Dry spell takes toll on crops

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One of three wells at Yaqeta village where 111 households depend on well water.Picture:REPEKA NASIKO

YAQETA villager Etonia Vunisa’s farm was destroyed earlier this year by heavy rain that caused major flooding in his village. More than four months later, Mr Vunisa is again dealing with extreme weather, this time from the prolonged dry spell.

“Everything I replanted is not growing well,” he said.

“We have cassava plants that only have the stem and no crop.

“Most of the new plants that we are growing can’t bear any crop because of the dry weather.” He said planting vegetables provided an even greater challenge.

“Vegetables won’t survive this heat. So we just plant cassava and yams, but even that is not recovering well from the flood.

“We should have harvested some crops, but there’s hardly anything there.” He said major damage occurred during the floods earlier in the year.

“Right after that heavy rain, we started experiencing this dry weather around June. Since then planting root crops has been difficult.”

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