farming in the rainy season

The rainy season (beginning in June and generally lasting through October) brings mixed blessings to farmers in Ghana. It can form a pivotal part of the year, providing steady, consistent rain. It can also be pivotal in the wrong way – it can flood, topple, and even completely destroy farms. During the rainy season farmers in Guaman-Buem typically plant maize, cassava, plantains, rice, and yams. It is also the ideal time of the year to plant cocoa, because cocoa seedlings need a lot of water and – most importantly – cloud cover to prevent them from being fried by the sun. If you plant cocoa seedlings and then get two weeks of uninterrupted sunshine, you have not only wasted money on seedlings that won’t grow to fruition, but you have wasted labor and time. Pegging and planting seedlings, as I have learned, is not easy work.

This year in particular has brought torrential rains to Buem. For about two weeks now there has been no respite from heavy rain storms. They come in the morning, the afternoon, and in the middle of the night. For those of you who have lived in the tropics, you may know what it feels like before a heavy rain comes. The air becomes thick and wet, the sun glares violently, and everyone runs for the shade. Within an hour or two, the heat builds up as black thunderheads mass up against the horizon. Cool winds blow steadily until the storm arrives, sending tapestries of water horizontally pounding into the earth. These storms can last anywhere from 15 minutes to four hours

My biggest obstacle during this rainy season has been transportation. The roads in Ghana are phenomenally bad. It seems that the situation in Buem right now is particularly bad. Entire parts of the main road (the road that connects Buem to the capital) are either missing or are in the process of being eroded away. Forest rivers can rise and swallow up portions of the road, preventing all traffic from getting through. The bush road to my farm is cross-cut with large pools of water and sections consisting of foot-thick mud. On a motorcycle, it can feel quite precarious getting to the farm. I have already slipped on my bike and fell of five times. At this point, I more or less just expect to fall off my motorcycle every morning I go to the farm.

Luckily, my cocoa farm is wedged up against the side of a good sized mountain. It seems the hill has done a good job shielding the land from the high winds, and what has been planted so far is intact. It also appears to do a good job pulling down the moisture from the rain clouds on to the farm. Every day I arrive at the farm I push my machete into the ground and churn up healthy, moist brown soil. Being that the ground is mostly flat and has a good layer of mulch on top of the soil, it seems as if erosion will not be a problem anytime soon.