While KwaZulu-Natal continues to pick up the pieces, the Milk Producers’ Organisation estimates that farmers in this province dumped close to two million litres of milk per day during a week of anarchy.
Fanie Ferreira, interim chief executive of the MPO says the dumping was a direct result of unrest which has since been described by President Cyril Ramaphosa as “an attack on our democracy”.
“There was absolutely no transport available. Nothing was running. None of the factories were operating. So, as far as we know, a huge amount of milk was being dumped; close to 2 million litres [a day].”
Ferreira cited the example of dairy farmer Rob Stapylton-Smith from Ixopo, about 80km south of Pietermaritzurg. He had the tongues wagging after being forced to dump milk because it could not be delivered due to the protest action.
“We saw a video of one guy [Stapylton-Smith] dropping 28 000 litres and, in another video, there were three trucks of 30 000 [litres] each that were emptied. So, a lot of milk is being dumped every single day,” he says.
ALSO READ: Resilient food supply chains ‘will defy democracy attack’
Cows ‘can’t be switched on and off’
Ferreira adds that dairy farmers were not able to pause their operations during the protest action. Even if they wanted to, they could not stop producing milk because “cows are not an electricity facility that you can put on and off. They have to be milked twice a day.”
Having said that, things are looking up after calm has been restored in KwaZulu-Natal. Previously blockaded highways have been opened up and trucks are back on the roads to transport milk.
Meanwhile, Colin Wellbeloved, MPO chairman and farmer, paints a stark picture of what dairy producers in the province were experiencing last week.
Sinesipho Tom: How badly were dairy farmers impacted by the looting?
Colin Wellbeloved: It’s a dire situation at the moment here in KwaZulu-Natal. As dairy farmers go, we were still waking up and milking our cows every day. Well, twice a day, but, you know, we were just pouring the milk down the drain. It was not just me. It was every single farmer.
There was no transport. We could not get our milk off our farms and into factories. Even if we could, the factories were full and overwhelmed and farmers did not have anywhere to deliver the milk to.
There is a lot of land that is up in flames at the moment. Farmers stayed up until the late ours of the evening putting out fires. What does give me a bit of hope, is that it’s not just the farmers that were outing out the fires, the communities were helping us.
How are things going with milk producers nationally?
It is going pretty well under the circumstances. We are producing a little bit less milk this year than we did last year. Obviously, farmers and consumers have been under pressure and because of the low return, we aren’t able to produce as much milk as we have been in the past.
It is about 3.9% off for the first six months of the year so far. That is not great, but I think we have seen fewer farmers go out of business in the first six months of this year than we have seen in the first six months of last year.
