower scheme to grow more maize.

Mr. Muntanga said the Ministry of Agriculture was keen to see the livelihoods of farmers improve through such well-meaning private sector driven schemes.

And a farmer who attended the meeting, Yvonne Sakala said out grower scheme would help farmers who did not have funds to buy fertilizer on the open market to grow more maize.

Ms. Sakala said farmers in Chisamba were happy with the initiative by Alpha Commodities.

“This is a very good initiative for farmers in Chisamba because farmers have been facing challenges to access farming inputs especially fertilizer. But this loan scheme that they have introduced will help the farmers to access inputs in time and make sure that by the time the season is coming they have the inputs in place,” Ms. Yvonne said.

She however appealed to Alpha Commodities to consider including farmers on a smaller scale on the out-grower scheme.