MBABANE (31 August 2025): Buoyed by the upward trend in 2024-2025 grain harvest, the minister of agriculture Mandla Tsawuka is upbeat about his progress to achieve his ambition for national food sovereignty. The minister announced that this year’s harvest improved by 3000 metric tonnes to nearly 78,000 metric tonnes despite significant weather challenges.
The minister who is hoping to inspire an even better harvest in the incoming grain season has roped in the University of Eswatini to ensure that as many farmers as possible test their soil and know its fertility and composition to inform decisions of suitable crops, improving plant growth, increasing yields, saving money on fertilizers.
The minister also launched this year’s input subsidy scheme that will be his flagship programme for improving national grain harvests for the key crops of maize, beans and sorghum. It provides subsidized tractor hiring costs, fertilizers and seeds. The scheme which rolls out tomorrow (Monday 1 September 2025) requires farmers to enrol for the subsidized input by paying the subsidized cost in advance. They then collect inputs from agro dealers.
The farm subsidy scheme which seeks to improve productivity, especially of the national stable crops of maize, beans and sorghum is one of several measures announced by the minister to boost national food security. This year, the minister said they want to make sure that the scheme benefits those for whom it is intended in the first place. He said farmers will register and a database will ensure that only one unit family accesses the inputs as opposed to several members of the same family buying subsidized inputs and crowd out poor and vulnerable families.
Mr. Tsawuka is upbeat about the prospects of reaching the 140,000 metric tonnes of the country’s stable crop, maize required annually. Almost 50% of the national maize and beans consumption is imported, and often paid for in expensive dollars. He has set food sovereignty and import substitution one of his major targets.
On his first full farming season as minister for agriculture Mr. Tsawuka declared a positive harvest of 77,640 metric tonnes. This is a 3000 tonnes improvement on the 2023-2024 harvest of 74,460 tonnes. The increased harvest is despite a range of problems, including 49 days of scorching heatwaves in the November and December 2024 months that destroyed the maize crop in key regions when it was at the tasselling stage. The heat was followed in some place by heavy rains and hail that hit key maize producing regions such as Maphalaleni north of Mbabane.
The minister also decried the withdrawal of SC 719, a high yield maize variety that is trusted by farmers. This seed variety has been restored.
This year government allocated E59.2 million which is anticipated to help about 8130 vulnerable farmers afford the increased cost of tractor hire as well as fertilizers and seeds.
“In the past season, the cost of maize inputs for one (1) hectare stood at E11 400. Government contributed E5 700 (50%) and farmers contributed the balance (E5 700). The same applied to beans and sorghum where the packages were E9 200 and E6 000 respectively, with the Government shouldering half of these costs. A total of 6079 Emaswati benefitted from the input subsidy program last season, he said.
Farmers in the 2025-2026 cropping season will continue to pay E400 which is 69% of the cost of a tractor hour while Government will contribute E180 (31%).
“We have noted that prices have gone up for all our inputs, and that will affect farmers’ contribution for the upcoming season. One significant increase is on the beans package. It started during the course of last season, such that the actual cost of the package ended up being E11 400, instead of the budgeted E9 200. The extra cost of E2 200 was borne by the Government,” the minister said.
The minister announced that farmers wishing to enrol on this year’s subsidy programme should be ready to start paying to receive subsidized input from tomorrow (1st September 2025). The offer will close on the 30th September 2025 or when the budget has been exhausted, whichever comes first.
To benefit from the input subsidy programme, farmers must show soil test results not older than 3 years.
The minister underlined the importance of soil testing which is an essential requirement for improving maize yields. “No matter how much input is applied, if you have no idea of the condition of the soil; if soil is not tested, then your efforts are useless.”
Responding to long-standing concerns of low capacity of the Malkerns Research Centre to process soil samples, the minister said he is concerned with service delivery and is working to resolve the problem. “The challenge of leadership and management is to resolve challenges. We are now working with UNESWA who also have a laboratory to take some of the samples so there is quick turnaround.”
The ministry expects that by October they will know how many tractor hours farmers need, promising that tractors are ready and the breakdown of ploughs that proved unsuitable for Eswatini soils have now been reinforced with the support of the vocational college, VOCTIM.
Jm/today/31.08.2025
