Problem Masau in News Day (Zimbabwe): Farmers across the country have been caught in a catch-22 situation as the summer agricultural season continues to change. Most farmers said in recent years, the decision when to plant has increasingly become a nightmare.“Traditionally farmers start to plant their seeds in late October, but these years the seasons seem to have changed and the rains are starting to fall regularly in December. Crops which would have been planted in November will wilt because of the dry spell,” said Aaron Hombe, a farmer.
Only 247 000 hectares of maize have so far been planted compared to the 379 993ha that were planted during the same period last year. Agritex’s latest report on the crop situation attributes the decline to the late onset of rains countrywide. Mashonaland East is leading with 72 591ha having been planted to date, compared to 87 157ha planted in the same period last year.
Zimbabwe has not been spared from climatic changes and current dry spells affecting the country are being attributed to climate change....Climate change is a significant and lasting change in the statistical distribution of weather patterns over periods ranging from decades to millions of years. It may be a change in average weather conditions or the distribution of events around that average....
Munyaradzi Mativarira, sorghum breeder at Crops Research Institute, Zimbabwe, inspects his sweet sorghum trials at ICRISAT-Bulawayo. Dual-purpose sweet sorghum varieties can make a significant contribution to both farmers and their livestock. Photo by Swathi Sridharan (ICRISAT), Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license
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