Western Cape farmers count their losses after flooding

Many areas of the Western Cape experienced unseasonal flooding during the weekend of 16 and 17 November that affected thousands of people across the province.

Western Cape farmers count their losses after flooding
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In Somerset West and Strand, one of the worst-affected areas, people had to vacate their houses. A hospital in Somerset West had to be evacuated after the building flooded. Meanwhile, preliminary reports from farmers in different regions suggested that crop losses would not be too severe. Piet Uys, vineyard manager at Lourensford wine estate near Somerset West said no damage was suffered to vineyards or to the apple, pear and plum orchards on the farm, but that farm roads would require repair.

“We received about 220mm of rain during a 24-hour period over the weekend. I have been working on the farm for 20 years and I have never seen this much rain, falling over such a short period at this time of the year,” he said. Bob Hobson farm manager at Morgenster wine and olive estate near Somerset West told Farmer’s Weekly they don’t expect crop losses from the heavy rain and the only damage caused was to farm roads.

Vinpro’s viticulture consultation manager, Francois Viljoen, said they were still in the process of compiling a damage survey.
“It seems that the impact on the 2013/2014 wine grape harvest will be limited. If damages were suffered it would have been by farmers in and around Paarl, Wellington, Franschhoek and Stellenbosch, but we are still waiting for reports from those areas,” he said.

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Grain farmers in the Swartland area were not affected by the weekend’s downpours. According to Moorreesburg farmer and Grain SA representative Andries Theron, the Swartland received, on average, less than 20mm of rain over the weekend. Grain services manager at Overberg Agri, Johan Lusse, said farmers in the Overberg region were not as lucky as those in the Swartland.

“Farms in the region received between 70mm and 130mm of rain over the weekend. The fields are too wet for farmers to continue harvesting and we have not been able to properly assess the damage done to wheat and barley plantings. Hopefully towards the end of the week conditions would have improved to such an extent that we can get into the fields,” he said.

According to Lusse, the wheat and barley harvest was already well underway with about 60% of wheat and 80% of barley already harvested. “To date the quality of crops received has been very good. We will have to wait for harvesting to resume before we can determine if the recent rainfall negatively affected the quality of wheat and barley still on the land,” he said.

Twitter: @agri_erasmus