Heavy rains hit potato crop

  MASERU – CAST down but not defeated. This is how Lesotho’s potato farmers are feeling after experiencing the wrath of nature sending the farming season into a tailspin. The incessant rains that have fallen since last year have now destroyed most crops. All that Tube Nketsi and his fellow farmers in Thaba-Tseka wanted was to produce improved potato quantities. But they did not have enough money to buy seeds. They cultivated small pieces of land for household consumption and sell the little extra. But early in November the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) revived their dreams when it donated bags of potato seeds to the farmers. With each farmer getting 30 bags of seed, Nketsi and 58 other farmers formed the Hahamallang Pele Farmers Association. “This time around we were armed with enough seeds, we had the land and the will to work the fields,” Nketsi said. “We were going to plough 58 hectares with the hope of harvesting and supplying the market for a few months,” he said. What they did not anticipate was the scorching sun that would damage their seeds and the heavy rains that would wash them away. So for months their fields were covered in water that would not allow them to plough. “Unfortunately we did not have a proper storage facility with sufficient air circulation and cool temperature where we could store the seed. As a result we stored it in a small corrugated iron sheet roofed and stone building (polata).” Due to inadequate flow of oxygen in the building the heat levels in the house rose and the potatoes started rotting. This was because shortly after receiving the seeds they started having more rains that made it almost impossible to go to the fields. Out of the 1 774 bags of potato seeds each weighing 25kg they received from FAO, 437 got rotten due to the heat and the delay to plant them. Another portion which is yet to be quantified has been lost due to heavy rains that washed away newly planted seeds on sloppy land and the ones that rot in the fields before they could germinate. “Seeing potatoes that had already sprouted get washed away by the heavy rains and having to throw away rotten seed was a nightmare,” Nketsi said. “So much work, time and money lost in an hour or in a day just like that. The experience nearly discouraged us but we had to forge forward, we couldn’t just throw away the remaining seeds.” Despite the disaster that befell them, Nketsi said they are hopeful that they will be able to harvest in June should there be no more heavy rains. Khotso Lepheane, the national director for the Lesotho National Farmers Union (Lenafu), said although they are still in the early stages of trying to quantify the damage, the picture is a bleak one. “Farmers experienced similar challenges across the country, seed damage, crops were washed away, crops that were damaged by too much water due to the ponds that had formed in the fields,” Lepheane said. “We need our Ministry of Agriculture, especially the research department, to be very active,” he said.   “We need them to work together with the Meteorological Services, to be able to interpret what the Meteorological Services are saying and advise accordingly.” “It cannot be business as usual because that will result in a loss of a lot of investment made towards crop farming,” he said. “We need to be clear on the type of crops to produce, their efficiency or weather tolerance amongst other things.” Chaka Ntsane, Chairman of the Supervisory Committee for the Potato Lesotho Association, said it has always been their wish that financial institutions can avail agriculture insurance products that would cushion farmers in these tough times. “They have been hesitant and the few that are currently exploring availing such products are focused more on livestock than crops,” Ntsane said. “The investment that farmers inject into crop production is a lot and when tragedy hits like with the recent heavy rainfalls we are left stranded,” he said. He added that although protective farming is even more expensive, farmers realise that farming in the open land is no longer going to be viable. “We are yet to visit all affected farmers to assess the extent of the damage but already from the places we have been to, it is saddening,” he said. “Not much remains unharmed.”