Farmers fear bleak harvest ahead

Farmers are facing a bleak harvest season following poor rainfalls which are likely to lead to stunted growth of crops in most parts of the country. Last week the Business Trends met with farmers in Kanngwe who expressed their hopeless expectations to harvest this year. Masego Ofentse said she planted a 50 hectare field but two thirds of the crops have wilted due to extreme high temperatures. She planted maize, sorghum and black eye beans. “I am not going to get food from this field, almost all the crops have been affected by extreme heat therefore they failed to produce food. This is a bad year for us,” said a downbeat Ofentse. Meanwhile, John Phirinyane planted 320 hactares of maize in an 800 hactare field but all the crops could not pollinate. “I planted a lower portion this year because I realised there is insufficient rainfall. All these crops in the field are not going to yield harvest, it’s a huge loss,” said Phirinyane. Gofaone Mapitse ploughed 405 hacters in a 600 hactare field and he is expecting only 20 percent harvest from the field. He said this year he ploughed in lower ration due to lack of resources and insufficient rainfall. “This year the banks could not give us loans because we still have arrears from last year. We are negotiating with the government to help us clear the arrears” Mapitse said last year the government paid 85 percent to banks and farmers only paid 15 percent but this year the government only gave them 30 percent. Each year, government spends about P600 million on the agricultural inputs programme for citizen farmers and in the last four years about P800 million was spent on drought relief initiatives. Minister of Agriculture and Food Security, Patrick Ralotsia has told the media that experts are still finalising estimates of the harvest, but already they reckon farmers will get only 40 percent or less of what they planted this season. “Even more worrying is that major producing areas like Pandamatenga and Mosisedi have not been spared by the poor rains. There was a time at the beginning of the season when we thought things would be good, but now if you see what’s happening across our districts, you would be quite shocked.Most of the crops planted are stunted and already showing signs of wilting,” said Ralotsia.