§ Mr. James Johnsonasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies, if he is aware that European farmers on the slopes of Mount Kilimanjaro are rain 279W making by means of balloon bomb experiments; that this is inconveniencing some neighbouring farmers; and what advice the Meteorological Department of the East Africa High Commission is giving to these amateur rainmakers.
§ Mr. Profumo,pursuant to his reply [OFFICIAL REPORT, 5th June, 1957; Vol. 571, c. 105], supplied the following information:
Certain farms in the West Kilimanjaro area were suffering from drought. At the request of the West Kilimanjaro Farmers' Association, an officer of the East African Meteorologolical Department attended a meeting and explained the principles and mechanics of seeding rain clouds with small balloons which are designed to explode and scatter salt into potential rain clouds in order to induce precipitation. Some members of the Association tried out this balloon method in the early part of this year on their own account and were successful in inducing an appreciable increase in rainfall on their farms.
It is understood, however, that owing to inexperience the wrong cloud was seeded in one or two instances so that rain fell on the land of a neighbouring farmer at time when his harvesting operations demanded fine weather.