08 Jul 2024

Residents of Kareng in the North West District have called on government to consider assisting them with a relief borehole in concession NG 5 to mitigate the effects of severe drought experienced in the district.

The residents said the severe impact of drought was leaving them poor because they were losing their livestock, which was their source of life.

They expressed their concerns during a meeting addressed by the district leadership to appreciate challenges and solicit ideas on how best they could be served.

Further, the residents said the drought impact was driving them out of farming as there was no grazing land and relief water sources during hard times such as the drought.

They are hopeful that a relief borehole could be a solution to the current problem stating that the district had experienced erratic rainfall, prolonged dry spells that had resulted in weather conditions not supportive to agricultural activities.

“The situation is unbearable in our area and we cannot let our animals die because of thirst hence we are appealing for a relief borehole so that our livestock can drink during grazing,” said one of the residents, Mr Simon Matundu.

Droughts, he said, had become increasingly frequent and severe, citing that it affected the agricultural production and had a significant economic and social impact.

Failure to come with some intervention to mitigate the drought, he said, would leave many farmers impoverished. The need for effective solutions was becoming urgent.

Mr Matundu called for orientation for farmers committee so that they execute their mandate as expected. Some committees were failing farmers as they served their interests over their members.

Farmers committees, he said, should be seen advocating for fellow smallholder farmers, uniting farmers and working with agricultural officials to help them to adapt and adopt climate smart agriculture.

He said farmers were contributing money to assist on the running affairs of the committees but there was no accountability, which might result in the collapse of such committees.

Responding to the comments, Fodder Production Officer, Mr Omogae Ntsie, from Department of Animal Production (DAP) concurred that Kareng extension area was hard hit by the drought as per the District Drought Assessment Report.

Mr Ntsie said he appreciated the fact that drought was the leading driver of production risk in agriculture, farmers were advised to use what they had to reduce the effects of drought. Recently, he said, the DAP drilled 120 farmers on interventions they could apply to mitigate the effects of drought.

He encouraged farmers to effectively use their ploughing fields to plough drought tolerant plants such as lablab to sustain their animals instead of migrating to other areas with better grazing.

Mr Ntsie advised farmers to establish nutritional blocks to feed their animals during drought season .“This should be a wake-up call to you farmers to embrace change and start ploughing crops with high nutritional value which cope well with the weather condition,” he added.

Mr Ntsie said he appreciated that some farmers were farming for commercialisation but expressed concern that they were killing the concept of commercialisation by overstocking, which killed the grass.

Mismanaging grazing land by overstocking, he said, could lead to soil erosion, drying up of springs and low animals productivity noting that they should protect land by increasing off-take.

The Deputy District Commissioner, Mr Ramogaupi Gaborekwe, said that the district was experiencing a severe drought but revealed that  assessment had been conducted so that the government could come up with approaches to cushion the farmers to cope with the difficulties posed by the drought.

He cited a recent savingram, which declared the year 2023/24 an extreme agricultural drought year saying as a result, the government had resolved to make provision for 30 per cent livestock feed subsidy for roughage, concentrates, mineral supplements, botulism vaccine and vitamin supplements for beef cattle and small stock. 

There is also provision of 30 per cent for production feed for smaller holder farmers in non-traditional commodities among others. Ends