Farming

Rain-fed agriculture: risk or opportunity

By DOREEN NAWA
A COUPLE of weeks into this New Year, Zambian farmers have one main wish: rain. This is because their crops have not reached the harvest stage.
The rainy season normally starts beginning of November lasting at the end March or beginning April. It is the main planting season for all farmers without irrigation, with planting starting middle of November to Christmas. The main crop is maize.
However, the rain pattern in the 2012/13 rainy season has been unfavourable, posing a threat to the country’s staple crop, and consequently, to food security.
Only about two months ago, heavy rains pounded Zambia with intensity and in some places even caused flooding.
Floods swept away homes, crops and temporarily displaced hundreds of people in low altitude areas. There were even five or so deaths reported to have occurred as a result of floods in Lusaka, Southern and North western provinces.
That was between December and January. Suddenly, the rains have stopped just as farmers get down to do some work and their crops showing signs of a good harvest.
Some officials of the Metrology Department say forecasts show that there is no more serious rain expected this season. This means that the dry season has come earlier than expected. Yet the first rains in the season came late.
But deputy director in the metrology department Oversease Mwangase maintains that the country is expecting widespread rains.
“We are expecting widespread rainfall in most parts of the country,” Mr Mwangase says.
Most parts in Eastern, Southern, Northern, Western, Lusaka and Northern provinces have experienced a dry spell for close to a month.
“I am surprised that rains are gone just too soon. I remember in the past like two decades ago, rain season used to start in October. Every year we used to celebrate the Independence Day on October 24 in rains but it is no longer the case.
I wish government can come to our rescue by giving us farming inputs earlier so that we can plant by October before the rains,” says Mbangweta Munyama, a small scale farmer in Kafue’s Lukolongo area.
In Chiawa area in Chirundu, Southern province, the situation is pathetic both maize and natural vegetation is drying up because of no rainfall.
“It is clear that this year too we will need assistance (relief food) from Government. We have not had rains here in more than a month and I can say that the dry season has started early.
We had planted early but because of the Army worms we had to replant in the hope that the rains will not go early. Looking at what is happening, even the fish ban is also affected because people have resorted to fishing,” says Greyford Chuundu, a Chiawa small scale famer on the lower Zambezi.
But what does this mean to rain-fed agriculture and food security in general? Indeed Zambia agriculture is wholly dependent on rainfall and a change in the rain partner is a huge challenge to agriculture and food security in the country.
First of all, the brief rains came late, the farming inputs not delivered on time and for those that had planted before the onset of the rains, their maize grew without fertiliser as they waited for the government subsidised fertiliser.
And MMD Kasenengwa member of Parliament Victoria Kalima says climate change introduces numerous uncertainties over the livelihoods of farming communities that depend heavily on weather and climate.
According to Ms Kalima, early planting is the only solution in addressing the changes in weather pattern adding that government must ensure that the subsidised fertiliser and farming inputs is delivered on time.
Rain-fed farmers in Zambia are among the most vulnerable communities. However, climate risks are not new to farmers. Coping with ‘natural variability’ of climate has been a constant challenge faced by farmers and a solution would be a great relief.
Global warming presents two extreme weather conditions–very wet and extremely hot which call for careful planning in order to strike a balance.
According to a researcher at Mount Makulu Research station, one such solution is investing in research and development of early maturing crops. If rains come and go in just two months, it is a waste of time and energy to plant maize varieties that mature after 90 days unless other contingency measures such as irrigation are put in place.
It is equally time wasting to let farmers continue planting traditional crops grown by their fore fathers decades ago when the land was still virgin and rainfall still reliable and predictable.
“We must also consider investing more in irrigation and water harvesting technology. Just two months ago, as this year’s belated main rain season started seasonal rivers in some parts of the country sprung to life. We watched while that water kept flowing all over while some evaporated into the atmosphere. Yet farmers are now faced with the possibility of real crop failure just a few weeks to mature. It is no longer acceptable in this age and era for farmers to watch their maize dying when it (maize) needed only two more weeks of rain (water) to dry  and a yet  a month earlier there was plenty of  water flowing around,” a researcher at mount Makulu says.
There has been a lot of talk about global warming and how to mitigate its effects. Several international conferences have been convened but no concrete action has been taken to deal with this phenomenon. The real challenge, as things appear now, is in striking a balance between these two extreme weather conditions–plenty of water and severe drought.
Countrywide, there has been a lot of talk about transforming the country’s agriculture sector from peasant to modern and commercial farming. This is rightly so considering that farming is the source of livelihood for a majority of Zambians.
But it is doubtful if those who depend on farming as well policy makers fully appreciate the core aspects of modern farming. Often, modernization of agriculture has been viewed within the lens of use of modern tools of cultivating the land and harvesting; planting improved seeds and appropriation of large chunks of land for large-scale production.
And scientists have indeed done a wonderful job of producing improved varieties of cereal such as rice and maize, roots crops such as cassava and potatoes as well as fruits and vegetables.
Despite these innovations, productivity remains low and famine looms large because the most important component of modern farming–provision of adequate water has not yet been tackled. Zambia’s agriculture almost entirely remains rain-fed.
In the 2012/13 budget estimates presented to parliament last year, the minister of finance, Alexander Chikwanda emphasised the need to strengthen agriculture sector and link it to other sectors of the domestic economy, so as to exploit its full development potential.
In his address to parliament in October last year, Mr Chikwanda said, “agriculture is the life blood for the majority of our people and its development is not merely an aspiration, but an imperative.”
Yet no specific allocation was given to boost irrigation countrywide.
“We will scale up investment in extension services, irrigation, training institutions and research and development in order to improve crop yields,” Mr Chikwanda said in his address last year.
It is only when farmers are able to produce throughout the year, without having to depend on rain, that we can guarantee food security for all.

Published on March 12, 2013