Mid-season dry spell returns to haunt farmers

Mbongeni Mguni | Monday February 6, 2023 06:00

It was all moving along swimmingly. After the Meteorological Services Department released its forecasts for the season, farmers actually saw the heavens open and the rains come down as predicted.

“A moderately wet season is expected over the entire country, however, the southwest will start off moderately dry and then progressively become wet as the season progresses,” the Department said in late August.

“The eastern parts will receive the earliest rainfall, in mid-November, and thereafter it will spread to most other areas.”

The Met Services department said between October and December, most of the country with the exception of southwest, would receive normal to above-normal rainfall. Temperatures for the period were expected to be normal to below countrywide.

“During the second half of the season, from January to March 2023, the northern parts of Botswana which include east of Ngamiland, Northern Central and Chobe Districts, will receive above normal rainfall with the remaining districts receiving normal to above rainfall.

“Temperatures will be normal with a tendency to below over most areas.”

In November and December, the heavens played along with the Department’s researchers and the hopes of farmers. The early rains in November or ‘pula ya sephai’ arrived on time and were followed by more rainfall through the remainder of 2022 helping the development of crops such as maize, sorghum and various pulses.

Then January arrived with a phenomenon many farmers had hoped would overlook their fields this season. The country’s typical rain season runs from October to March, a period that traditionally favours the maturity of staples such as maize and sorghum.

However thanks to climate change, in recent years, the period between January and February has tended to suffer from little to no rainfall in most areas, particularly the South, accompanied by either heatwaves or above-normal heat.

The result is that farmers who plant in November watch their crops wilt in January, while those who wait things out and plant in February, find that the time to maturity left until winter means they have to forget about maize and sorghum and opt for ‘fast risers’ or hardier crops such as pulses, beans and legumes, sweet reed, lab lab, melons and others.

“A dry spell in the southern parts of the region since early January is forecast to continue until late January and may affect crop production, depending on its duration and severity,” SADC’s food security early warning unit said in a report released this week.

“This will need to be monitored closely, particularly in relation to its impacts on crop performance.” The local Met office may sound like it has a lot of explaining to do, but in reality, local forecasters are still on the money when it comes to the original predictions from last August and their latest updates. Generally speaking, the country has enjoyed normal to above-normal rainfall, but the trouble is that the distribution of the rainfall has not supported the consistency required for crop development.

When rainfall amounts are tallied after the season, it will probably be discovered that the country indeed received normal to above normal rains, but the distribution of these rains along the crop development cycle during the season may ironically result in government again declaring a drought.

What the local Met office got wrong, however, is the temperatures that were to be expected this season. In August, the forecasters said they expect normal to below normal temperatures throughout the season, a prediction put to shame by the plus-33 degree averages areas the eastern half of the country has been experiencing for most of January.

“The low rainfall in South Africa, Botswana and Namibia (in January) was also associated with well above average temperatures,” SADC’s early warning unit said.

According to the updated seasonal forecast from SADC’s Southern Africa Regional Climate Outlook Forum, regional experts expect Botswana to still receive normal to above rainfall for the remainder of the season. A deeper dive into the forecast shows that the experts expect Botswana to have a 40% chance of normal rainfall and a 35% chance of above normal. The country has a 25% chance of below normal.

For government, which under the Integrated Support Programme for Arable Agriculture Development (ISPAAD), has spent billions of pula over the years supporting communal farmers, the growing climate trends require new interventions.

ISPAAD, under which farmers receive inputs ranging from tillage to fertilisers, is giving way to a new programme, Temo Letlotlo, which assistant agriculture minister, Molebatsi Molebatsi, says is tailor-made to cope with climate change.

“We have seen the patterns of dry spells,” he told Mmegi this week.

“These are the effects of climate change and that’s why in our new programme of Temo Letlotlo we cater for this.

“We have people from the Met Services who are part of this new programme and they will be advising. “The problem we made is that we have been giving out inputs and asking people to go and grow crops without considering how the rains will perform.”

One key intervention under the new programme will be the installation of more advanced automated weather observing systems around the country. These radar units will be able to more accurately forecast weather phenomena such as upcoming rains, thunderstorms, heatwaves, frost and others that will help farmers improve their planning.

The hope is that at some point, local farmers will have access to real-time data showing when the official onset of the rainy season will occur, when dry spells could occur and other conditions that, together with better farming methods and seed varieties, could help them mitigate climate change and the mid-season dry spell.

“Temo Letlotlo is trying to correct the way we were doing things,” Molebatsi says.

“It has many different stakeholders and under the Environment Ministry, we have automation of weather observing systems.

“We are ordering this equipment and we will put them in the masimo in the different areas so that we have real-time information.”

The assistant minister says having more accurate weather observation systems will anchor the commercialisation of agriculture, including the provision of finance and insurance.

“No one is going to put money where there’s no weather observing systems because agriculture is based on weather.

“We are taking agriculture to another step.”