Abdoulai G. Dibba
The prospect of food self-sufficiency in Jarumeh Koto village, Sami District of Central River Region, has been threatened as the 
major cereal crops have failed in this year’s cropping season.
This was revealed to this paper by inhabitants of village who said their cultivation of early millet and rice had failed due to the long dry spell in the case of the former and flooding for the latter.
Muhammad Lamin Ceesay said the flooding affected rice fields measuring over 100 hectares such as Laitba, Suwalait, Konkoli, Sansandala and Faribali while the early millet crop also performed badly as a result of the dry spell between the months of July and August which led to the poor germination of the crop.
“Our harvest this year for early millet will be as low as 30 percent and as for the rice, it will be less than 25 percent,” disclosed Ceesay.
He concluded that this development is a disaster that seriously undermines the potential for food self-sufficiency in the affected areas thus called on the authorities to come to their aid by addressing their dependence on rain-fed agriculture.
Adama Ceesay disclosed that there is no early millet in Jarumeh in terms of harvest and that their only hope now is with the groundnuts.
“We are praying for our groundnut farms to be good as they are our only hope since our rice fields had been flooded and our millet crops did not germinate properly due to the erratic rain pattern,” said Adama.
All the other farmers who spoke to this paper expressed similar remarks. They are all appealing for the intervention of Government and other partners to address this disaster which will negatively impact on their survival and livelihood.
