By Neo Kolane
The sharp rise in the fuel price particularly diesel that will increase in the coming months will have a negative impact on the agricultural sector in Lesotho.
Diesel is now the second most expensive input cost for grain farmers after fertiliser. In a country where maize is a staple food, the rise in diesel price will also have a negative effect on poor communities.
In an interview with theReporter, one qualified Global GAP farm Assurer Hoaba Nkunyane said that the issue of the fuel increase affects him directly because he uses diesel to fuel up his tractor for ploughing.
To fill up the tractor using diesel to cover 20 hectors Nkunyana needs 700 litres. So he multiplies the 700 litres by M23.80 worth of diesel.
Nkunyana mentioned the maintenance of the tractor was costly because all the money will be spent on buying the diesel to run the tractors engine.
He also said paying his employees will be a mountain to climb as he has some farm workers who are paid monthly wages.
Nkunyana said in as much as rain contributed positively, as a farmer he has an area where he has to water his plants using the same diesel with a water pipe and he attested that indeed diesel price increase will impact on his production.
The founder of Litsoamobung, a farm based in Koro-Koro in the Maseru district said his farm is 20km away from where he stays. As a result, he has to drive his tractor to the farm each time he visits the place.
The farmer owns two tractors.
He said things now need to change and that the unlike in the previous years when he would spend M360 for ploughing one acre.
He said as it is, farmers are to face difficult times as it is highly likely that the spending might double in a not distant future.
Another farmer Sekila Molapo also believed that they were facing a tough farming times due to increases in fuel prices “as all tractors use diesel for engines to run”.
Molapo said the price of diesel is constantly growing as it is different from the price of petrol at the moment. Any agricultural machinery that use diesel has seen a worrying increases in fuel pricesw.
In addition, Molapo, remarked, the price of fertilisers has also a shocking spike, possibly makkinf it difficult to achieve high production.
“I fill up a tractor engine with M1 000 amount worth of petrol and I am able to cover three hectares but now I am paying M2 000 for the same three hectares.
“This means my cost just on planting and harvesting alone has doubled.
“The money I had anticipated to get in terms of profit is significantly reduced,” Molapo said.
He uses a lot of labourer which need transport fare both to and from work. This is given the fact that public transport fares are set to increase later this month. Molapo would not be surprised if his employees would want a wage increase.
But he suggests that alternative forms of energy to replace production of pure diesel such as producing biodiesel would reduce their spending on farming operations.
Commenting on the matter, the programme manager at Lesotho National Farmers Union (LENAFU) Khotso Lepheana told the publication this week that many farmers no more use animals such as cattle to plough their fields.
Lepheana warned: “It is going to be a difficult ploughing season for many people due to the issue that tractors used on a daily basis will incur costs which are different from previous times.”
He was concerned that some farmers have to hire agricultural implements from their farming colleagues or from some companies that that hire out farming equipment.
He said the increase in fuel means the people who rent out the machinery will have to recover those costs and “it will inflate on the costs that were a norm of both going to the farm, the labourers as well as the machinery.”
Lepheana advises the farmers to form cooperatives or be engaged in block farming as a measure to deal with a high cost of farming, adding that working collectively might overcome their difficulties farming communities face.
“Looking at the capability of the soil and the resources which will be incurred, we are sure that 50 percent of the cost will be recovered. He said farming uses lot of machinery.
Lepheana mentioned conservation agriculture which is minimum tillage that will safe costs.
Minimum tillage is a soil conservation system like strip-till with the goal of minimum soil manipulation necessary for a successful crop production.
“Farmers should harvest as a collective. Those in urban areas will be more affected with the fuel increase compared to those in the rural areas looking at herd of animals because most of the rural farmers still have animals and use them mostly to plough. In the urban and peri-urban areas they mostly use machinery.
“To harvest wheat, urban farmers use combine harvesters which use diesel while in the rural areas we work manually using sickles,” Lepheana said.
