BY Lodu William Odiya
The Magwi County Director for Agriculture, Environment, and Forestry has called on local farmers to prioritize food preservation to combat looming food insecurity caused by erratic weather patterns.
This followed a harsh dry spell disrupted second-season planting, causing many seeds to dry up in the soil due to a lack of rainfall.
In a statement obtained by this publication, Mannix Augustine Oloya Okalanga stated that climate change had severely hampered this season’s harvest, preserving existing food stocks is now a matter of survival.
Augustine emphasized that while the second season was typically the most productive, this year’s crops had withered in the fields.
He also highlighted that many farmers missed the optimal planting window, waiting for consistent rains that never arrived.
Augustine identified maize and beans as the most affected crops, warning that the failure of these staples could lead to a food crisis within Magwi County and surrounding areas.
Accordingly, he urged farmers not to sell their entire harvest; instead, he advised them to use proceeds from the first season to bolster their household food reserves.
He further expressed that farmers would face challenges next year. With household needs such as education, healthcare, and daily feeding all dependent on this year’s agricultural output, a scarcity of produce will stretch family resources thin.
According to Augustine, mitigating these risks needed farmers to store this year’s produce carefully and encouraged the planting of cassava stems, as cassava is more resilient to weather fluctuations and can serve as a vital safety net against hunger.
The Director urged farmers to utilize proper storage techniques to protect their remaining yields, remarking that while the second season struggled, the overall farming output for the year remains higher than that of the previous year.