By Mohamed Jaward Nyallay
The Deputy Director General at the Sierra Leone Meteorological Agency (SLMet), Gabriel Kpaka, has told Politico that the shifting weather pattern in the country will have an impact on the quantity of agricultural yields the country will produce this year.
The revelation is part of their recently launched Seasonal Forecast of the Agro-hydro-climatic characteristics of the rainy season for Sierra Leone.
Kpaka said the shift in the weather pattern now means the rainy season is shorter than usual and temperature is also higher than it is supposed to be.
Kpaka said: “There is a massive shift in the weather pattern. If you have observed, now we have a shorter rainy season. Before now we also use to record thunder and lightning in October, but now we are recording it in June.”
On the impact on agriculture, Kpaka said: “Our agriculture is based on a rain fell system. Before now people used to plant in June, but now, that’s the time they get the first rain. Now because of the short (Rainy) season there is a high likelihood that most of the varieties will not survive…”
According to SLMet, this has also affected the temperature. The average temperature during the rains is supposed to be around 26 to 27 Celsius, but temperature in some part of the country has been as high as 32 Celsius.
“This is the rainy season and now we are also recording high temperature. A place like Makeni is recording 32 degree Celsius in the rainy season, Freetown is recording 30 and 29,” he said.
The high temperature also means higher chance of insects infesting crops, thereby destroying a chunk of produce, according to the report.
The National Coordinator for the National Federation of Farmers in Sierra Leone, Brima Babo, told Politico that almost every small scale farmer in the country is already feeling the impact of the changing weather condition.
He said: “Most of our staple foods that we grow we really rely on the rains. Small scale farmers don’t have the means to do irrigation, so they rely on the natural rains. And when rain doesn’t come enough, the crops won’t do well.”
“We won’t really get much yield as we expect. Because whiles we were waiting for the rain, the time for planting had already gone by. All the small holder farmers in this country are going to be affected,” Babo added
Babo also said pests have also affected their crops.
“During the rains pest infection is less. Insects like grasshoppers don’t do much damage during the rain. But because the rain has delayed they have damaged some of our crops.”
SLMets said the average rainfall in the country has drastically reduced in the last three decades. Kpaka said average rainfall in the country in 1990 was around 9000 millimeters per year. That has now reduced to 5000 millimeters.
These changes are the effects of climate change and they could only get worse with time.
An Agronomist with the Sierra Leone Agricultural Research Institute (SLARI), who is based at one of the institute’s research centers in Rokupr, Kambia district, Dr Sheka Kanu, told Politico that crops like maize, cassava, potatoes and several vegetables would be affected more.
Sierra Leone’s major staple food is rice; Kanu said rice still has a chance to do well depending on its ecology, but generally, less rains means less productivity.
“Cassava and potatoes are mostly upland crops; therefore short rainy season is likely to affect their productivity. Rice can grow in various ecologies depending on the variety. However it is a heavily moisture dependent crop and therefore, short rainy season will certainly affect growth and productivity,” he said.
Dr Kanu said less rains also means the soil will not have enough moisture for double cropping.
“Farmers that practice double cropping will be hard hit by the dry spell, because soil moisture will be limited which will prevent them from doing second cropping,” he said.
Director of Crops at the Ministry of Agriculture, John Kamara also noted the impact of the weather shift on crops. However he said they are counting on varieties of rice that take shorter time to cultivate and farmers who grow rice on Inland Valley Swamps.
“If you have a proper irrigation system in the Inland Valley Swamp, it is possible to grow rice two or three times a year. So if you have some disruption in the first part because of lack of rains, you can plant in the second and third phase,” Kamara said.
Setting up irrigation system is expensive, especially for small scale farmers who don’t have the necessary resources.
In response to that, Mr Kamara said “That is why we have a lot of subsidy programs to help farmers develop Inland Valley Swamps, and most of our agriculture projects have components of developing Inland Valley Swamps. We know this is key to rice production.”
He said a lasting solution to ease the demand on rice, is for Sierra Leoneans to eat more of other products like cassava and potato.
Regarding pest control, Kamara said a pesticide policy in draft now and the ministry is working with partners like Food and Agriculture Organization to help farmers.
SLARI said they are already screening new varieties that will survive in this increasingly changing weather condition.
“Drought tolerant varieties are currently been screened to help farmers cope with the changing weather patterns,” Dr Kanu said.
SLMet said they also want to work with partners like the Ministry of Agriculture and SLARI to mitigate a drastic impact on farming by advising on the weather pattern and when farmers should start planting.
“We want to see a system where we can advise them on planting days. But we can only give advice on the planting season if we sit down with SLARI and they tell us the varieties of crops and the amount of rain that is needed,” Deputy Director at SLMets said.
Dr Kanu said, collaboration is already in progress between SLARI and SLMets.
“With the help of the metrology, trials on varying time of planting have been conducted to fit in the prevailing weather conditions. Decisions like early planting of crops could be made in accordance with the prevailing conditions,” he said.
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