Cape farmers: Power cuts the root of huge losses in agricultural sector
The latest wave of load shedding is affecting the province’s agricultural sector, with farmers reporting huge losses as processing machinery, irrigation equipment, and other tools damaged by the power cuts.
Agri SA director Christo van der Rheede said the extended period of Stage 6 load shedding threatened the viability of the sector and an escalation by Eskom to Stage 7 and higher would be catastrophic.
“Electricity is central to modern farming practices and the recent increase in load shedding has seriously disrupted farming operations.”
He said pumping stations, irrigation, cooling and other systems all depended on a power supply, and while some farmers had the means to move away from the power grid, most were unable to do so. This was especially true for the most vulnerable small-scale farmers.
“Farmers forfeit their water quotas for irrigation purposes when the power is off and this is an irrecoverable loss that paralyses farms,” Van der Rheede said.
He said the power outages were also causing waste and financial losses due to the impact on food storage, and retailers had started rejecting fresh produce, mainly vegetables, due to delays in delivery and disruption in the cold chain.
Van der Rheede said in summer, this challenge would increase exponentially and would reduce the amount of food available while increasing the cost to the consumer.
He said this was why Agri SA supported Eskom’s decision to increase its renewable energy capacity soon and that the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy needed to quickly get the necessary policy infrastructure in place so that Eskom could increase its capacity.
“Failure to do so poses serious economic risks to South Africa, including social instability.”
Franschhoek wine farmer Paul Siguqa said wine farmers with additional revenue sources such as restaurants on their farms lost out as they were unable to accept bookings, especially in the evenings, unless they had generators.
He said the cost of buying a generator for an operation such as his was exorbitant and even if he could afford one, the increases in the price of diesel would burn through all the profits.
“The most dangerous thing for us during load shedding is the effect it has on the wines we have cooling in the cellars. The cooling systems run off electricity and are vital to keep the wine at a certain degree, and these power interruptions are having a huge effect.”
Drakenstein Farm Watch chief executive Daan van Leeuween Boomkamp said that even if the electricity supply was not constantly interrupted, farmers in the area would still have problems as a result of cable theft.
“In our area, the theft of cables during load shedding has become a huge problem and the authorities have no answer to the issue,” said van Leeuween Boomkamp.
He said the load shedding was bad enough and the cable theft just compounded the issue, adding to many other problems including insecurity by causing interruptions of general communication through cellphone tower outages.
-Cape Argus
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