Fruit growers in South Africa’s Western Cape region are working quickly to repair damage to infrastructure, vineyards and orchards following some of the heaviest rains and floods experienced for some years.
The late table grape region, Hex River Valley, and the Breede River Valley were most severely affected, with damage estimates close to SAR1bn (€77.2m), although grape industry sources said that it is too early to predict how the floods will affect overall South African exports.
Stephan Conradie, stonefruit industry product manager, said that although the region is important for stonefruit, he did not expect the floods to affect overall export volumes. “Our production is spread out over a vast area and what you loose in one region you make up in others,” he said.
The Hex River Valley is South Africa’s largest grape growing region and suffered from the floods, according to veteran grower Stephanus Rossouw. “It hit us pretty hard, but it is also too early to predict the affect on our total crop,” he said.
The floodwater from the Hex River, which runs down the centre of the Valley, destroyed a number of bridges linking the two sections. It is estimated that some 80ha of table grapes were washed away, with workers houses near the river also either displaced or severely damaged.
Additionally, normal vineyard maintenance is currently being hampered because the vineyards are too wet and growers fear that this may compound their problems later on in the season.
Western Cape premier Lynne Browne has called for a long-term strategy to deal with events resulting from climate change. “We have seen excessive flooding in different regions over the past three years and will have to find strategies to deal with it,” she said.
Meanwhile, the harvesting of the early table grape crops in the northern regions and in the Orange River have already stared, with the stonefruit season running later than usual with the first significant sea shipments expected next week.
