Agriculture sector loses R16 billion due to drought
South Africa’s agricultural sector has suffered losses worth R16 billion as a result of a drought which has devastated many farmers in the country, a government statement said on Tuesday.
The statement by government’s economic sectors, employment and infrastructure development cluster was handed out at a media briefing by various government ministers in Parliament.
Despite the losses to the sector, Agriculture Minister Senzeni Zokwana again said government would not be declaring the drought a national disaster, insisting that in some cases the situation was improving as a result of intervention from government and non-governmental organisations.
“What we have seen recently as we were doing estimates of crops that would tell us how much we will be able to import in terms of grains and the … estimate is we’ll be able to harvest 7,2 million tonnes and that would expose us to 1,8 [million tonnes] of white maize and 2,7 [million tonnes] of yellow maize [imports],” said Zokwana.
READ: DA - Drought could lead to ‘unaffordable’ food prices
“We are worried about the coming winter, so there are plans to deal with that. I don’t think a national disaster would assist us in doing our work now,” he said.
Zokwana said declaring a national disaster could have a negative impact in that the country’s banks would be unwilling to invest in the sector.
“If you were to do that, the banks would reduce exposure in agriculture in terms of planning going forward and therefore you run the risk of when you need them [banks] to come forward for investment, you would struggle to get them to come forward.” - ANA