Residents of Simba Chai area in Teso South sub county, Busia County are counting losses after heavy rainfall accompanied by hail stones swept through their farms on Wednesday evening. The one hour rainfall totally destroyed all crops in farms leaving stems standing leafless. By Thursday morning, piles of hailstones were still in farms and homesteads.
Roseline Akoch is one of the affected residents from Achunet village, “Since I was born I have never seen such rainfall. It started around five in the evening and we thought it was going to be normal rainfall. Little did we know that it was going to be destructive. My two acres of maize and beans was totally destroyed. It’s just yesterday that we topdressed it with fertilizer hoping to get a bumper harvest this season.” Most of the farmers said they had taken loans to buy farm inputs, “We don’t know what we are going to do now because the institutions that gave us the loans will not hear any of these, they will still come for their money.”
They also fear that the destruction will cause hunger in the area and appealed to the County and national government to come to their aid, “We have been brought back to square zero. We don’t know how we shall survive and we are likely to face a hunger crisis come January next year. We appeal to both the County and national governments to come and assess the loss we have incurred I’m our farms then see how they will help us financially to get back on our feet.”