Johannesburg – Farmers are celebrating the suspension of load shedding in various farming areas in the North West following the devastating impact of load shedding on farmers whose livelihoods came under threat as they lost tons of produce due to the limited use of water pumps cause by the ongoing load shedding.
A farmer from the Keimoes area in the KaiGarib metro, Dave Verster, who works on a legacy farm, which is one of the oldest farms, expressed his relief over load shedding being a thing of the past as it threatened the livelihoods of all farmers in the metro, including himself.
Verster said: “What happened during load shedding was very frustrating and beyond our control as farmers.
“It impacted all our farmers. Farmers are heavily dependent on water from the Orange River, however, we could not pump our allotted quotas of water for the much-needed irrigation of the vineyard;, grapes need water until they have attained the correct "sugar"levels to be harvested but they were not receiving the amount of water needed and we therefore lost huge amounts of grapes.”
As farmers tried to tackle the impact of load shedding they were also met with challenges posed by the high temperatures in the province which caused more strain to their farming processes as it became hard to work outside for their usual hours, slowing down production and severely damaging produce.
“Due to the intense heat, lack of water and our inability to harvest the grapes, they ended up withered and dried prematurely.
“Most of us farmers use electricity supplied by Eskom for our pumps and everything else. The load shedding and heat together were causing some farmers to go through difficult times,with dire financial impact,” said Verster.
Vester also revealed that this was indeed a trying time for the agriculture sector as farmers were facing many challenges including that of lower prices currently being paid for their produce by the various co-operatives and buyers for entities.
Prices have changed from R3 050 a ton down to R1 050 a ton and there are sometimes also issues of late payments by the businesses.
“Overall our pockets have been hit hard by everything that has happened and now farmers are having to be creative and also branch into other means for income in order to make ends meet,” said Verster.
IOL