PROJECT PROPOSAL

Acknowledgements
I wish to express my sincere gratitude to my coordinator Mr Alexander Phiri, the principal and
other Lectures like Mr. Patrick Ziba for the advice and instructions that lead to the understanding
and success of the project. In a special way I would like to acknowledge the support of my
family who has always been there for me whenever I need them. Specifically My husband
Partridge I salute you. I’m glad to testify that in all these things God was in control being the
provider of my health and life. May your name be praised.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction ………………………………………………………………………………… (P3-4)

Current System Description ….………….….………………………………………………. (Pg5)

Current System Problems ………………….……….…………………................................. (Pg6)

New System Description .……………………….…………………………………………...(Pg7)

Aims of the project ………………………………………………………………………….. (Pg8)

Project Plan ………………………………………………………………………………… (Pg9)

Methodology ………………………………………………………………………………. (Pg10)

Resources…………………………………………………………………………………... (Pg11)

Summary …………………………………………………………………………………... (Pg12)

Grocery ……………………………………………………………………………………. (Pg 13)

Bibliography ………………………………………………………………………………. (Pg 14)

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Introduction
During the 1970s, Malawi generally produced enough maize to meet its national requirements.
However, the country has experienced grain deficits during most of the past twenty years due to
rising land pressures, declining soils, low productivity, and periodic weather shocks.
Agricultural, rural and national economic development in Malawi are constrained by a number of
interacting household, local and national vulnerability, poverty and productivity traps due to:-

 Continual cultivation of same crop on the same land without addition of organic or
inorganic fertilizers has lead to low yields which in turn has lead to inability to afford the
purchase of inputs. Hence, most farmers are not able to buy inputs on credit because of
under developed credit markets and the high costs of credit administration, high risks for
both borrowers and lenders, consumption rather than sale of produce (hence lack of cash
for repayment), and high input prices and access costs as a result of low volumes of input
demand, poor infrastructure, and high transport costs.
 High variability in farm input prices also contributes to risks in input use.
 Low demand for inputs itself raises input costs and inhibits the development of input
supply systems in less accessible areas. Poverty and vulnerability to a wide variety of
shocks (low crop yields, high food prices, sickness, and loss of employment or remittance
income) further constrain productivity and investment in productive activities – and
women, who play a key role in agricultural production and rural livelihoods, tend to be
particularly vulnerable to these shocks.
 Investments in farm market development are constrained by low traded volumes and thin
markets (as large quantities of maize produced in Malawi are consumed within
households and villages and do not reach the market) so that relatively small changes in
national production may lead to large changes in market supply and, with relatively
inelastic demand, this leads to high price variability.
High price variability for this critical commodity has lead to government intervention in farm
input markets (this has involved, for example, setting of minimum and maximum prices, export
bans, and bans on private trade) but difficulties that governments face in designing and
implementing such interventions mean that they often increase price variability for farm input
sellers, buyers and traders.

One response to periodic flooding and drought was the establishment of input distribution
programs designed to help farmers re-establish their farming operations, after experiencing
severe food supply shortfalls. These have generally involved the distribution of small quantities
of seed and fertilizer through public channels. Due to the frequency of flooding or drought, these
sorts of interventions have been common since 1992.

In 1998/1999 the Malawi Government introduced a free fertilizer distribution program aimed at
increasing fertilizer use among smallholders. Therefore, a free ‘starter pack’ program was
initiated first as part of drought response efforts and later to stimulate uptake of hybrid maize and
raise national output to reduce food imports, according to research, DfID was the major financier
of the program.
In the wake of extreme drought and low agricultural productivity in early 2005, the Government
reintroduced a broader agricultural input subsidy program during the 2005/06 cropping season.
An agricultural subsidy is a governmental subsidy paid to farmers and agribusinesses to:
- supplement their income
- Manage the supply of agricultural commodities
- Influence the cost and supply of such commodities.
Examples of such commodities include wheat, feed grains (grain used as fodder, such as maize
or corn, sorghum, barley, and oats), cotton, milk, rice, peanuts, sugar, tobacco, and oilseeds such
as soybeans. In 2005, a coupon-based distribution system was implemented through state-owned
organizations and it is overseen by local government.

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 Research has proved that, approximately 130,000 t of fertilizer is distributed through a coupon
based distribution program to more than 1.3 million farm households. The following year,
approximately 1.5 million farmers received coupons for the purchase of 150,000 t of fertilizer
and two million farmers received coupons for free maize seed. In 2007/08 more than 1.7 million
farmers are expected to coupons for 170,000 t of fertilizer and almost 3 million farmers are
expected to receive coupons redeemable for seed. So far over 50% of the budget of the Ministry
of Agriculture and Food Security is allocated to pay these costs. Donor funds are paying some
administration costs and much of the costs of the seed subsidy.
In combination with favourable rains, this program has contributed to sharp increases in maize
harvests in 2006 and 2007. During the most recent harvest, the country produced an estimated
3.4 million metric tons (a surplus of 1.2 million metric tons above national requirements). This
has allowed Malawi to start exporting 400,000 t of grain to the neighbouring countries.

The programme’s core objective is to increase resource poor smallholder farmers’ access to
improved agricultural inputs in order to achieve food self sufficiency and to increase resource
poor smallholder farmers’incomes through increased food and cash crop production. The 2005/6
programme was politically very popular and widely considered to have been successful, and was
consequently continued in subsequent years,with a number of changes in design, scale and
implementation between years. Principal programme features from 2005/6 to 2008/9 are shown
in table 2.
Three aspects of implementation achievements are considered: innovation and adaptation, scale,
and performance indicators.

Innovation and adaptation: The subsidy programme has built on and emerged from Malawi’s
innovative experience in implementing universal starter pack and targeted input programmes
(TIP) from 1998/99 to 2004/5 (see Levy, 2005). These involved substantial logistical challenges
and system development with large scale registration and targeting of farmers across the country,
experimentation with systems using vouchers, and coordination across different government,
parastatal, private sector, donor and community stakeholders. However, the AISP also involved
substantial changes: in objectives (from social protection and food security for vulnerable
households to national food production and self sufficiency); with cash redemption of vouchers;
and with the addition of farm inputs.
Irrustrated below are the major tasks in Program implementation

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Current System Description:
The Farm Input Subsidy Program (FISP) is currently done manually and administered through vouchers
or coupons that enable eligible households to purchase fertilizer, hybrid seed, and pesticides at reduced
prices.

The program targets smallholder farmers who own land and are legitimate residents of their villages.
Registration and beneficiary selection is carried out by village heads and members of Village
Development Committees (VDCs), during this time villagers register their names to the Village heads
who hand over this data to the Agriculture Extension Officers (AEO) the data is brought for evaluation at
extension level; this is at Extension Project Areas (EPAs) from EPAs, it is brought at district level for
another evaluation; this is at District Development Division (ADD). Lastly, the same data is brought for a
final evaluation at National level which is at the Ministry of Agriculture Irrigation and Food Security. The
Village heads and Village Development Committees are directed to select beneficiaries on the basis of
specific, easily identifiable characteristics that are correlated with poverty in rural Malawi, such as:
Households headed by females, Households with thatch-roofed houses, rather than corrugated iron roofs

This is the time when the exact number of beneficiaries is known. Printing of vouchers is authorized;
when the voucher have arrived in the country; the Agriculture Extension Officers go in the villages for
distribution. When Beneficiaries are buying the subsidise farm inputs, they pay a commitment fee to
private sectors who check the physical characteristics of the voucher when they are convinced that it is
original they take the voucher and release the required farm input to the beneficiary; these vouchers are
used to redeem money from government and donors involved i.e. World Bank and DFID.

The figure below illustrates major tasks in the programme implementation.

Planning & Farmer

Budgeting Registration Coordination
& control

Stakeholders
Farmers
Input MoAFS: HQ, LU,
ADDs,
Purchase Secure Voucher Voucher DADOs, Ass, FAs, DCs,
Printing allocations TAs, VDCs, Police,
CSOs
Fertilizer importers,
retailers
Seed producers/
Input distribution ADMARC:
(transport & storage) Voucher beneficiary HQ, districts, markets,
distribution identification SFFRFM:
HQ, depots, markets
Coupon transporters
Issue Donors

Voucher Payments
Redemption & control

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Problems with the Current System
In the midst of a hunger crisis in Malawi, this government’s food aid system is rife with chronic
discrimination against the most marginalized and vulnerable communities.
Research has proved that Malawi’s government has in the past distributed subsidized maize to
traders instead of rural populations, which constitutes a breach of their right to food and
perpetrates preventable starvation. Rural populations do not have adequate legal means for
recourse. In similar vein, the most vulnerable farmers are left out in the distribution of urgently
needed fertilizer coupons.
As a result it’s been discovered that poor and vulnerable households are not the primary
beneficiaries of the subsidized inputs hence a need to develop an automated computerised system
that can eliminate all these errors that are done deliberately in this manual system.

These problems are categorized into functional and non-functional problems. Outlined below are
the problems they are meeting with the current system in place:

Functional Problems

- Reports are not generated in this system which makes donors to doubt the Government
subsidize farm input system.
- Once coupons are stolen, government is not able to take corrective measures quickly and
this fails the whole planning process.
- It is not possible to put estimates in terms of budget since the exact number of
beneficiaries is not known.
- Vouchers which are forged are still used for acquiring subsidize farm inputs when the
characteristics for real voucher are not checked properly and this over shoots the whole
budget set for the exercise.
- Private sectors have problems in redeeming their money from Government/donors when
they have forged vouchers collected from the beneficiaries.

Non-functional Problems

- Householders with more education receive more coupons than the recommended amount,
possibly because educated individuals are more successful at bargaining with village
chiefs and Village Development Committee members.
- Some people falsely register themselves for the coupons, others create numerous false
identities and some mistakenly registered an incorrect name of their village. The latter
meant that when distributors went to these villages to hand over the subsidies, the
beneficiaries did not live there. The distributers have been largely accused of taking the
coupons for their own benefit.
- Household heads that live in their villages for longer periods has a higher probability of
receiving coupons, suggesting that duration of residency has a positive influence on
relationships with village leaders.
- It is difficult to associate farmers with the criteria set to identify those who need the
coupons.
Contrary to stated Farm Input Distribution Program criteria, households headed by young
females are less likely to receive a complete input subsidy packet than households headed
by older males.
- Poor households are less likely than rich households to receive any voucher as female-
headed households and poor households often have relatively small landholdings, these
households mainly considered ineligible for the program.

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Description of the New System
The new System is automated and partly manual; every process is managed electronically at a central
database. The exercise of identifying beneficiaries is still conducted by the Group Village Heads). During
this time villagers submit their voter’s registration Identities to the Village heads who hand over this data
to the Agriculture Extension Officers (AEO) and this data is brought at extension level for evaluation; this
is at Extension Project Areas (EPAs) from EPAs, it is brought at district level for another evaluation; this
is at District Development Division (ADD). Lastly, the same data is brought for a final evaluation at
National level which is at the Ministry of Agriculture Irrigation and Food Security.

After this thorough analysis the exact number of beneficiaries is known, the data is entered in the
central database, each and every beneficiary is given an identification number which is formed
from their voter’s registration ID; this ID number is not known to the beneficiaries. Then,
printing of the exact number of vouchers is authorized, when the vouchers have arrived in the
country, they are entered in the system by serial numbers against the formed beneficiaries IDs.

Therefore, before everything starts the system knows the minimum and maximum number of
vouchers as well as the beneficiaries IDs. Computers with preinstalled farm input subsidy system
(FISS) are distributed at each and every point where the subsidize farm inputs are sold.
Therefore, each time a beneficiary wants to buy a subsidize farm inputs, the name and village of
the beneficiary is punched in the computer; the voucher is displayed automatically. After this
verification check has passed the beneficiary is given the subsidize farm inputs; while the private
sector takes the voucher and commitment fee from the beneficiary, these vouchers are in turned
used to claim money from the Government and donors; this data is updated automatically at each
and every point of selling subsidize farm inputs as well as at the Ministry because of the
presence of Local Area Network (LAN) and virtual private network which links the server at the
Ministry and computers in all deports responsible for selling subsidize farm inputs.

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Aims of the Project

Functional Aims
- To create a system which enables management at all levels to generate reports any time.
- To create a system which prohibits forging of vouchers used for acquiring subsidize farm
inputs.
- To create a system which allow Government to have the exact number of beneficiaries
against vouchers for easy reconciliation of funds with private sectors as well as donors.

Non Functional Aims

- To create a system which speeds up data retrieval
- To create a system which allows easy and fast generation of reports
- To create a system which does automatic data verification check than physical to speed
up the whole process of acquiring subsidize farm inputs
- To create a system with data security

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Project Plan

Activity Deliverables Delivery Date

Feasibility Study Project Proposal 6th March, 2011

Analysis and Design Final Analysis and Design 2nd April, 2011
Document

Coding and Testing Coding, Testing and 17th April,2011

debugging of new system

Implementation Submission of implementation 22nd April, 2011

and Testing Document and
User Manual

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Methodology
Structured System Analysis and Design Methodologies (SSADM) have been chosen as a
methodology for system development. Waterfall will be used as a model for this methodology.
Reasons
SSADM has been chosen because of the following reasons:
- It gives a clear understanding of the business requirements.
- The subsequent cross checking of models makes it capable to eliminate errors both in
perception of user requirements and in detail of requirements specification.
- Progress is measured in terms of modules completed, determined by the production of a
set products from each SSADM module.
- Products from other module are used as inputs to other modules.

Outlined below is a diagram of Waterfall model:

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 Resources
Feasibility
The resources Study are categorized into software and hardware as follows:
required

Software
Microsoft Visual
Requirements Basic
Analysis .Net will be used to develop the system with the combination of
& Specification
Structured Query Language (SQL). The application packages have been chosen because of the
following reasons:
- They have a powerful feature to run on many windows platforms.
- They have a powerful feature of OLE Object which enables uploading of graphics.
Analysis

Hardware
- Pentium III or IV computers which shall be able to support advanced software.
- Printer and toner for printing of presentations
Design and reports throughout the project.

Data Sources
The new database system shall use data from the following sources;
Code & Test
- Beneficiary identification forms.
- Vouchers serial numbers.

Collaborations Integration test

Permission was granted from the Director of planning at Ministry of Agriculture Irrigation and
Food Security to interview and acquire required information from every one of the people
involved in the subsidize farm inputs program i.e Agriculture extension Officers, Group Village
Heads, private sectors and donors i.e DFID System & Acceptance
Duties
- This permission has helped the project to achieve its purpose and the benefits defined in the
business case.
- Monitoring and evaluation of the project was made easier.

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Summary
This project proposal outlined the outcome of the research conducted on the current manual
system and provided the reasons for the development of the new system. Having analyzed the
merits and demerits of the manual system, this document is presenting the operation of the new
system and the benefits it is going to bring to the user and the management as well.

It is my hope that being given the opportunity and resources, this system will bring a new breeze
of life and operation in the Ministry of Agriculture and food Security and Malawi as a country.

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Glossary

Project Plan a discipline way for stating how something is to be accomplished

within a certain time frame usually with the defined stages

Waterfall Model a method of development that linear and sequential

System development overall process of systems analysis requirements definition

life cycle

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Reference

Guide for Project Proposal (2003) Clientele

Project proposal (2009) Judy Beddon

Writing project proposal (2006) Gem ham

Managing business projects (2004) NCC

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