Maravi

Prolonged drought worries ZNFU

COMMENT - Zambia needs to change it's farming methods and food crops. First off, perhaps there is a need to get off maize with it's heavy requirements for water and fertilizer, and get to producing drought resistant crops like sorghum, cassava, other root crops. Then, there is a need to get farmers off depending on rainfall by creating irrigation works - swales, ponds, dams, etc.

Prolonged drought worries ZNFU
By Fridah Zinyama
Mon 04 Jan. 2010, 04:00 CAT

ZAMBIA National Farmers Union (ZNFU) president Jervis Zimba has expressed concern at the prolonged drought in some parts of the country.

And the Zambia Meteorological Department has said the moist Congo air will start flowing over the country and result in rainfall activities over most parts which are currently not receiving enough rainfall. In an interview, Zimba said the current weather pattern was very worrying as farmers were at this stage supposed to be putting top dressing fertiliser in their maize.

“We are concerned about the rainfall patterns in Southern province, Central Province and the southern half of Eastern province,” Zimba said.

He said the farmers union was worried about the weather pattern but was hopeful that the coming days would bring about some good rains to sustain the country’s food security.

“What normally happens after a dry spell is flooding, so we hope that the dry spell will not bring some floods,” Zimba said.

He said the union would by the end of January release results of an assessment which would indicate the impact of the pro-longed drought in some areas.
“We are still hoping for some good news in the coming few weeks,” said Zimba.
And the ZMD said the southern part of Eastern Province, Lusaka, Central and Southern provinces had been experiencing a dry spell expected to reduce with the flow of the moist Congo air which would start flowing over the country.
“We expect rainfall activities to increase in these areas and the rest of the country by Monday,” the department stated. “The rest of the country has been receiving enough rainfall.”

Earlier, a United Nations agency had observed that the weak to moderate El Nino weather system in the tropical Pacific Ocean had strengthened considerably and could create droughts and floods around the world until May.
World Meteorological Organisation representative Rupa Kumar Kolli said the phenomenon of warmer surface temperatures in the central and eastern Pacific Ocean could affect monsoons and hurricanes, causing droughts in some places and floods in others.

He said it was difficult to predict specific impacts in different regions because El Nino was not the only factor that determined weather, even though it was one of the most dominant.

“The current El Nino started in June and became moderate by September, with sea surface temperatures about 1 degree Celsius (1.8 Fahrenheit) above normal in the eastern and central Pacific,” he said. “During October, almost all indicators of El Nino became noticeably stronger.”
Kolli said water temperatures had continued to warm in the area, while further to the west, they dropped below normal.

“Taken together, these developments indicate enhanced ocean-atmosphere coupling during this El Nino event across the tropical Pacific,” Kolli said.
He said an example was a very weak summer monsoon in South Asia that led to drought conditions in the region.
Kolli had earlier predicted that the El Nino would also likely lead to the weak Atlantic hurricane season recorded this year.

Labels: RAINFALL, ZNFU

posted by MrK @ 9:13 AM