Eyes to the skies for February

The crop situation for the season will increasingly become clear starting from this month. The official ploughing season for the South ended on Wednesday, while communal farmers in the North have until next Thursday. The start and end of the ploughing season refer to the period in which the farmers are able to access free tillage services provided under government’s multi-million Pula agricultural inputs programme, ISPAAD.

A prolonged and unexpected dry spell, stretching from November – the traditional start of ploughing – had all but wiped out most farmers’ hopes of ploughing this season. Two successive waves in the New Year seared the few young crops that had survived the dry spell, most farmers to trudge off their fields in despair.