31 Oct 2019

The Chief Technical Officer, in the Department of Meteorological Services, Ms Maureen Oabile has advised farmers to use tanks to harvest  rain water and to plough before rainy seasons to preserve moisture within the soil.

Speaking at a consultative meeting between the her department, Department of Crops, Now For Them Community Trust and Sefhophe Development Committee, on October 29 Ms Oabile said they had forecast heavy rainfalls with high temperatures from January to March 2020.

“We are expecting normal to below normal rainfall with high temperatures from October to December,” she said.

She said that they were expecting heavy rainfalls with high temperatures from January to March.The Agricultural Scientific Officer II for Sefophe, Ms Kedirile Rakola said farmers should have ploughed their fields before January, citing the possibility of heavy rains around that time as per the meteorological reports.

She added that the Department of Veterinary Services was aware of challenges facing farmers with regards to the worm that affects the maize and sweet reeds crops, and said it was imperative for the department to impart on the measures to take to address the problem.

She advised farmers to use pesticides with caution, as most were not environmentally friendly and a prolonged use could lead to health problems. 

Ms Rakola pointed out that the Department of Crops had made  a concoction which contains garlic, peri peri, sunlight liquid and tobacco soap to control the pest.

She advised farmers to use environmentally friendly or traditional methods to fight pests, adding that pests were an important part of the ecosystem.

Further, Ms Rakola explained that since Sorghum was mostly affected by birds, farmers could plant millet around the sorghum to deviate them from the sorghum as another primitive but environmentally friendly method of controlling pests.

She further explained that winter ploughing under the ISPAAD programme was another initiative that encouraged farmers to till the soil in winter.

Doing so, she explained, would help to preserve moisture in preparation for the next planting season.

“Another development by the department of crops is ripping, where a machine breaks the soil to allow water into the soil and to allow crops to access underground water. This is also done during winter,” said Rakola. ENDS