ISLAMABAD: The Met Office has warned of abnormal rains, hailstorms and strong winds throughout April.

“This heavy frequent wet spell of rains associated with hailstorm and strong winds is likely to hit the farmers. The uncertainty of weather in harvesting and threshing season of wheat may cause losses to them,” Dr Ghulam Rasul, the chief meteorologist at the Pakistan Meteorological Department, told Dawn.

While harvesting wheat in southern parts of the country such as Sindh has almost started, in Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa it begins in May, where the crops are still standing.

It’s not just wheat that is threatened by the destructive forces of nature, strong winds can also knock off mangos. Those that do survive can be damaged by hail strikes affecting the quality of the fruit in southern parts of Punjab, Dr Rasul explained.

He gave the example of chickpeas and grams that were sensitive to even strong lightning, especially when in the pollination stages. “Hail can also damage the tobacco leaves piercing through them and causing the prices to fall,” said the expert.

Uncertain weather in harvesting and threshing season may hurt farmers

Last year, a similar phenomenon hit farmers, which was on a small scale. “We saw dry hailstorm at the edges of Islamabad and a little outside. It damaged standing crops because the hail was bigger in size and fell like stones from the sky. Such an abnormal weather was caused by clouds forming at a very high altitude in the freezing zone in the sky.”

Most farmers took the predictions of extreme weather seriously and were mostly able to save their yield.

“This year too, we are informing them to prepare for an abnormal weather, which is being caused by the changing climate. Like last year, we recommend the combined harvesting technique,” said Dr Rasul, elaborating how the farmers should harvest and thrash crops together.

Sending out an advice to both large and small scale farmers, the expert discouraged the normal practice of leaving the crop lying around after cutting and then bundling it two or three days later.

“We also recommend that farmers thrash immediately instead of waiting for another six to seven days,” said the expert, explaining how the conventional farming practices did not work when weather patterns were uncertain.

Omar Raja is an information technology professional and also owns a family land in Kalar Syedan where he grows wheat. He said that last year he was late to respond to the weather warnings from the Met Office.

“The hails that fell from the sky were the size of golf balls. We never saw anything like that. It crushed my crops,” he added.

Published in Dawn, March 30th, 2015

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