By Junkung Bayo/Nelson Manneh
Farmers in the rural community of Lower Fulladu West in the Central River Region of the Gambia, have expressed disappointment with the 2019 cropping season.
The farmers lamented that they last received any significant rain in the area since June 18th, this year and that most of them have sown their crops since in the beginning of the first rains in June, and their crops germinated but did not receive any significant rainfall to assist their growth and they ended up wilting and dying by the scorching heat of the sun.
Pa Karamo Fatty a farmer in the area, said there are still a good number of farmers who have not yet sown their groundnut seeds because there is no rain; that they are afraid to sow their seeds only for the dry spell to continue.
Some other farmers were met selling their groundnut seeds at a weekly market called ‘Lumo’ in Brikama-Ba in order to buy rice for their families. They told this reporter that this year’s cropping season has all the signs of failure and they risk losing their seeds by sowing them. “As farmers, this time of the cropping season should have seen us weeding our farms, but not to sow our seeds. Last year by this time, we were almost done with weeding our farms,” he said.
Fatty said as farmers, they do not know what next to venture in for the rest of the season in order to make up for the current situation.
“We expect Government officers to visit the farming community and engage us in order to venture in the cultivation of other crops, before the end of the season,” the farmers told this reporter.
Farmers could be seen looking worried in most of these communities.
