By Lamin Fatty
Farmers in the Upper River Region have been advised to grow early maturing crops as the dry spell hits farmers hard in Sandu District and other areas.
Groundnut farmers in the northern part of Upper River Region have decried long duration of dry spell as they experience inadequate rain. The Sandu District is hit hard by this long spell. Some of the farmers said they have groundnut seeds that they want to grow.
Kaddy Canara of Touba Sandu told Foroyaa that most of them still have their groundnut seeds with them. She said they have been getting little rains, which is not sufficient to sow the seeds.
“Though I have sown my first bag of groundnut seeds of 50 kilograms, but I still have another 50 kilogrammes that I want to sow. I could not do it as we are not receiving any significant rainfall for now and also there is a long interval between the rainfall we are getting” she said.
She informed Foroyaa that some of the farmers could not sow their seeds yet, which makes her feel worry.
Musa Jaiteh from Taifa in the Sandu District said farmers in their area, especially groundnut farmers have started to lose hope in this year’s farming season because of the frequent dry spells and insignificant rainfalls.
“As groundnut is different from the other crops such as millets, maize and sorghum because these seeds can spend a week or more under the soil and it rains, they germinate. For groundnut, it’s seed cannot wait under the soil without significant rain as it will decay easily,” Jaiteh said.
Modi Ceesay from SanduMisirah said this year’s rainy season has been marred by a long dry spell so far with insignificant rainfall.
“I am afraid even if the rainfall continues up to November, the harvest might be poor. The early maturity crops are delayed as they are not growing enough due to the dry spell, and will not be harvested in this August as usual,” he said.
Ceesay stated that there is dry spell from Misirah up to Demba Wandou He added that the growth of the grass in the area is weakened by the dry spell.
This reporter contacted the metrological department at Department of Water Resources in Basse for their prediction on the rainfall pattern.
Momodou Sowe advises the farmers who intend to sow their groundnut to plant early maturity varieties of crops, which takes only 90 days. He said he would not advise them to sow the seeds that take 120 days to mature.
“Our prediction shows that there is only 87 days left for the rainy season, because our prediction for the entire rainy season this year is 137 days and now almost 50 days have gone,” Sowe said.
Sowe said his office, in partnership with the regional agricultural director for URR, has been doing community sensitisation at the Radio Basse on Wednesdays where they have been advising farmers to grow early maturity crops.
