Phalombe Agriculture authorities have asked agriculture sector in the country to help smallholder farmers in the district who lost crops due to floods with farm inputs to help them to proceed with rabi cropping.

David Ali, Chief Agriculture, Environment and Natural Resource Officer on Wednesday said there is only one organization which has reached out to farmers in the district with help in form of maize seeds which are not enough to the 40, 000 farmers in the district.

“We are having about 40,000 farm households in this district which have been affected by the floods and dry spell, we are lucky that a charitable organization helped us with maize seeds but it’s not enough to distribute to the whole households in the district”, Ali said

According to Ali, 6,292 hectares of farming land was affected by floods which affected 23,316 farming households while 6,433 hectares of land was hit by dry spells which affected 24,768 farming household and 7,760 livestock  were lost during the current floods.

“We are appealing for support from stakeholders to come in for help, most smallholder farmers that lost crops to floods and dry spell want to venture into winter cropping,” he said

Alice Jemusi, a farmer from Mulima village, appealed to government to help farmers who lost crops due to floods and dry spell with farm inputs.

“Some of the farmers have harvested their crops but to say the truth then yields are insuffient to sustain the farmers to the next harvesting season”, she said

This year’s floods and dry spell has affected not only the farmers in the country but each and every person in the country.