Challenges at harvest

All farmers pray for bountiful harvests. However the joy of good harvests often comes with big challenges. Imagine the joy of a coffee farmer who realises that all the coffee trees in his plantation are heavily laden with ripe cherries. 

All the coffee must be harvested in good time since the cherries may drop off the coffee trees and fall on the ground if they become too ripe. 

The farmer also worries about thieves who may visit the plantation without his knowledge and pick the coffee. 
He also worries about the weather because the best practice is to spread out the coffee cherries in the courtyard to dry under the sun. 

If there is insufficient sunshine the coffee develops mould and becomes spoiled. 

He must also ensure that he has sufficient space for its storage. He further worries about price fluctuations since he wants to sell at the highest price.

He has to decide whether to sell off the coffee as soon as it is dry and ready or to keep it and wait for the price to rise. Yet sometimes the prices drop.

Farming is so much tied to seasons and farmers earnings are therefore based on seasons. 

When all the farmers in an area have abundant harvests of the same crop, they all worry about the likelihood of reduced demand for their product which may result in low prices. 

If the crop is perishable --- like fruits or vegetables --- the biggest worry is to sell them off as soon as possible before they get rotten.

They ought to be quickly transported to markets. Yet even at the market the prices could drop because so many other farmers had an abundant harvest.

 Some crops such as cassava or potatoes are so bulky that in case of abundant harvests the farmer has to incur heavy expenses to transport them to the market place.

Since most farmers are poor and rather ignorant about marketing they tend to easily fall victim of middlemen who approach them armed with cash soon after the harvest and dictate prices to them. 

They grow crops without inquiring enough about the demand for those crops.

Mr Michael Ssali is a veteran journalist, 
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