Norma's Letter from Jos: 16 February 2011

Norma's Letter from Jos: 16 February 2011 (Excerpts)

Note: Norma was evidently not aware of the holiday clashes in Jos ... see below

Hello customers,

We hope you had good Valentine's day and Eid el Maloud holidays. No holiday for us on the farm, however, since we are trying to expand our production and have more varieties of items available for you.

I gather that many of you are intending to travel during the period of elections. If you are not going to be around for some time, we would really appreciate hearing from you about your plans. As you know, we plant according to our market, so if our customers are not going to be around, many of our crops will just spoil in the fields since there will be no one around to buy them when they are ready to pick. It will help us a lot if we have a general idea how many of you will be around for the next few months, and how many will be away. Now is the time we are planting seeds for items that we will harvest in 2-3 months from now, so if we know the situation, it will help us know how much to plant so that we do not incur losses from wastage. Please drop us a line and let us know your plans.

The weather has gotten much warmer in the past few weeks. This means that some of our crops are growing much faster, some of them (like our delicate butterhead lettuces) tend to go to seed quickly, and others, particularly those in the cabbage family, tend to get attacked by various insects, particularly aphids. So generally, in the warm weather, we have to plant and harvest faster, and keep a close eye on things to prevent insects invading the farm.

+++

Thank you all again for all of your support, patronage, and good wishes. We are doing our best to see if we can keep the farm running at a reasonable level of productivity. Whether we can continue in the long term depends entirely on the situation in Plateau State with regards to peace and security. We are waiting until after the elections to take a decision about our future. If the situation continues as it has been over the past year or so we will find it extremely difficult to continue and we will have to decide whether to move the farm to another state, or close it down altogether. We have had enough of the insanity we have witnessed since January 2010, and I don't think we can take much more of this. There are enough challenges running a farm under normal conditions, let along having to deal with fighting and crises on an almost daily basis.

Wishing all of you a good week ahead. More news from the farm next week.

Regards,

Norma