REPLANTING a maize field after a prolonged drought in Zambia: Climate change is hitting Africa especially hard. Photograph: Peter Arnold Inc. / Sean Sprague
MANGO, a tropical fleshy stone fruit, is synonymous with the rainy season and mostly used as an ingredient in food drinks or eaten as a ripe ovary but to some Rufunsa residents it has become a main‘meal’ due to raging hunger triggered by poor yields from the last farming season, CHARLES MUSONDA reports.
JANET Jeke, a grandmother patently obliged to feed a horde of grandkids, wakes up every morning musing on the grub to serve the little ones who by nature crave for food each time they wake up. But her improvised pantry is void because of the meagre harvest from the last farming season.
Poor old Janet then wobbles around the surroundings at her home in Chipindani village, picks up a long thin stick from the bamboo grass family, and aims it at a bunch of partially ripe mangoes and in a flash of seconds the fruits thud down on the ground- at least she has managed to provide something edible for the grandchildren and herself.
However, the grannie only chews about three mangoes before giving up because certainly she cannot go for more at this time of the day when, under normal circumstances, the privileged ones are munching and sipping various hot stuff ideal for breakfast.
“We are now surviving on mangoes because we have no food but for adults like me, it is not good to eat many mangoes as a substitute for the staple food. The last farming season was not good, the rain delayed to start and it stopped raining before crops could fully ripen, so the harvest was very poor and we don’t know what is going to happen this time (2013-2014 farming season).
“Some of us have even stopped cultivating because of the poor rain pattern. Some planted maize at the beginning of this rainy season but they just wasted the seed because it could not germinate and has been destroyed,” Mrs Jeke, who is also wife of Headman Chipindani, told the Sunday Mail in an interview in Rufunsa.
According to the Central Statistical Office, the 2012/2013 crop-forecasting survey (CFS) results showed that maize production was expected to decrease by 11.2 percent, from 2,852,687 metric tonnes during the 2011/2012 agricultural season, to 2,532,800 metric tonnes during the 2012/2013 agricultural season.
The results also showed that the area harvested of maize was expected to decrease by 7.1 percent from 1,074,658 hectares during the 2011/2012 agricultural season to 997,880 hectares during the 2012/2013 agricultural season.
“The expected decrease in maize production in the 2012/2013 agricultural season could be attributed to the poor distribution of rains, especially in Southern, Eastern, Lusaka and Central provinces. The outbreak of army worms is another factor which affected output.
“The average yield of maize per hectare is also expected to decrease by 13.7 percent from 2.24 metric tonnes in 2011/2012 agricultural season to 1.93 metric tonnes in the 2012/2013 agricultural season,” the CFS read in part.
On September 21 this year the Soli people of Rufunsa district celebrated their annual Chibwela Kumushi traditional ceremony with ecstasy and vigour after harvesting crops mostly sorghum and maize.
To herald the ceremony’s crescendo, Chief Mpanshya had this to say: “We look forward to a full-fledged district with all line ministries present. We still have challenges but jobs have been created and more companies will start operating here.
“We will also have facilities like a bank, filling station, post office, and big shops will now be in Rufunsa. As we patiently wait for these developments, let us all support the working government…the government should consider distributing farming inputs early to enable the people to plant early because this district lies in the low rainfall area.”
Luckily, Chief Mpanshya’s call for early distribution of inputs has not fallen on deaf ears and the government has responded promptly by ‘dishing out’ seed and fertiliser to the farmers but the gesture has not immediately yielded the intended sway as the customarily pitiable rain pattern has worsened this season.
Farmers who planted maize early have been left pondering the next move because the seed has failed to germinate, rendering the much coveted fertiliser ‘useless’ for now.
According to Rufunsa district agriculture co-ordinator Dr Stanley Njovu, most of the growers have not even ploughed their fields and those that have tilled their land have not planted for fear that the seed may go to waste.
“We have had no rains this season apart from the one we received on 24th October and the dry spell has continued all this time. The rains here usually start late October and getting into November we have normal rains but for this season the scenario has really changed.
“Looking at the date, this is December and when you talk of the late maturing varieties, the last day for planting should be 15th December. Farmers will have no option but to plant the early maturing varieties,” Dr
Njovu told the Sunday Mail in an interview.
Rufunsa has about 10,000 farmers registered for the Farmer Input Support Programme (FISP) and around 5,000 others, bringing the number to 15,000.
They mostly cultivate maize, sorghum, and the drought-resistant cassava, which is ideal for the semi-arid district.
“This should be the first time that such a thing is happening because we have had normal rains in the past but this scenario is different. We have so far received all the varieties of seed and the basal fertiliser…The only alternative is sorghum and the usual cassava if the dry spell continues. Sorghum is also affected by the drought – but looking at the way the weather is, if the rain comes late then sorghum will survive as compared to the maize seed,” Dr Njovu adds.
Andrew Tembo, a subsistence farmer-cum-politician, fears that he and others alike are likely to have one of the poorest harvests, which will certainly result in stern famine.
“This dry spell will also affect water levels in that they will go down and we shall not have clean and safe drinking water.
At the same time our animals like goats, chickens and pigs will not have enough water to drink.
“Government will have to consider us for relief food, which must be distributed on the ‘food for work’ basis and this will move a number of projects that we have to attend to,” Mr Tembo, who is also PF Mankhanda ward councillor, says.
Worse still, Mr Tembo adds that the affected farmers will not have enough income to send their children to school, a frustration that will up illiteracy levels among young people.
Another peasant farmer Kenius Hosolo is afraid of planting maize for fear that the seed will go to waste.
“Going further, this will affect my livelihood because if the rains don’t come as expected, my food security will be at stake.
It will be a big blow because I depend on rain-fed crops. I don’t know to what further extent I will be affected but since God loves His people, maybe He will help us think and do something else. Otherwise, I have seen that the seed ome of my colleagues who planted early, their seed is now rotten and they are thinking of replanting.
“We rely on maize for our staple food and when it comes to cash crops, we depend on cassava, soya beans, cotton and sunflower. So our family income will be greatly affected because we rely on these crops for income.
I don’t know exactly where the answer will come from and I have 14 children to look after. Some have already completed school and others are still learning but it will be difficult to educate all of them,” he says.
Zambia Meteorological Department director Jacob Nkomoki admitted to the Sunday Mail that by December 19, 2013 Rufunsa and surrounding areas had not recorded much rainfall.
“We have recorded below normal rainfall over much of Eastern and Lusaka provinces.
If we go to the period when we started receiving rain- from 11th to 20th November, Lusaka City airport recorded 29 millimetres instead of 70 millimetres.
“Eastern Province recorded 26 millimetres instead of 66 millimetres and that shows a deficit. If we look at the period November 21 to 30, Lusaka City airport recorded 85 millimetres instead of 148 millimetres…from that analysis, it shows that the start of the rain delayed. We have not received much rain and the main reason is that we have been having dry winds instead of moist winds over those places. We feel that as the season progresses there may be an improvement with what we will receive.”
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