(ERGO) – A number of farmers in Dollow and Beled Hawo districts in southern Somalia’s Gedo region have given up farming as a livelihood after suffering consecutive blows from flooding and locust invasions.
Qurba Afjar Adur’s 13-hectare farm in the village of Dayah, seven kilometres outside Dollow town, was flooded by the river Dawa in both May and November last year. He lost most of what he had planted. Then, in December, two attacks by swarms of desert locusts finished off his remaining vegetables and other crops.
Qurba lost more than $10,000 that he had invested in buying the seeds and paying the farm workers. Part of the money was a loan he was planning to repay after harvesting. He and his 15-member family have been living on a dwindling package of food they were given by relatives in Beled Hawo.
“We are reeling from the impact of the locust invasion even though we repulsed them and drove them away,” Qurba said.
“Most of my crops had been washed away by the Dawa river floods, and the remaining orange and olive trees were eaten up by the locusts.”
Qurba has decided to quit farming, and has no plans currently to plant again, although he has no alternative source of income. Eight of his children have been staying home for the last three months as he could not pay the total monthly fees at the local school of $80. The family has also been forced to reduce from three to two meals a day.
Another farmer in the area, Ali Ahmed Osman, lost $3,780 after his 21-hectare farm on the north-western outskirts of Dollow was flooded in May, destroying all his vegetables and other crops.
“I invested a huge sum of money in the farm. I planted 30 kgs of onions, 40 kgs of other vegetables, 300 banana trees, 170 lemon trees and two hectares of grain. It was all washed away by the floods – even the generator is gone!” Ali said despairingly.
After the flood losses, Ali planted onions, tomatoes, watermelon and green vegetables in October, only to have everything wiped out by locusts in November.
Ali told Radio Ergo that he has stopped farming now after incurring a debt of $5,740. He has sold seven of his 20 goats since December to provide for his family. They have no other source of income and depended on the farm.
Dozens of youths who worked as labourers on the affected farms have also been left jobless.
