- 122 farmers left counting their losses
The heavy rainfalls experienced this rainy season have severely affected 122 farmers at Wabi Lands in Etsha 6 in the Okavango District.
Adding to their woes, they are not able to get any assistance from government as they have not been issued with land rights certificates. This is despite the farmers being the largest suppliers of fresh pro-duce in the area providing quality vegetables.
In an interview, most of the farmers revealed that they had made a loss this year with one of them, Maano Maano lamenting that he had a small garden full of tomatoes but right before transplanting the heavy rains damaged the crops.
Maano indicated that he had also ploughed a large field of watermelons, maize, sweet-reeds and sweet potatoes which has also been destroyed by the heavy rains. The farmer, like many others affected is now left counting his losses.
According to him, excessive rain can be damaging to the soil, removing necessary nutrients that help plants grow. He added that too much water also leads to fungus and mold in the soil, which can kill crops.
Omwaadhi Mothoiwa who is also a farmer at Wabi Lands said he was however lucky to have harvested and supplied his produce to local supermarkets as he had planted earlier before the heavy rains came. He revealed that he harvested 10 loads of watermelons, two sweet- reeds load and two loads of maize.
“After harvesting I was able to sell even to bigger shops and make a profit,” Mothoiwa added.
According to Wabi farmers there were heavy rains in the past years but this was the first experience where they caused such widespread damage.
Meanwhile the district’s crop production chief technical officer, Lesh Semahedi has also expressed deep concern over the massive destruction of crops caused by the rainfall. But she indicated that it’s not easy to provide necessary assistance to the devastated farmers because they do not possess land certificates.
This, she said is despite farmers in Wabi Lands being the largest suppliers of produce in the region, providing quality vegetables such as chomolia, cabbage, tomatoes, onions and other foods to schools, retail stores and the local community.
Semahedi said only few farmers who planted early and irrigated managed to harvest half of their yields making a profit of around P41 800.
The farmers were ecstatic about the rainfalls hoping for a successful ploughing season and an abundant harvest but their joy was short lived because of the continuous excessive heavy downpours. After their hard work preparing for the season, the farmers will not make monetary returns due to damages caused by heavy rains in the region.
