27 Oct 2016

The agro meteorologist with the Department of Meteorological Services has advised farmers to infuse weather forecast reports into their day to day farm plans.

Ms Esther Verena-Jansen said  this in Kanye during this week’s climate smart agriculture workshop that brought together farmers from Kgalagadi South and Good Hope Sub-district.

Ms Verena-Jansen explained that her section provided a weekly five-day weather forecast and two-week outlook, which farmers should use to mitigate the effects of climate change and adapt.

She said the weather outlook was also aimed at helping policy-making decisions in the climate sensitive sectors for socio-economic purposes and to manage the risk arising from climate variability.

Ms Verena-Jansen said keeping up with weather outlook reports could inform especially dry land farmers on what activities to do or not to do during a dry spell.

She cited for example that applying fertilisers into a rain fed field during a dry spell could burn the plants when rainfall was delayed.

She argued that if farmers followed weather updates, kept records of temperatures, they could make informed on farm decisions and minimise the effects of climate change.

Meanwhile, Ms Jansen told farmers that weather forecasts projected good rains for the months of October, November and December this year and conversely a dry spell in January and February next year thus advised farmers to take advantage.

To the delight of farmers particularly from the Kgalagadi area, she further said a 100 year rainfall forecast highlighted a significant increase for Ghanzi and the Kgalagadi North areas.

Principal agric scientific officer for the Good Hope Sub-district, Mr Brian Mhaladi, in his welcome remarks had encouraged farmers to keep up with new farm technologies and practices in order to improve yields.

He raised concern that government spent a lot of money assisting farmers to plant through the ISPAAD programme yet yields were still unsatisfactory because many were still reluctant to change.

He shared that out of a total of 11 943 hectares planted in the Good Hope Sub district last season only 717 metric tons were harvested which he described as a far cry from what was expected.

Mr Sumberee Kapeko, Tsabong sub district crop production officer, for his part, also advised farmers in his area to plant beans, groundnuts and water melons. He said the crops did well in the area compared to others. ENDS