Engineer Lament Impact Of Flood Prediction On Farmers

An Agricultural Engineer, Mr. Umoroye Adaotu has said that the predicted flood of 2013 that did not come has gravely affected the output of farmers in the Niger Delta again.

Adaotu of the Federal University of Agriculture Abeokuta, Ogun State, who stated this in a telephone interview with our correspondent said the prediction put fear in the farmers in relation to the losses they incurred in 2012.

According to him, the development will affect output because since they did not cultivate, nobody should expect any harvest.

“It will surely affect output because they did not cultivate so you don’t expect a bumper harvest,” he said.

What this simply means according to him, “was that there was reduction of input, that is cultivated land, so automatically it will affect harvest.”

According to Engr. Adaotu however the little that was planted was bound to yield abundantly because of last year’s deposits occasioned by the flood.

“But one thing is that the little that was cultivated, because of the alluvial depositors the soil will be fertile.

“The little that was planted will yield because the deposits the last flood came with has helped in increasing the soil fertility of the soil,” he said.

He further explained that such a situation should be expected down South even as he said any time flood comes, it comes along with enough deposits which helps in fertilizing the soil.

On the reliability of otherwise of predictions generally, the agricultural engineer said predictions were more of probability.

He said predictions should be viewed within the context of climate change.

He said that weather conditions could no longer be relied on as in the past because a lot of factors have come into play.

“Nobody can be sure in their predictions anymore. We only speculate because we are looking at data then we use them in forecasting,” he said.

Tomatoes displayed at the Abubakar Gumi Central Market in Kaduna last Monday.