Africa-Press – Eswatini. The ministry of Agriculture has given clarity on the imminent El Nino.
It advised farmers to use short variety seeds this coming farming season, as there might be a dry spell.
Director of Agriculture Nelson Mavuso said using short variety seeds might be a solution to the upcoming dry spell that is likely to pose a threat to food production.
According to the meteorologist Climate Change Monitoring Lucky Sigudla, indicators showed that the country was heading towards El Nino. He clearly stated that this was in line with the predictions from the dynamic climate models.
Sigudla said El Nino usually included reduced rainfalls. He said impacts of El Nino were expected to show from November going forward in Eswatini.
Mavuso added that people often mistake El Nino for drought, which were totally two different terms.
He defined El Nino as a dry spell which he explained as a prolonged period of dry weather.He further explained that drought had different categories, which included agricultural drought, meteorological drought, hydrological drought and others.
Mavuso referred to dry spell as a sequence of days without precipitation, which could reduce maize yields.
He stated that there was a difference between a dry spell and drought, which people are most likely to confuse as they are closely related.
According to Mavuso, people are exaggerating when they spread rumours about drought because El Nino was associated with drought, not that it means drought.
“If there would be enough rains from October until December, there will definitely be water in dams which is evidence that there will be no drought, but a dry spell since rains will stop and water will still be available in reservoirs,” he said.
Mavuso added that people exaggerated when they claimed that there would be drought because they are referring to El Nino as drought, which is associated with drought, not that it means drought.
“El Nino actually means there is a likelihood that there might be periods of insufficient rains,” he stated. Mavuso disclosed that rains were expected from October, might fade in February so that could not be the reason to stop farmers from farming instead they could consider crops that need a short period of time to mature because if high temperatures coincide, the crops may not survive.
“I would advise the public to take advantage of the early rains so that when dry spell comes, they can have enough food to eat,’’ he said.
He further stated that if high temperatures prevail when maize is in the tasselling stage, farmers would not harvest anything. However, if high temperatures would be experienced during the tasselling stage, farmers will harvest as normal.
According Mavuso, farmers must diversify and not only depend on maize production because crop farming was about all the crops. “People must also consider sweet potatoes, sunflowers and other crops,” he added.
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