Farmers in North West are in the fight of their lives after raging fires burned over 100 000 hectares of grazing land to ashes in the province.
During the month of October, farmers in some parts of the province had to watch in agony as their agricultural land burned away. Cattle losses were also reported as result of the intense veld fires that were driven by strong winds.
Dikabelo Petrose, a livestock farmer from Kgokgole village in North West, is one of the many farmers who lost all their grazing land. Petrose farms on communal land and says several other small-scale farmers shared the same fate.
“My cows are hungry and they are looking thin, but what can I do? I don’t have that much money to buy grass,” he tells Food For Mzansi.
Since the fire, Petrose has seen major weight loss in the 40 cows that he rears. Without grazing land for the cows to feed on, Petrose needs to cough up at R140 000 every month to keep the immune system of his cow herd strong and healthy.
Petrose is already running his farm on a shoestring budget and buying supplement feed for the past few weeks has become a financial nightmare for this struggling communal farmer. Petrose is currently feeding his cows with phosphate block, a mineral supplement for cattle and other livestock animals.
‘Thank God for the rain’
In an earlier interview with Food For Mzansi, the MEC for agriculture in the province Desbo Mohono, said that officials were on the ground to assess the extent of the damage, and that she was waiting on a full report.
Petrose confirms that officials did record his details – more than four weeks ago – but he has not heard anything from Mohono’s office since.
“[Shortly after the fire] they [department officials] did an assessment, they took our names, the number of livestock [and other] details but they never came back,” he says.
In the meantime, Petrose is grateful that the province has seen favourable rainfall patterns in the past few weeks.
“Thanks to the rain, the grass is coming up very slowly. Two weeks after the fire, [rain] started [falling] and we’ve had our fifth or sixth rainfall now. The only thing now is to keep them alive until the grass comes up.”
Petrose, along with other affected farmers, could, however, be in for a long wait. This is according to Naudé Pienaar, deputy general manager at Agri North West.
Pienaar says, “Those fields that burned [completely] will take a year to grow back to their full potential. Areas where the grass didn’t burn completely, and there are still patches left, the grass will grow faster.”
Patches of grazing land that did suffer severely should take about five to six weeks to grow back on the condition that current rainfall patterns persist, Pienaar explains.
Calls for disaster declaration
Frustrated by government’s seemingly slow approach, farmers have since called for North West to be declared a disaster.
“We are calling for the government to declare the province a state of disaster as we cannot continue like this,” Eric Thabo Stoch, chair of the North West Umbrella Fire Protection Association, told the Daily Maverick.
“We tried to have a state of disaster declared last year, but failed, as there was no support from the provincial disaster management centre or government. We are trying again this year.”
Pienaar is of the view that provincial disaster declaration would be favourable to the agricultural sector in the province, if done effectively and efficiently.
“Our experience is that it just takes an incredibly long time to get all the different role players on the same side. By the time a disaster area has been declared, it is actually too late,” he tells Food For Mzansi.
He believes there is an easier and faster way to help affected farmers, as opposed to declaring a disaster area.
“If everyone complies with legislation and they have disaster relief in place – which the municipalities and departments are supposed to, according to law – then there is no need to declare a disaster area.”
In the meantime, farmers say they will be watching the weather closely. They hope for good rainfall in the days ahead.
ALSO READ: ‘Dear God, shower our burning fields with rain’
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