Drought-struck farmers give up

Shenaaz Jamal, Katharine Child and Matthew Savides | 02 November, 2015 00:07

Paul van der Walt looks at his failed mielies on his farm Lusthof near Lichtenburg in North West province. These mielies should be green and should be standing nearly two metres tall.
Image by: JAMES OATWAY

Farmers in the grip of the drought devastating the country are selling up.

For Free State farmer James Tolmay the battle has been too long and hard.

Two days ago he was forced to sell his 33 cattle.

"I just didn't have any feed anymore. I had to make a choice."

Another Free State farmer, Israel Motlhabane, said he was unsure whether his cattle would survive until Christmas.

"If it doesn't rain until January we'll be in big trouble."

Water Affairs Minister Nomvula Mokonyane yesterday said the country was losing R7-billion of water a year through leaking pipes and taps, and collapsing infrastructure.

She declared KwaZulu-Natal and the Free State drought disaster areas.

The cabinet has approved a water-saving programme.

She said 15000 artisans would embark on a countrywide project to repair leaking taps and pipes.

Water restrictions would stay in force indefinitely.

Mokonyane said the first to be affected by water restrictions would be farmers, damaging the economy and food security.

She said 2.7million households were affected by the drought.

The Water Affairs Department has committed over R350-million to drought related projects, including infrastructure upgrading, drilling boreholes, rainwater harvesting and establishing desalination plants.

An additional R96.6-million will be used to build temporary water tanks across KwaZulu-Natal.

AgriGauteng president Francois van den Bergh said that because of the drought there was insufficient grazing for farm animals and the price of maize used for animal feed was rising.

Many farmers, he said, had not yet planted maize because of the drought.

He said that although red meat might at first become cheaper as farmers sold off their cattle and created a glut, the price would rise next year.

If it did not rain in the next two weeks, farmers in the Highveld and western parts of the country will not be able to plant yellow maize for animal feed, or soya.

Farmers in the western part of the country had missed what, but for the drought, would have been the ideal time to plant.

The price of maize is already 60% higher than at this time last year
.