Rice farmers in Nkhotakota district have said erratic rainfall this year will result into low yields.
Malawi24 visited some rice farmers in the district who expressed concern that rainfall during 2017-2018 growing season has been unpredictable making it bad for rice crop which need to be transplanted in late January or early February.
One of the farmers Agnes Chunga said only a few farmers in the district managed to catch up with the transplanting time but the rest did it late because there was no rainfall.
“Rice crop needs high rainfall to grow well. In The current growing season, rainfall has been unpredictable. Sometimes the rains were coming and filing the rice farms. This was making us (farmers) to transplant our rice but the water was lost when dry spells were hitting hard.
“In the current growing season we are expecting low outputs from the crop,” Chunga told Malawi24.
Another rice farmer in the district, Khalidi Majawa, said in the last growing season rainfall was good that is why rice crop was in surplus leading to low prices.
“Last year, the crop did well even though buyers were bargaining for low prices due to its excess on the market. This time it is different since I can see that only few people will harvest the crop well.
“The situation will make the value of the crop on the market to be high since demand will be high but supply will be low. The situation will just benefit few people in Nkhotakota,” he told Malawi24.
Nkhotakota district is one of the districts in the country that produces rice for both subsistence and commercial purposes. The district has flat topography, fertile alluvial soil and receives moderate to high rainfall that is good for rice.
Not only Rice farmers. Every farmer has been affected
Zomwe tikolorezo ndizomwezo bac kungoyamika mulungu bac.
Tizivomeleza ndthu
This year things re very bad indeed. Almost the whole Sadc region rains re erratic. In some other places people re already experiencing water shortage