In this episode of AgriView, Wandile Sihlobo sets the scene around the growing impact of extreme weather events, from floods in the Eastern Cape and Limpopo to the devastating flooding experienced in the Western Cape.
Anlie Hattingh then speaks to Philip Retief of Van Loveren Family Vineyards about what happened when the Breede River rose to levels the business had never experienced before – despite years of planning and previous floods. With warnings of heavy rainfall, the team had hours to evacuate workers, move vehicles and protect critical equipment.
But the scale of the flood was beyond anything they had anticipated. Philip takes us inside the difficult weeks that followed: millions of litres of wine and extensive infrastructure at risk, farmland literally washed away, farm workers losing their homes, supply chains disrupted and the enormous pressure of getting a business operational again while the full extent of the damage was still unfolding.
He explains how decades of institutional knowledge, family-business experience and a relentless focus on cash flow and “small wins” helped the team recover remarkably quickly – but also why recovery cannot simply mean rebuilding the business as it was.
With the business now unable to insure itself against future flood risk, the conversation turns to a bigger question facing agriculture: how do you adapt a farming and agri-processing business when the risks you once planned for are changing?
From carrying less stock and using technology differently to redesigning infrastructure and rethinking where and how operations are located, this is a candid conversation about resilience, risk and what it takes to build for an uncertain future.
