Limpopo farmers who have no resources to feed their livestock have been advised to sell the animals to avoid them starving to death. The province is experiencing a severe drought that has already resulted in some livestock dying.
Agri Limpopo CEO Deidre Carter described the situation as dire, saying most parts of the province were dry and farmers were praying for rain.
She said while most commercial farmers could afford fodder for their livestock, most of the emerging farmers were struggling. One way to mitigate the effects of the severe drought was for farmers to auction their livestock.
“You either have to sell them while they are still in good condition or you have to buy fodder. You need to feed them,” she said.
She said not only emerging farmers were struggling but commercial farmers as well.
“Everyone struggles, but your commercial farmers would have put something aside to try to get through this period while the emerging farmers don’t have that luxury of putting things aside.”
She said some game farmers had to feed their animals throughout winter due to the drought.
“We had no rain since the beginning of January. We didn’t have any of the cyclones that you get coming from the Mozambique Channel in February or in March. Most of the rain usually comes in March.
“This year we haven’t had any of this, most of the places have had maybe 5mm of rain, 10mm maximum in January. We haven’t had anything, it looks terrible,” she said.
She said it was dry throughout the province which was increasing the risk of veld fires. Areas like Lephalale, Giyani and Tzaneen were extremely dry and desperate for rain.
The deputy chairperson of the Black Agricultural Commodities Federation (BACF), Mike Gcabo, agreed the situation was bad, particularly for emerging farmers.
He said they were collecting data from farmers to quantify the extent and nature of losses. They had received a report from the Lephalale and Giyani regions.
“They seem to be hit hard. Goats and other such animals will eat from trees while other animals and sheep rely on grass, but obviously with this drought that is not happening.
“Particularly for the emerging farmers, it is devastating — to the point that it leads to the loss of livestock, meaning it is an economic loss for the farmer. It is bad. One hopes and prays that there will be relief soon,” he said.
Gcabo suggested that individual farmers might have to consider reducing their livestock by selling them instead of losing animals to death or starvation. By doing so they might be able to salvage some money.
“If that animal dies it is a total loss but if you sell it, you are likely to get money. Though you may not get the full value of the animal if you had sold it in good condition, at least you will be able to get money,” he said.
He added that by reducing stock, farmers were also reducing the burden on grazing land. “It is an unfortunate solution but under the circumstances, farmers have to do that kind of thing to be able to get some value out of the animals rather than face a total loss,” he said.
“Some of these things are more long-term solutions than short-term ones. What compounds this problem is when you have communal grazing challenges. Animals in the community graze in a communal shared area which becomes an extremely difficult problem to manage because there is almost no control.”
CEO of Free State Agriculture Gernie Botha said though his province was not experiencing a drought most areas were dry.
During the dry season farmers in the province use fodder saved during the rainy season, he said. “We try during — let’s call it the good part of the season — to try to save extra fodder for the dry season and hopefully when the rain starts you will be in a position to take it further from there.”
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