Rice Farmers in the Jere Local Government Area in Borno State are counting their losses instead of their profits because of very low rainfall in the area.

And farmers in the Fariya community are pleading with the government to build dams so that they will always have enough water for their crops.

Rice farmer Baba Aji told RNI reporter Musa Shettima that he had lost about 500,000 naira since the start of the low rainfall and it was money he needed for fertiliser, seeds and other expenses.

He said normally the money he received from crops on the six hectares he kept for rice seed cultivation was what he relied on to keep financially sound and to help his relatives, families and friends.

But the low rainfall had hit him hard financially.

“I cannot overemphasise the losses I have had this year on my farm. I have six hectares of land for rice seed cultivation. Others have more than that. Not one of us had a bumper harvest this year because of the lack of water,” he said.

“Farmers are supported by their governments in other countries, but we are not in Nigeria. They talk a lot on television about supporting farmers and then that’s the end of it. Government support has not reached us in Borno. And, particularly not the rice farmers in the Fariya community in Jere Local Government Area. We have not had any help.”

Aji said most of the farmers in the area bought improved fertilisers from Hausa people whose means of income was to travel to other countries to get fertilisers and then bring them home to sell to local farmers for use on their land.

He said he knew the government would not be pleased to hear his comments about the lack of support but he felt duty-bound to inform others that the government had made little or no effort to help independent farmers across the country and, particularly, those farmers who worked their land in crisis-ravaged places, where they had become the victims of escalating attacks by extremist groups, such as the Jamā’at Ahl as-Sunnah lid-Da’way Wa’l-Jihād (JAS), more commonly referred to as Boko Haram, and the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP), as well as gangs of bandits.

“But the truth must be told to the government so that they will hear and start helping deserved farmers.”

Aji pleaded with the government to help them to construct dams which would help save their crops in times when there were low rainfalls or when there was no rain at all.

Mala Bulama Ali, also a rice farmer in Jere Local Government Area, said he had lost about 300,000 naira and it was just getting worse.

“If we continue to have low rainfalls – or no rainfalls – our farms will begin to die off. We invest a lot in our farms and all that money would have been wasted.”

Another rice farmer, Abba Kulu, said he had no more fertilisers or seeds and he also did not have money to buy any.

“Allah has tested us this year. Many of us might not be able to farm in the coming year because we’ve lost most of our money. We spent a lot of money on our farms, thinking that we would have a bumper harvest at the end and we had the exact opposite. The low rainfall has caused most farmers in the area many hardships,” he said.

Professor Abba Gambo, the Dean of the Faculty of Agriculture at Yobe State University, called on farmers to embrace irrigation farming when the rainy season came to an end.

Using drip irrigation for rice production could provide benefits by reducing both water and methane footprints. Drip irrigation delivers water through pipes along the rows of crops directly to the root zone.

Why drip irrigation for rice works:

• Rice plants actually prefer drip irrigation. Rice has the extraordinary ability to grow in anaerobic conditions.
• Higher profits. With drip irrigation, you can grow more than one crop cycle in rotation, making better use of every hectare.
• Healthier, more marketable rice.