Poor weather cripples crop production

Moremedi stated yesterday that even though December was much wetter compared to other months, the area planted at the end of February was about 60, 472.96 hectares by 18,927 farmers.  This is almost half of the 116, 933.7 planted last season during the same period. She noted that the number of hectares planted is small and most planted hectorage have poor crops, due to inadequate soil moisture at the time of planting.

"The fact that crops are already undergoing moisture and heat stress indicate that even if the rainfall situation can improve, crop production will be very low as some crops have already reached permanent wilting point and those which might survive will have low yield as they would not recover fully," she stated.