As wet season begins in most parts of the country, farmers have commenced, planting, albeit with fear following erratic rains, which may threaten production.
The rains have been unstable in Benue, Nasarawa, Niger, Kaduna and parts of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), and many farmers have planted their crops.
In the 2019/2020 wet season, erratic rains in the North and mid-season draught in the South-West made farmers lose their money due to crop failure.
Musa Yohana and Halima Thomas, farmers in Doma and Lafia, Nasarawa State, said they had planted maize, groundnut and other tuber crops like cassava and yam, but feared they might have another horrible experience like last season when they were forced to plant maize and groundnut two times.
“I lost most of my yams last year due to excessive heat as a result of inconsistent rainfall. This year, we are in the second week of May but we are yet to have stable rains. And I have planted 15 measures (about 20kg) of groundnut already. If it continues like this for another week, I may lose the seeds,” Mr Yohana said.
Like them, many farmers around the FCT have also planted, but the fear of crop failure is heightened by their experiences of last year.
In Benue State, our correspondent reports that farmers have begun to cultivate their lands and plant crops amid complaints of scanty rainfall.
Some farmers who had prepared their farms earlier in the year said they could not start planting crops until one week ago, while others have just begun to till their lands at the wake of rainfall (thrice) within the past two weeks.
A farmer in Otukpo, Ada Hyacinth, said the ground was still too strong to cultivate because the rains hadn’t been frequent.
Another farmer, Felix Tor, in Makurdi, said he had just planted melon and maize on his recently ploughed farm despite the inconsistency of the rains.
Tor, however, expressed fears that the nature of the rainfall might affect the well-being of the crop. He prayed that the yield would turn out good in the end.
But Vitalis Tarnongu, who is currently ploughing his 1,000 hectares of farmland at the Federal University of Agriculture, Makurdi (FUAM), posited that the manner of rainfall this year would require him to begin sowing maize towards the end of May.
Tarnongu said a plant breeder in the university had advised him to wait until May 20 to begin planting his maize because the nature of the rainfall since the season set in suggested that there could be a two-week drought.
The state chairman of the All Farmers Association of Nigeria (AFAN), Aondongu Saaku, described farming as a business worth taking risk on.
Saaku said farmers who saw it as business had already taken the risk to plant their crops because without such risk, they won’t reap at the end of the day.
Meanwhile, Dr Teryima Iorlamen, a seed systems specialist at the FUAM, said farmers could go ahead to plant their root and tuber crops in line with the NIMET’s rainfall prediction for this year.
Iorlamen said the period during which the farmers were expected to wait awhile before sowing had gone, stressing that NIMET’s prediction for rainfall pattern in Benue State, which they (experts) work with, indicated that the rains would stabilise in the state between April 18 and 30, 2021.
“We can assure farmers now that the rains have stabilized, according to NIMET predictions. Anything otherwise now would be dry spell.
“I have advised farmers to check water logging capacity in their fields so that they plant their crops accordingly. Rice loves much water, so it is not yet time to plant it. But farmers can go into roots and tubers now, such as yam, cassava, maize and melon. We believe that the rain have stabilised.
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