Farmers who rely on irrigation warn of the dire effects of continuous load shedding which will negatively impact production, especially during harvest season.
Agricultural experts said the knock-on effects would hit consumers' pockets.
Wandile Sihlobo, chief agri economist at the Agricultural Business Chamber warned roughly 20% of maize, 15% of soya beans, 34% of sugar cane, and nearly half of the wheat production would be affected.
“Fruits and vegetables also heavily rely on irrigation and thus face similar challenges. Red meat, poultry, piggery, wool, and dairy production, there are also concerns that load shedding beyond stage 2 makes operations and planning challenging, as these industries all require continuous power. Similarly, agribusinesses face downstream challenges, such as milling, bakeries, abattoirs, wine processing, packaging, and animal vaccine production.”
Sihlobo warned that consumers would feel the pinch and have to dig deeper into their pockets to survive the food price inflation, which slowed marginally to 12.7% in December from 12.8% in November.
“The product prices underpinning this moderation include meat, oils and fats. For 2022, consumer food price inflation averaged 9.5% (compared with 6.5% y/y in 2021 and 4.8% in 2020). Broadly, the high prices of grains, vegetable oils and meat for much of 2022 were the primary drivers of consumer food price inflation,” he said.
He said the domestic agricultural season benefited from higher summer rains; however, load shedding, disrupted the irrigation regions and presented risks to crops.
“Moreover, the disruptions in some food-processing companies and the associated cost increases all present upside risks to consumer food price inflation. Before this intensified load-shedding period, we thought South Africa’s consumer food price inflation would slow to 5.5% to 6.0% in 2023 (down from 9.5% in 2022),” said Sihlobo.
He said there were also food security concerns, as the effect of load shedding would probably show in the volumes of products to be harvested/produced later in the coming months.
The Groote Post Vineyards started their harvest season and said they were experiencing a problematic harvest as a result of load shedding.
Spokesperson Peter Pentz said they were not yet able to determine the effects, but said they were using a lot more diesel.
“Wine production needs electricity at various stages and you can imagine that without electricity, this puts us in a very difficult predicament. Where vine irrigation is required, a continuous supply of water is required. Failure to do so can have serious consequences for the quality of the grapes.”
He said before the harvest season they were not using generators that often. But at the moment, they must use them for 24 hours to keep up with production.
“The production costs are high, and the most challenging thing with these power cuts is the unpredictability of Eskom, as we can’t plan ahead as to how many times the electricity will go off on a particular day. This is killing our businesses, and we call upon the government and Eskom to exclude agribusinesses from power cuts as this will threaten food and job security in the country, creating a much worse problem in the near future,” said Pentz.
Recently, poultry farmer Herman du Preez, owner of the Frangipani Boerdery in Lichtenburg, said he plans to sue Eskom after 40 000 to 50 000 chickens died due to power cuts.
Vinpro spokesperson Wanda Augustyn said load shedding was extremely challenging for the wine industry with the harvest currently in process.
“For the next 12 weeks it is extremely important that the wine industry has the necessary power to keep production going. At farm level that means power to irrigate the vineyards. When you consider the various regions, sources of water from streams, mountain water to dams or via canals, where it then must be pumped out again, industry simply needs more on time to manage vineyards optimally and secure a good wine harvest,” said Augustyn.
She said cellars were relying more and more on generators to keep production going, at huge costs.
“Coming from a drought, then the pandemic and then all the alcohol bans from the government, the wine industry simply cannot afford this crisis,” she said.
She said the industry was doing its utmost to provide job security to all farm and cellar workers.
“We need to rebuild and grow this industry and that cannot happen with the current load-shedding situation,” said Augustyn.