Yambio groundnut farmers left reeling after mysterious disease strikes

JUBA, OCTOBER 4, 2023 (SUDANS POST) – Farmers in Western Equatoria State’s Yambio are facing a dire situation after an unidentified plant disease affected their groundnut crops, causing widespread damage and stunting.

The disease was first noticed in the second rainy season, according to Alison Barnaba, the Western Equatoria State minister of agriculture, forestry, and environment.

“Crops in the second season are not germinating well especially groundnut. Maize is always germinated well and produced well. The challenge and the problem we are having is only in groundnut, there are a lot of worms,” said Barnaba.

Barnaba said dry-spell and rain jumps were also attributed to poor harvest this season.

“There is issue of dry-spell in between and rain jump here and there and there, these are the situation causing some of the crops not to grow well,” he said.

He said farmers have incurred huge losses as ground nuts are damaged.

“We could be possible, we have to see the plantation season, when do they plant especially the second season is always very delicate because you can’t predict a rainfall that it will be like this,” he said.

“We are trying to shift to modernization farming system, which is using irrigation and once you use irrigation, these challenges will not be there, it will be less than natural rainfall,” he added.