PARCHED EARTH
As large swathes of SA suffer the stranglehold of a prolonged drought, the country’s agricultural industry has turned to the government, asking for R10bn to help those hit hardest by the debilitating conditions.
The Northern Cape, Eastern Cape, Western Cape and Free State, in particular, are under pressure — though in the past month water levels in dams in Limpopo and the North
West also dipped below the halfway mark.
In the Northern Cape, commercial farmers’ organisation Agri SA estimates that 20million hectares (about 15,500 farms) have been severely affected by the drought — a number that could reach 27.2-million hectares. And in the Western Cape, export volumes over five years fell 25% between 2008-2013 and 2013-2018.
For SA as a whole, real agricultural output for the first half of 2019 was down 9.2% on the same period last year.
Rural communities more generally are suffering; in its “Drought Report 2019/2020”, Agri SA estimates that 37% of SA’S rural communities are affected by the drought.
“Rural economies are seriously affected in the Northern and Eastern Cape,” says Agri SA deputy executive director Christo van der Rheede. “Their economic wellbeing depends on farmers. If farming suffers as a result of the drought, that has a knock-on effect on the availability of jobs in the rest of the agricultural value chain.”
By the start of the year, about 30,000 jobs had already been lost in the sector.
While Agri SA says the government is aware of the challenge, Vuyo Mahlati, president of the African Farmers Association of SA, says one of the problems is the “fragmentation in terms of farmer support”.
“You’ve got disaster management done by Cogta [the department of co-operative governance & traditional affairs]. Then there’s the water affairs department; [the department of] agriculture, land reform & rural development; and environmental affairs, forestry & fisheries.”
Van der Rheede says responsibility sits with the National Disaster Management Centre. “Its role is to bring all stakeholders together, to have one plan and [ensure] each department understands its role,” he says.
“[Instead] you have to go and talk to each and every one of these people. We need a consolidated approach”
Though the authorities have declared disaster areas in the Eastern, Northern and Western Cape and the Free State, Transvaal Agricultural Union of SA general manager Bennie van Zyl bemoans the tardiness of the response. “It’s very late in the day,” he says, noting that it took almost a year for the Eastern Cape and the Free State to be declared disaster areas — a move that could have unlocked disaster-relief funding earlier.
The government, for its part, has made drought-relief funding available in the Eastern Cape (R74m), Western Cape (R50m) and Northern Cape (R30m), says Van der Rheede.
Cogta spokesperson Lungi Mtshali says minister Nkosazana Dlamini-zuma and the MECS of all the affected provinces have agreed that the situation should “be monitored”. But, he says, it would be premature to declare the drought a national disaster.
The department has for now “agreed to intensify our intervention and making money available for relief” in the most affected provinces, says Mtshali.
Agri SA’S own drought disaster fund has disbursed R3.4m to Agri Western Cape, R1.3m to Agri Eastern Cape, R4.2m to Agri Northern Cape, and R9.9m to other provinces. It has also secured donations worth R100m for transport, humanitarian assistance and boreholes; R19m in cash; and R1.5m for diesel.
But Van Zyl is critical of the extent of state assistance, in light of ongoing bailouts provided to SA’S cash-burning state-owned enterprises (SOES).
“I have great concerns about the priorities of this government,” he says. “Why they bail out failing SOES — it’s like throwing money into a bottomless pit.”
In October, for example, the SABC received R2.1bn of the R3.2bn it had requested to remain on air. This year, SAA has received R5.5bn — and been given an undertaking that the National Treasury will repay its R9.2bn debt over the next three years. Then there’s the Eskom package announced in February, which amounts to R23bn a year for a decade.
“I think government should come to the table and give guarantees to keep our farming operations in production,” Van Zyl continues. “This is a food security issue, it’s an SA issue ... I think government should put in place insurance to make it affordable for the sector to overcome a crisis like this.”
Van der Rheede believes there is no point in making demands that the government will be unable to meet. Instead, he says, it should work closely with the financial institutions that provide finance to farmers.
For example, he says, the government could “put up R10bn as a guarantee for financial institutions to service farmers’ loans, because currently farmers are not in a position to service their loans due to the drought. The biggest challenge farmers are facing now is cash flow.”
When contacted for comment, Thoko Didiza, minister of agriculture, land reform & rural development, referred questions to her spokesperson Reggie Ngcobo, who asked that questions be e-mailed to him.
Despite the FM’S repeated attempts to follow up (by SMS, Whatsapp and telephonically), he has yet to reply.
As drought grips SA and agricultural output dips, farmers are turning to the government for help — and pointing out that money poured into state enterprises could be better spent elsewhere