Abdoulai G. Dibba
Several rice fields within the Kuntaur rice growing areas in the Niani District in Central River Region North, have been inundated by the recent floods and rice farmers are becoming increasingly frustrated over the situation.
Farmers reported the matter to this medium during a visit of the area on the 29 of August 2017, by this reporter.
Some 115 hectares of rice plots that were recently transplanted and are now inundated, make their owners prone to food insecurity.
Talking to this reporter, Maraiama Njie asserted that they are helpless because most of them will not be able to re-transplant their rice plots because they do not have seedlings for transplanting.
She said the flood will impact negatively on food security as there will be no harvest of lowland rice in Kuntaur this season.
Ensa Mendy, an Agricultural officer at Kuntuar Agric. Camp, indicated that the rice fields were flooded by the running flash flood waters, forcing the transplanted low-land rice field to submerge. According to Mr Mendy, the inundation of the fields will certainly lead to food insecurity as the seedlings that submerged in the water will certainly rot and die.
“And if the farmers do not have other seedlings for re-transplanting, then there will be zero harvest for them,” stated Ensa Mendy.
