By Special Reporter
Farmers in the villages of Chemba and Kondoa districts have lost hope of any corn harvest this year resulting from extreme hot weather which is drying their fields.
Aziza Hussein, an over 60-year-old mother is among those affected by the weather as her one-acre farm has been completely dried.
She looks worried as she visits her one-acre maize farm at the remote village of Sambwa in Kondoa district, Dodoma Region with no hope of any harvest this year.
She is one among many villagers without any hope of harvesting corn this year. Her village, just like the neighbouring villages of Keikei, Potea, Mauno and Salare lies in the semi-arid regions, meaning they experience relatively low rains as compared to others in the country.
This often leaves farmers with very little harvests each year. Aziza says this year’s weather is a replica of the 2015-2016 farming season, a period when they experienced no harvest.
“I am beginning to foresee tough months ahead. If we can’t have the rain this March, then it is likely that food prices will be very high. This means most of us will be unable to buy food,” she says.
Aziza is now struggling to come up with alternative ways of survival that would enable her to at least put food on the table.
She says a number of agriculture experts have visited their village to impart them with the knowledge on good agricultural practices like intercropping, integrated farming, rainwater harvesting, nine-seeded holes technique of planting and many other technological practices.
However, she notes that if there is no rain, all the good agricultural practices become useless. Farmers cannot even keep livestock because the grazing land would soon become dry.
In these villages, farmers have for years been growing maize, sorghum and millet as their staple food, while putting into practice all the agroecological farming techniques imparted to them from agriculture experts.
Inades-Formation Tanzania has been among the many organisations imparting farmers with the knowledge on best farming practices in the villages of Chemba and Kondoa district for the past several years.
Due to the villages experiencing little rains, most of them are applying rain harvest practices and nine seeded holes techniques so as to keep moisture in their fields even with relatively little rains because this means that the water is not wasted out of their fields.
These good farming techniques have enabled even farmers from the other villages of Isini and Gwandi in Chemba district to have at least some harvest each growing season.
The project officer, Agriculture with Inades-Formation Tanzania Mr. Michael Kihwele recently advised farmers in these villages to come up with alternatives sources of income for their survival for these villages which grow maize, sorghum and millet as staple food.
Mr. Kihwele who was in the village recently to assess the drought situation in the fields said should the rains come this March, farmers needed to start considering early maturity and drought resistant seeds, including having local sweet potato varieties.
He also says keeping chicken was also another alternative farmers can apply, so that they are not entirely dependent on farming.
“This will help the majority farmers to avert hunger as they will be able to sell chicken and buy food from the neighbouring districts,” Mr. Kihwele noted.
Climate change impacts is affecting to the greater extent the majority rural women, because in Tanzania, just like many other African countries, women are more responsible with household chores of ensuring water and food availability and also fetching firewood for cooking.