Above-normal rainfall during the early stages of the growing season raised expectations for a generous crop. However, a short dry spell during the first half of September put paid to that.
But farmers in the drought-stricken southern Cape, especially east of Swellendam, had it tougher. Henk de Beer, assistant manager of products and services at Sentraal-Suid Koöperasie (SSK), Swellendam, said this year’s cereal crop in the co-op’s service area was produced on extremely low rainfall of between 90mm and 140mm.
Hardest hit by drought was the Napkei area. The 21 000ha planted to wheat in the SSK area was almost a third less than last year’s 31 000ha. A total of 27 000t of wheat was harvested, representing an average yield of just above a ton to the hectare. At a wheat price of R2 100/t producers needed yields of at least 1,6t/ha to break even.
The low wheat price at the time and the government’s poor handling of the import tariffs for wheat kept producers from planting more wheat, said De Beer. Under the conditions, the yields attained were miracles in themselves, he added.
Moreover, it clearly demonstrated the role played by new technology such as minimum-till, precision-planting techniques and the correct cultivar choice in partly overcoming such conditions. Producers in Overberg Agri’s service area performed better than their counterparts in the east.
According to Johan Lusse, an agronomist at Overberg Agri, total wheat production was down between 20% and 25%. Barley was down between 10% and 25% on the regional average. Certain locations in the vicinity of Rietpoel, Klipdale and Napier came quite close to average yields. And most producers would be in a position to cover input costs, he said.
Soil moisture conditions were never sufficient throughout the growing period and controlling weeds was made difficult by the dry conditions during the early growing period, added Lusse.
Wheat farmers in the Swartland also staged a huge production scale-down of about 18% after government’s insufficient new import tariffs for wheat were announced, said Johan de Lange, manager of products and services at Kaap Agri in Malmesbury. The land left vacant wasn’t replanted with other cash crops, but instead was left fallow to recover natural fertility, or used to control weeds which were fast becoming uncontrollable.
According to De Lange, a slow agrarian transformation is taking place in the Swartland, with farmers increasing stock numbers to spread the risks associated with unreliable weather conditions, international pricing, and political decisions. He estimated the average yield for the Swartland to be 2,3t/ha, which was just short of the five-year average of 2,4t/ha.
Formerly, on average, the good B1 and B2 grades constituted 30% of the harvest, but this year they doubled to 60%. The most likely explanation for this is that it never rained excessively enough for nutrients such as nitrogen to wash out of the soil. Theuns Coetzee, an agronomist with Moorreesburg Koringboere, said wheat producers are financially better off by R500 than the previous season given a commodity price of R2 100/t.
