Eastern Cape farms to suffer after water allocation cut by 60%
This was announced by the Gamtoos Irrigation Board (GIB) at the end of last week. For the affected farmers, the cut in water allocations is dire. GIB board member Rudolf Rose grew up in the region and farms maize, lucerne and vegetables.
“On a full water allocation, we are able to plant 350 hectares of combined crops annually,” Rose said. “With the reduced allocation, we will be lucky if we even plant 160ha. If that’s the case, we will have to concentrate on our higher income crops that are less water intensive, such as pumpkin and butternut.
“The lucerne will survive, but we’ll get no yield from that crop,” he added. “The maize is too water intensive to plant. Even with a full allocation of water in 2016/17, we battled because of the very low rainfall. Now the dam is low, and that is our last line of defence.”
Rose said that jobs also hang in the balance. If farmers can't plant their full allocation of crops, there is no need for a full staff, which means less jobs to go around.
source: infrastructurene.we
