Manicaland Agro Business Consultant, Mike Mandinde, told participants at the Agro stakeholders round table meeting last week that leaving farmers to purchase inputs on their own would ensure only people committed to farming would venture into viable business.
“The government should just make sure that inputs are available on the market and that banks give loans to individual farmers, which it could guarantee,” said Mandinde.
Providing free inputs, according to Mandinde, resulted in some undeserving people with political connections accessing them at the expense of genuine farmers.
“The government should come up with a mechanism to protect only the vulnerable groups such as widows, HIV victims, elderly and orphans by identifying them and continuing to provide them with free inputs,” he said.
Post published in: News