Farmers in the Northern Cape are facing severe financial and agricultural setbacks after receiving maize seedlings late from the government. The delay, combined with the introduction of an unfamiliar cultivar, has resulted in poor harvests and mounting frustration among the farming community.
Crop farmer Mmasello Nkomo from Jan Kempdorp in the Northern Cape shared that the government gave them maize seedlings in January 2024. She said her joy later turned to disaster.
“The intention for the government to help us was so that we can go plant and thus better our lives and the lives of our people by planting maize – and we did so. Things were very hard, hard as a rock. Firstly, we received our seedlings when it was already late.
“We got them in January while other plots had already started planting in November and December. So that on its own created a problem for us, however, we were hopeful that maybe something would come forth,” she said.
Nkomo said while they were planting, some expert farmers told them that the maize was not of good quality and it would not yield anything positive. However, like many other farmers, she was hopeful that the produce would be better.
Hope turns sour
Nkomo explained that she and the other farmers didn’t give up and continued with planting. She also made a R50 000 loan to prepare the land and this was her first maize harvest.
According to Nkomo, the planted maize is only becoming green now while other farmers are harvesting. For her, this means the cold weather is negatively impacting the maize and reducing the crop quality and yield size.
“There is no harvest here, so I will not see anything after all the effort I have put in,” she said.
Meanwhile, Sehularo Sehularo, the coordinator of Saamtrek Saamwerk, said as an organisation he and his team are disappointed. He added that he agonised over how the department of agriculture could give farmers seeds without testing them out.
Impact on farmers
Sehularo said the impact on farmers is huge because they used their money for soil preparation, hiring equipment, diesel, electricity, and watering and he believes the department should compensate them.
“This clearly shows that there is no monitoring of how government money is spent, which is very embarrassing.
“All the farmers who planted are more than 15 and the government bought it on behalf of the farmers. The farmers are crop farmers who wanted to plant maize,” he said.
Meanwhile, Christopher Makwati, also a crop farmer, confirmed that the government provided farmers with seeds and fertiliser and the maize cultivar given to them was a foreign one, one he had no experience with.
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A foreign cultivar
“Normally they give us pioneer maize seeds but this time they gave us a foreign cultivar and it is not doing well at all.
“I am not feeling good about this because I have to harvest and I have to pay for water, electricity, and the harvesters and I’m not going to get a good profit from my production. The way I see it, I will get below 9%, which is nothing. I’m not happy at all,” he said.
Makwati added that the foreign seed cultivar seems to be growing well on one side of the field but on the other side, it is not. He said the maize is not growing at the same level and some parts are not growing at all.
“I do not know what type of seed this is, I do not understand what is wrong with it and it’s the first time planting it. It is not round-up ready because if it was, there would be no such problem as this. We experienced the drought and it did not survive at all,” he said.
Efforts to get a comment from the department of agriculture, rural development and land reform in the Northern Cape were unsuccessful.
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