Hello Hive
A pleasant new day to all my friends in the community and everyone passionate about food production. I'm happy to see all of your blogs and successes you have made with gardening and various planting and harvesting activities.
As you all know, at this time of the year we hardly grow any crops since it is the dry season and the weather is dry. No farming activities are done for now unless my passionate gardeners who have been able to keep a garden. For now I have still been unable to get veggies for planting; that is why I am yet to plant a garden this year.
A worrisome incident has just happened with our cassava plantation, and I feel really bad about it. Cassava is an annual crop and takes at least a year or more before harvest. In the past it was even a biennial/perennial crop in which we planted it for almost 3 years before we could harvest them. Technology has made it easier and shortened the length/duration of the life cycle, and we can now harvest our cassava in less than a year.
Going into commercial farming last year, I had carried out a mixed cropping system to maximize the profits of my capital input. We have planted corn, cassava, and soybeans. We got an average yield from the corn, which is still in storage, while we experienced a total loss with the soybeans.
We are now left with the cassava, which was planted around July-August last year. The cassava has been doing well so far, unless for severe weeds that overcame the crops. Not being too experienced with this, we weren't able to spray the farm on time to clear the weed so that the cassava can thrive. Moderated chemical spraying was done in the month of November when the rains had finally stopped.
Due to the absence of rain, the weeds were unable to absorb the chemical; hence it wasn't effective in controlling chemicals off the cassava farms.
Now what has been my greatest fear has eventually manifested. Having weeds in the farm at this point can create a forest fire that can raze down the entire farm. While some hunters were hunting games, they accidentally set fire to a part of our farm already.
And then now the cattle rearers have used that as an opportunity that since the farm is burnt, they now feel free to graze on the tuber left in the growing.
You can see some of our growing tubers and how big this has gotten already. Only a little more time and these would be ready for harvest. The herders go as far as uprooting the cassava from the roots for them to feed their animals with it. They usually come when people are not on the farm, and since we seldom visit the farm these days, it's their golden opportunity to cause destruction.
I sincerely do not know the way forward currently. This is our capital investment being destroyed here. We have always remained at the mercies of these armed cattle rearers and can't engage them in a fight to save our crops since they are often armed and the government has not done anything to intervene in this matter. Alot of farmers have lost their lives due to this and the population that grow food in the country have reduced drastically over the years.
I have never thought that farming could be this challenging, and being the first time, we have experienced and gone through a lot of negative outcomes.
Posted Using INLEO
This is so pathetic, how can they go to an extent of uprooting the cassava, next time please try to weed it to avoid this incident, so sorry for the lost.
Farming here in currently challenging with all this but what pain me so much is that the government are during less to intervene in this matter. Am so sorry for this . Take care