The Langkloof region in South Africa's south-east Cape region is expected to experience a 50 per cent drop in farm income this year, as a result of devastating drought and the continuing water problems resulting from flood damage to infrastructure in late 2007.
The apple and pear crop in the Langkloof will be around 30 per cent down on last year because of a lack of irrigation water which has affected fruit size, as well as damage caused by sunburn.
Coupled with the estimated rise of 35 per cent in input costs, many growers in the region will find it hard to make ends meet.
Growers in the Langkloof region suffered huge damage in the November 2007 floods which washed away many storage dams, irrigation systems and parts of orchards. At the time, growers expressed their fear that they would be forgotten during the rebuilding phase as most of the focus of flood relief remained on the more populated coastal and urban areas.
'Our fears were justified and, despite the fact that we were invited by the government to submit applications for relief to cover the R90m (€6.98m) worth of repairs to our farming infrastructure, nothing has happened,' said Andre de Witt, prominent grower and chairman of the Langkloof Farmers' Association. 'We are always left to face the music when this kind of tragedy occurs because there have been no responses to the long-term problems created by the floods for the farming sector.'
According to Mr de Witt, the present problems with water shortages in the Langkloof region are directly related to the slow response by the government after the floods.
'Many growers did not have the resources to rebuild storage capacity themselves during 2008,' he explained. 'The dams that did not break in the floods are badly silted up and the capacity for storage had been drastically reduced.'
One of the leading growers in the Langkloof region, the Dutoit Group, has lead recovery actions amongst growers. Gys du Toit, managing director of production, said that the group lost 26 dams on its farms during the flooding.
'So far we have completely rebuilt 22 of these dams, and if we get good rains this winter we will be able to store sufficient supplies to recover,' he said. 'In the short term, however, we are suffering in the same way as other growers with a production drop and steep rises in input costs.'
Pieter du Toit, managing director for marketing at Dutoit, said that the loss in production in the Langkloof will to a degree be compensated by excellent crops in the Ceres region, where the group has plenty of water.
'We really have a vintage crop in Ceres and this will soften the blows in the Langkloof somewhat,” he noted.
