Government must aid farmers in face of a crippling drought

FIVE provinces have been declared drought disaster areas, threatening food security in the country. The most affected are farmers who are unable to harvest crops or feed livestock.

The weak rand and lack of rain are increasing farmers’ input costs, which will largely be passed on in the form of an increase in food prices.

The looming shortage of grain in South Africa due to the ongoing drought will have a severe impact on the poor, and the price of many foodstuffs is likely to increase significantly.

Maize and wheat crop harvests are significantly smaller than usual this year because last year’s drought conditions have not been alleviated by a return to normal rainfall patterns this year. We will have to import grain with a weak rand, which will drive the price of food up considerably.

Food plays a huge role in the overall spending of the poorer people in our country, and while everyone will pay more, the poor will suffer worst. Most of their expendable income is spent on keeping food on the table.

Crop failures in neighbouring countries like Zimbabwe, which is also suffering a drought, may have the effect of driving more people to seek employment in South Africa than before.

Traditionally, we have supplied a significant maize surplus, and maize is the staple foodstuff of most southern African people.

South African maize farmers, in particular, do a spectacular job, given the fact that they farm in less than ideal conditions. They are highly effective and technologically advanced, but one cannot mitigate the effects of low rainfall.

The Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries introduced measures to mitigate the impact of drought to all smallholder farmers, including livestock feed and alternative grazing on available state farms, while R226-million has been re-prioritised and allocated, as well as drilling and equipping of additional boreholes for livestock water.

Let us work together to make agriculture a success. Government and its civil society partners are challenged to develop innovative ways to provide assistance to farmers. — Tshepo Diale

ANC must engage

Let me congratulate the newly elected leadership of the ANC Buffalo City Metro region. The name of the metro will change to the ANC founder Dr WB Rubusane, as per resolution of the conference.

The current leadership has been given the responsibility to unite all ANC alliance forces in this region, including the disgruntled members of the movement. It is also mandated to deal decisively with those members who continuously drag this glorious movement into the mud.

The regional leadership is tasked to provide space for all its members to exercise their ideas, skills and competencies for the well-being of the organisation. This should be characterised by continuous engagement with the broader society beyond ANC membership in which the branch operates on issues affecting society.

Our influence on the broader society should be based on continuous engagement, even on issues where society differs sharply with our policies. Political arrogance chases people away from the ANC and causes stagnation with regard to ideas.

Branch members are encouraged to participate in social activities outside the ANC.

ANC branches have a more critical role to play in the current dispensation, besides growing the membership of the ANC and vigorously campaigning during elections. It has to ensure that it plays a leading role in the implementation of the ANC manifesto. Each branch of the ANC must ensure that it configures its subcommittees consistent with implementation of the manifesto. This manifesto should be the programme of each and every branch of the ANC.

The ANC BCM leadership needs to invest resources in the human capital of its branches, focus on the branch executive committees but also the general membership.

The national leadership has a responsibility to ensure that branches of the ANC are empowered to discharge their complex task of leading societies that they operate in and entrenching the ANC’s influence on these societies. — Thabang Maseko

Muslims and Paris

WHY is there always a request for our Muslim leaders to condemn Islamist-inspired terrorist atrocities?

This is racist. Why are Jewish leaders not asked to condemn the killing of Palestinians in occupied Palestine who are killed on a daily basis?

Or why is the American embassy not asked to condemn the killing of innocent civilians dying on a daily basis from drone attacks?

The only reason I can think of is that a French life is more valuable than an Arab, African or Asian life.

This is the racism inherent in the kneejerk reaction of expecting our Muslim leaders to condemn the terrorists whenever they kill Europeans.

Acts of terrorism and Isis are symptoms of an underlying malaise in the western world, Russia and the Islamic world rooted in history and which comes from the following: the asymmetrical distribution of political, economic and military power; the use of the UN Security Council vetoes by the US and Russia to continue the oppression and killings of the Palestinians and Syrians respectively; the continuous interference of the west and Russia in the affairs of the Middle East to control their oil reserves and to destroy Israel’s enemies.

The underlying malaise in the Islamic world comes from the following: literal interpretation of Quranic text; an inability to change and reform their political, legal, economic, social and educational systems; an inability to set up democratic institutions; the lack of political and religious tolerance and the inability to unite.

Unless we move to a world based on justice, equality of opportunity and democratic rights for all – endless condemnation will be futile and will fall on deaf ears.

Because there is inertia for change in the west, in Russia and in the Islamic world; the revolutions, wars, invasions, oppression, tyranny and terrorism will go on for many years to come.

It would rather be more productive to ask our Muslim leaders in South Africa to provide the leadership required in the Islamic world to modernise the curriculum taught at the colleges and madressahs where they are still teaching 9th century philosophy, politics, law, ethics and theology and which ironically, forms the bedrock of ISIS’s ideology. — Naushad Omar, via e-mail