Drought

The local paper ‘The Kupang Post’ recently reported the impending drought in the region. ‘The Indonesian Bureau of Meteorology has announced that eastern Indonesia is about to be beset with an el Niño weather pattern. The Bureau predicts that this year’s rainy season in NTT will slip to December (instead of beginning in November as normal). Indeed a rainy season starting only in January is not ruled out. Not all parts of NTT will suffer equally serious effects, but areas prone to drought (Timor, Rote Ndao and Sumba in particular) are likely to be badly hit. In fact, many villages in Pantai Baru and West Southwest Rote (RBD), Rote Ndao Kabupaten, are even now experiencing the effects of drought, with 253 households in RBD already threatened by food shortages. To anticipate the effects of these weather patterns, all relevant government agencies and agricultural extension workers should avoid acting like firemen, i.e. hitting the road only when fires are flaring. They need to be proactive now, giving farmers the best possible advice they can on emerging weather patterns, what to plant and when, and how to avoid crop failure. Farmers must not be left to cope alone, as has often happened in the past. NTT is dubbed the “dry province”, so we should have drought prone areas clearly mapped out so that, when drought hits, we can move quickly to help areas most in need.’

From a practical perspective the level of water in my well is very low, I can only fill the bucket if it is on its side, the water is no longer deep enough for the bucket to sink into it. Even the areas of green around ponds and rivers are going brown as these areas of water are shrinking or have disappeared entirely. However we are now getting a few clouds in the sky and on Thursday there were a few seconds of rain.