Mohammed Sagiru will not harvest any rice at the end of this farming season. No thanks to devastating floods that ravaged his rice farm in Kebbi State, north-west Nigeria.
Mr Sagiru, in his 30s, is a rice farmer in Argungu, a community known for its robust rice farming, among other grains it produces. But floods continue to affect farming activities every rainy season, destroying crops and rendering community dwellers homeless.
This year, the young farmer, with a wife and two kids, is distraught and dejected following the complete damage to his farm by the floods.
“We experience this loss every year, but it depends on the amount of rainfall,” he told this reporter. “Sometimes, we lose some and other times we lose everything. But this year, I did not get anything. The rain was too much.”
Standing in the middle of his farm, located in a swampy area where the bulk of the rice from Kebbi is grown, Mr Sagiru said “not even a grain of rice was harvested…