Time to rein in cons prowling the agricultural terrain
COMING hot on the heels of another disquieting case in which fraudsters were reportedly selling fake seed and agro-chemicals to unsuspecting farmers, the story on bogus soil testers using fake laboratories for alkalinity testing, is equally disturbing to say the least.
It seems these fraudsters are seeing opportunities in every effort the country is making to boost agricultural production before coming in with a damper to scuttle everything.
Essentially, this has become a matter requiring urgent action from all well-meaning stakeholders to devise ways of nipping this vice in the bud, lest the agriculture sector is slowly suffocated to death.
This latest scam follows revelations by the Government that 70 percent of our soils were acidic and needed to be tested and limed to make them productive once again.
Soil testing has become more important than ever especially at a time like now when charges for basic services are always changing making it crucial for farmers to only expend on critical inevitabilities.
At the moment farmers have to contend with high input prices on the backdrop of an illiquid environment requiring every cent to be spent on basic things only so fooling them to pay for bogus services is outright folly and requires to be dealt with promptly and decisively.
To get the most accurate fertiliser recommendations and provide for increased efficiency, the farmers need good soil samples and well-based soil sample information accompanied by soil test calibration relationships that reflect both crop response and profit response.
The objective of soil testing is to provide an accurate assessment of the soil’s fertility to make fertiliser recommendations and with the increasing awareness campaigns on fertiliser effects on environmental quality, soil tests are key in determining where fertilisers or manure should not be applied.
The farmer does not have to make a guess on the fertiliser requirements of his soil but seek advice from Agritex extension officers right from the sampling stage to the choice of laboratories to which they can take their samples.
The Chemistry and Soil Research Institute in the Ministry of Lands, Agriculture, Fisheries, Water and Rural Development has always been assisting farmers with their soil testing requirements.
For the correct results, farmers need to get it right from the sampling process, which should be done on a whole field basis, collecting samples from various spots in the field.
Usually there are soil variabilities in one field, which makes it critical for the samples taken to be accurately representative of the whole field.
Knowledge on variability in pH and phosphorus can provide the farmer with guidelines on the amount of manure or fertiliser to apply based on the results.
This helps the farmer avoid excess use of fertiliser while ensuring environmental safety.
Furthermore, soil tests enable the farmer to make informed fertiliser decisions, reducing risks in the soil such as soil erosion, soil infertility and degrading of land yet increasing farm profitability in the long-term.
They reveal the amount of plant-available macro-nutrients in the soil and where soil nutrients are in the soil profile.
Soil testing also picks out nutrients that could be yield-limiting.
Naturally, it is a process through which elements such as phosphorus, potassium, calcium, magnesium, sodium, sulphur, manganese, copper and zinc are chemically removed from the soil and measured for their available content within the sample of soil. The tests in the end determine the soil’s acidity, salinity and alkalinity status given that each time crops are harvested, a considerable amount of nutrients are removed from the soil, which causes loss of fertility in soil over a long period of time.
This makes it crucial for the soil to be tested periodically.
Soil testing will alert the farmer to the needs of her soil, which provides a platform for the evaluation of the suitability of the soil for the crop or crops she plans to grow.
Once the soil status is established, the farmer is then required to initiate the restoration of its fertility, which is a key factor for crop productivity, profitability and sustainability.
The fertilisation programme that follows every soil testing exercise must be determined by crop needs, soil supply, fertiliser use efficiency, the contribution of organic manures and many other factors.
From the recent cases involving farmers
and fraudsters, it is also becoming apparent that farmers are their own worst enemies, as in all cases they take short cuts that always leave them licking bruised egos.
Of course, they always blame it on lack of financial muscle to do things the right way but in all cases they have ended up using more financial resources than they would have tried to avoid.
For fake inputs they have to re-plant or use excessively higher quantities of fertilisers to make the crops healthy while re-engaging and double-paying labour among other expenses.
With soil testing, the results may not instantly show but eventually the farmers will realise it at the end of the season when their yields fail to improve or even slide further down.
But this not to say the fraudsters should not be made to account for their vices. They should be treated in the same manner someone who swindles an institution or individual of cash is made to make restitutions for the crime.
It may even be necessary for farmers to be given the platform to calculate the costs they would have incurred to access the fake services or inputs before the fraudster is made to repay through a lengthy jail term accompanied by restitutions.
The costs must also include those incurred in the subsequent remedial spending.
One disturbing observation though, is that farmers perennially fall to same trick and consequently record losses that they
could have easily avoided with proper planning.
In most cases the farmers make impromptu decisions that clearly point towards the absence of proper planning. In a way they are also complicity in sealing their painful fate when they do not act like business people.
With the country ranked highly in terms of literacy, our farmers should not try to make everyone else believe that they do not know what they should be doing always.
They need to heed the numerous campaigns by law enforcers and even their extension officers on how they should be diligent when they go out procuring inputs or engaging service providers.
In a nutshell, all the fraudsters’ shenanigans and the corresponding responses by the farmers are tantamount to acts of counteracting all the efforts stakeholders including the Government are making to boost agricultural production.
The country is expecting a bumper season and spring back from years of under-performing due to a host of challenges including poor soil nutrient status, which made it pertinent to have the soil in the best condition possible to get the best yields per hectare.
Additionally, the Government is pushing for business practices in the agriculture sector, hence the need for accurate soil testing and precision agricultural practices that enable farmers to only buy what they need in terms of input quantities for sustainable production.