Mega Fm & Agency
About six in every 10 coffee seedlings distributed to farmers in drought-hit Agago District have survived, despite nearly four months of dry weather that threatened the district’s new coffee crop.
The survival rate comes after intense sunshine killed many of the 290,000 seedlings distributed to farmers, with some farmers struggling to keep the young plants alive after planting.
Nicholas Okino, the regional coffee extension coordinator at the Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries, said recent monitoring visits showed that reports that the entire crop had been lost were inaccurate.
He said some farmers had kept the seedlings under trees after receiving them, while others had already planted them when the dry spell intensified.
The survival rates, however, varied significantly from farmer to farmer depending on how the gardens were prepared and how the seedlings were managed during the drought.
