Farmers count losses as rain ceases 2 weeks after planting

For many farmers in the southern part of Nasarawa State who planted during the early rainfall, they will have to replant as many said they have lost most of what they planted.

For two weeks now, rainfall has been absent, leaving a scorching sun heating the ground causing many crops like ground nut, maize, melon and other crops planted during the first days of rainfall to dry up.

“I planted about three bags of groundnut, but without rainfall, in the last two weeks, many of them rot away. I visited the farm yesterday and felt like crying,” a farmer in Agyaragu, Dalandi Musa, said.

The farmer added that “as it is, even if the rain falls now, I have nothing left to plant and I won’t be able to buy groundnut again because the crop is now N24,000 to N26,000 per bag, which is very expensive.”

Daily Trust gathered that farmers in other nearby villages of Akaleku, Musha, Madagba in Lafia Local Government and other villages in Doma and Obi are having the same experience.

A farmer in Obi, Egule Gimba, who planted maize and transplanted pepper, said “It appears everything is gone. All the pepper that I transplanted is gone. For the maize, I can count how many seeds germinated on the farm. I will have to do everything again when the rain falls.”

Although NiMet has warned farmers against rushing to plant crops, many of them appear not to understand the implication of the prediction as they relied on their old method of reading the time of rainfall in a period where climate change has altered the sequence of events.