Karonga needs K2.2bn for dry spell recovery

Karonga District Council says it needs about K2.2 billion to avert the effects of a dry spell the district has experienced during the current growing season.

According to the council’s report presented to the district executive committee meeting on Monday, the dry spell has affected about 30 000 households.

The report proposed some interventions to reduce the impact of the dry spell, including supporting farmers with sweet potato vines, maize and rice seeds as well as other farming related materials to venture into winter cropping and buy irrigation pumps.

Speaking when he presented the report, Karonga Agriculture Development Division crops officer Austin Mkwelera said the farmers will also need relief food items and that the interventions are to roll  out this month.

“The relief food items will serve the gap between now and the next growing season,” he said.

Mkwelera observed that under normal circumstances, most households would have been eating pumpkins and green maize by now, but that is not the case because of crop failure.

One of the affected farmers, Kenson Malanga of Dickson Chawinga Village in Paramount Chief Kyungu, said his entire maize garden was affected.

Ministry of Agriculture Principal Secretary responsible for irrigation Geoffrey Mamba visited the district last week to assess the situation.

During the visit, he said despite encouraging farmers to utilise the existing irrigation infrastructure, there was need for government to support them with irrigation equipment.

“Besides depending on the existing irrigation schemes, we are also proposing to the government to provide solar pumps to farmers,” said Mamba.

He observed that irrigation schemes were not affected that much as compared to areas where people depended on rain-fed agriculture.