For some time now, the agriculture sector in South Africa has been crippled by insufficient and incoherent policies regarding disaster relief for farmers.

This has often left farmers – particularly those affected by the recent devastating fires that ravaged thousands of hectares in North West, the eastern Free State, Gauteng, and large parts of the Eastern Cape – in dire straits and with little to no support from government.

Valuable plantations in Limpopo and Mpumalanga have also been lost and orchards have suffered irreparable damage, leaving farmers to make do with whatever funds that civil organisations can raise for disaster relief.

Farmers across south africa affected

These disasters, and the lack of aid from government, even affects those who are beneficiaries of land reform.

These farmers are struggling to keep their heads above water after the extensive damage caused by the recent fires.

Many farmers’ fences have been destroyed, livestock and wildlife have been killed, and in the Lowveld region, farmers have lost sheds, vehicles and equipment in devastating runaway fires.

The damage to potatoes in Limpopo caused by black frost and the floods in the Western Cape that drowned crops, fields, vineyards and orchards have left farmers with no capacity to bridge the financial gap between these natural disasters and what is needed to get back on their feet again.

Farmers need to repay loans for the seed, fertiliser and diesel that may or may not have been used, but which has nevertheless been destroyed. And apart from paying back these loans, they must once again be in a position where they can set up the next crop as the planting season is at hand.

But without the much-needed relief that government-backed disaster schemes can lend, many farmers have only one option – a mass exodus from farming.

The loss of big groups of farmers from certain areas will have an impact on food security in small communities and the businesses that operate in those communities. It will impact the local economy and job opportunities in the area.
This is why a solid policy on disaster relief for farmers is of the utmost importance to the agriculture sector.

However, in South Africa, disaster relief is a luxury because most of it has been driven by private initiatives rather by government.

SA’s biggest disaster relief scheme

The biggest disaster relief scheme in South Africa is Manna vir die Boere, which consists of several organisations that coordinate and pool their resources in an effort to enable as many farmers as possible to continue farming.

These organisations include the Southern African Agri Initiative, Agri North West, AfriForum, the Gift of the Givers Foundation, Caring Daisies, Save the Sheep, the Boere in Nood Groep, Droogtehulp, and TLU SA.

Manna vir die Boere has the ability to move donated goods, feed, fodder and livestock to the areas that need it most.

The impact of the recent disasters could have been significantly less if government had rendered much-needed financial assistance.

In a province like the Western Cape, much has been done by the provincial government to try to keep farmers on their farms and to revive their enterprises.

This made the crucial difference. There are farms on the border of the Western Cape that were lucky to have survived thanks to the provincial government’s assistance, while their neighbours in other provinces could not survive the many challenges that came their way.

How government can help

The formation and early successes of the Government of National Unity in South Africa have brought about a lot of hope that much-needed policies with regards to farming and disaster relief will receive better attention.

A state-backed input-replacement insurance scheme that protects both small- and large-scale farmers from financial losses if their essential farm inputs, like seed, fertiliser or pesticides, are damaged or destroyed would go a long way to addressing the void in the national strategy for disaster relief for farmers.

But a large part of the solution lies in public-private partnerships, and policymakers would be wise not to try to reinvent the wheel but rather to work closely with networks like Manna vir die Boere, which has been doing the job that government has neglected up to now.

By involving and incorporating existing private initiatives in the formation of policies and implementation of disaster relief, scarce resources can be stretched so
much further.

The views expressed in our weekly opinion piece do not necessarily reflect those of Farmer’s Weekly.

Dr Theo de Jager is the chairperson of the board at the Southern African Agri Initiative (Saai). Email [email protected].

Francois Rossouw is the CEO of Saai. Email [email protected].