Unseasonably hot weather is expected in the country’s north. The Weather Service predicts abnormally high temperatures in the next three months.
There will be little rainfall in this period. This spells bad news for both livestock and grain farmers.
Farmers were brought to their knees by a prolonged dry spell grazing fields have dried up and livestock is dying. That has become a burden to cattle farmers like 60-year-old Sarel Marx, who has been farming for 11 years, but now he’s losing hope.
Marx says, “We start to sell our cattle. Now, we can’t buy in because there’s no rain and we have lost a lot of cattle.”
Economically, this is a roller-coaster for farmers.
Agri Molopo Farmers Union, Nicol Muller says, “We were trying to do a building up of production animals, but again, we have sold them off this year already you cannot keep them.”
However, good Samaritans have volunteered to provide cattle fodder to these struggling farmers.
Burre Burger from Drought Relief with Burre Burger, “We delivered almost 12 trucks now. We’ve got some trucks coming this week again. We had trucks last weekend here, three trucks on Sunday. We deliver everyday if we can.”
Roundtable Donors Michael Donaldson says, “If I can ask the farmers, or any people, businesses, companies, just to help us with donations, to buy more lucerne and stuff and feed the animals and for diesel for the trucks, it will be appreciated.”
Dam levels are also getting lower in other areas, with overall dam levels for the Western Cape at 26% and Kwa-Zulu Natal at 51%.
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