Agriculture minister Dora Siliya says government has developed an integrated system for accurate famer registration, capturing of farmer deposits and activation of farmer cards for quick transaction.

In a speech read on her behalf by acting permanent secretary Peter Lungu in Lusaka during an agro dealers meeting yesterday, Siliya said the new system would allow farmers to know what inputs to buy from agro dealers.

“This new system is the only solution that will address the past challenges of inaccurate farmer identification details leading to delays in card creation activation and redeeming, unavailability of inputs stocks to operation areas, capacity of agro dealers to procure inputs and transport to farmers cost effectively and poor targeting of beneficiaries,” Siliya said.

Siliya said government expected agro dealers to deliver all required inputs to famers at profitable but reasonable prices that would enable famers make profit.

“Our expectation as government from you agro dealers is that you should participate actively on the market side in order to develop the sector through contract farming and value addition, stock all inputs that will encourage crop diversification in line with government policy,” said Siliya.

The meeting was meant to share with agro dealers the road map government set up to improve their participation as partners in the delivery of various agro inputs to the business oriented small scale farmers country wide.