Land and water were the two elements which dominated the agenda on the first day of the two-day Agri Eastern Cape Annual Congress in Jeffreys Bay on Thursday.
Attended by agriculture delegates from the five regions that comprise Agri Eastern Cape, land expropriation was the major talking point both in presentations and on the sidelines of the organisation’s 17th congress held at Mentors Country Estate.
Water – and the increasing lack of it – was also a major focal point, with Port Elizabeth meteorologist Hugh van Niekerk providing delegates with startling projections around rainfall over the next few months and decades.
Agri Eastern Cape president Doug Stern was re-elected to another two-year term as president during the congress.
The land reform debate gathered momentum after the ANC’s announcement on Tuesday that it would support the amendment of Section 25 of the constitution to make land expropriation without compensation more “explicit”.
Stern told the 126 delegates present that land reform could work, but only if managed properly.
To this end, Stern said Agri EC’s general council had sanctioned the formation of a “transformation hub”, aimed primarily at engaging with the government on failed land reform projects and finding alternative ways of establishing black commercial farmers successfully on the land.
“We need to make some compromises to take the process forward,” Stern said.
“We must highlight those successful models such as partnerships and joint ventures that are already working well.”
Keynote speaker Angelo Fick, who is the director of research at the Auwal Socio-Economic Research Institute, said the land debate was inextricably linked to issues of race, inequality and poverty.
Fick called on farmers to engage strategically with the review process by attending public hearings and making submissions.
Ordinary South Africans could not rely solely on politicians and multinational corporations for humane solutions.
They needed to find new ways of negotiating the future together, he said, adding that many farmers had already begun reorganising relationships with their staff.“It’s an emotional issue for both the farmers, who have made an investment, and for dispossessed black South Africans,” Fick said.
“To pretend that those emotions don’t have equal value is absurd.
“It’s all of us together, or none of us at all.”
Stern said the continuation of the worst drought in over a century and the effects of climate change had made 2018 a particularly difficult year for Eastern Cape farmers.
It was especially bad for those in the western region, who had received donations of more than 22,000 tons of feed from farmers in other regions.
With the Kouga Dam at 6.95%, irrigation farmers in the Gamtoos River Valley have been particularly affected by cuts of 80% in their total allocations for the new water year.
Normal to slightly above average rainfall is expected over the next two weeks in the Kouga area, but drying out again from mid-August, Van Niekerk, who is the Eastern Cape regional manager for the South African Weather Service, told delegates.
“It won’t be enough to fill our dams,” Van Niekerk said.
He said that most of the rain over the next few days would occur out at sea, with some rain brushing the coastline.
Van Niekerk said South Africa was due for another period of el nino conditions.
This may, however, assist the Eastern Cape as when the phenomenon was present, drought was usually present inland, while the coast was likely to experience the converse and may get rain.