By Own Correspondent| Farmers in the Midlands province are the worst affected by the acute shortage of top dressing fertiliser, Ammonium Nitrate (AN) this 2018/19 farming season.

The country’s sole fertiliser manufacturer, Sable Chemicals, which is also located in the Midlands Province, is able to produce only 25 per cent of the required fertiliser.

Midlands provincial crop and livestock officer Medlinah Magwenzi said:

Our farmers in the Midlands Province are struggling to get ammonium nitrate fertiliser.

Most of those who benefited under the Presidential Inputs Support Scheme and Command Agriculture also did not get ammonium nitrate. The irony of it is that the company that produces ammonium nitrate is here in Kwekwe, in the Midlands province, yet farmers in the province are the most affected.

Their explanation is that they don’t sell fertiliser to individuals, but they sell bulk quantities to companies and retailers, but farmers can always organise themselves and buy the fertiliser in bulk.-StateMedia