Facing fourth year of drought

Swaziland faces its fourth consecutive year of drought, further jeopardising the nation's diminishing food production, the ministry of agriculture has warned.

The ministry's projections of below-average rainfall are based on the latest data from the government's department of meteorology.

"As the ministry responsible for agriculture and farming in the country, we are extremely concerned about the shortage of rain - this is now the planting season," the ministry's principal secretary, Noah Nkambule, said at a press conference this week.

"The meteorology department had predicted some rain in October and November, but seemingly we are experiencing the direct opposite," Nkambule added.

In its revised forecast for the cropping season that officially began last month, the Ministry of Natural Resources' Meteorology Department reported that Swaziland faced a better than fifty-fifty chance of experiencing diminished rainfall because of El Nino weather conditions.

Due to Swaziland's proximity to the Indian Ocean, El Nino, in which warmer Pacific ocean water is drawn eastward toward the Americas, leaving cooler waters along the east coast of Africa that fail to generate rain, has been blamed for the periodic dry spells in the country.

"We may be faced with a climatic change in Swaziland that, while perhaps not permanent, will make some areas too dry for cultivation in the immediate future," a government meteorologist told IRIN.

An absence of rainfall will exacerbate the desertification now witnessed in the dry northern lowveld, the hot eastern lowveld and, more recently, in the central Manzini region.

The soil in some areas is still potentially fertile, but cannot be cultivated without sufficient rainfall.

Irrigation farming is not generally practiced by the majority of Swaziland's smallholder farmers, who live on communal Swazi Nation Land administered by palace-appointed chiefs. "Swazi Nation Land is entirely dependent on weather conditions," the Central Bank of Swaziland noted in its recent review of the nation's economic output.

Widespread poverty also prevents investment in irrigation equipment.

Reporting that last year's cropping season saw a delay in rains, which were below average when they did fall, the Bank noted that land preparation was delayed, and some fields were abandoned entirely. The same pattern appears to be playing out for this season, Bank sources said.

"We have good land - our soil is fertile. [But] we have not had rains - we are late in planting," Simeon Mndzawe, a farmer in the northern Hhohho Region, told IRIN.

Maize and vegetables, like cowpeas, are normally planted in October or early November. The absence of rain has made the fine grey soil dry and dusty, and vulnerable to dissipation by windstorms.

"What we lack is rain. If this does not come, we will have fires to heat empty pots," lamented Mndzawe.