Fadumo Mohamed Adan’s hope of a good harvest has been dashed after all the seeds she planted were eaten by birds. She planted maize on her farm in Tulo-sagal village outside Afgoye town, Lower Shabelle region, in early June. “I invested $450 on the farm. I hired a tractor to prepare the land then employed three people to plant the seeds. I paid them $50 each for a week,” she told Radio Ergo. Unfortunately, the seeds were dug out before they turned into seedlings. “I am so desperate, no seeds germinated, everything was eaten by birds. I have no money to invest and at the same time, the gu’ rains are ending,” said Faduma, a mother of two boys.
Another farmer, Abdi Said Mohamed, said rodents raided his five hectares and his consecutive losses have made him tired of planting. “I planted crops on the farm twice this gu’ season but there were no shoots because the seeds we planted were dug out by squirrels, forcing me to quit,” he said. Abdi who lives in Tulo-Sagal village and has six children spent over $500 on the farm. He said many others were also affected. In nearby Tulo-Sagal, Mohamed Yussuf Mohamed’s farm was raided by birds and squirrels. “Nothing germinated, at first I was shocked but later when I was told the seeds were eaten I went and looked closely and saw the animal tracks,” Mohamed told Radio Ergo.
Hassan Mohamed Hussein, the chairperson of Tulo-Sagal farmers association, said 250 farms were affected. “These problems will have a great impact on production as well as on the farmers themselves because all these farms are rain-fed and time is running out very fast – they cannot plant again,” he said. Omar Haji Hassan, an agricultural expert, attributes the problem to the type of seeds being used. He urged farmers to use treated seeds. “The animals can tell when the seeds are treated and they keep away, so I call upon the farmers to use well-treated seeds,” he said.
