WHEN fertiliser regulators and distributors appeal to smallholder farmers in this or that region to focus on modern agriculture by using fertiliser to increase crop production and farm productivity, that altogether looks like taking rice to familiar ground.

It is as if the one making that formulation is unclear as to the problems the people he or she is addressing face and thus reiterates what is basic: the use of fertiliser for enhanced productivity.

It thus needs one to pay attention, or read between the lines, to find out what the issues were and what is required.

The circumstances from which this appeal was issued were of sufficient concern to the fertiliser regulatory agency to send its board chairman to hear the grievances, for he would scarcely be tasked with listening to misgivings.

Reports said he made a visit to Kagera Region to hear and resolve concerns by farmers and agents for the distribution of subsidized fertiliser.

More to the point, the regulatory agency CEO appealed to farmers to invest more in testing soil health so that they could use fertiliser consonant with the needs of the particular soil types.

While this advice looks like a positive gesture to the community when produced in a newspaper, those nearer the ground realise what problems or challenges both the farmers and the regulators or distributors are facing.

When the top regulator says farmers should invest in testing soil health, is that expected of individual farmers or of the ministry – to provide advice at the district level what sort of soils there are and fertilisers to use in relation to crops, their maturity periods, etc.

So the two top regulatory officials were at the place to discuss the sort of problems farmers commonly face in using fertiliser, but the ministry was missing.

This kind of advice ought to have been delivered to the Agriculture ministry or the President’s Office (Regional Administration and Local Governments).

The regulators may also have been very clear about the audience, as their remarks were far too formal to be of much use to smallholder farmers.

If they were in Arusha, the heartland of commercial farmers, they would be in good company, explaining a few things about fertiliser logistics, eligibility for farmers of this or that product, credit conditions, etc.

Commercial farmers would scarcely need to be reminded that the regulators’ main intention was to step up farmers’ economic capacity by increasing production after using fertiliser, etc.

When fertiliser is subsidized and top executives have to go around the country explaining to the people the importance of using fertiliser and the conditions for its proper use, what this means is that the fertiliser is not being directed to the right people.

But it is not fertiliser that is at issue. Rather, it is whether farming is being done by the right people as, on the look of it, they would ask that it be given free so that they could benefit by using it.

Discussing the pros and cons of that situation would hardly come to much – as it is clear that quite a few farmers could be restless with fertiliser.

So that would hardly solve their problems, in which case the government might wish to think of free fertiliser as a more friendly and rewarding model of helping the wide class of farmers so that they can harvest more and lead better lives.