An acute cold front that ravaged areas around the Soutpansberg Mountains from Sunday has left farmers counting losses as thousands of hectares of crops have been damaged.

Tshianeo Mathidi from Vivo, outside Polokwane, is a reputable Limpopo potato farmer.

He has been farming on his 950-hectare land in the Bushveld area of the province for years. Although known for its warm and semi-arid conditions, temperatures in Vivo dropped to an unusual -4°C from Sunday morning to Wednesday this week.

This led to Mathidi losing 17 hectares of his potato crop. The potatoes were under two weeks away from being harvested, when the plants dried up and died. He says the loss is estimated at R3.5 million in profit.

“This black frost that we have experienced has damaged both fields that I had, which are 17.5 hectares, in such a way that they cannot be harvested and this thing means a lot because the cost to produce one hectare is around R200 000($11 000), which I don’t have.”

Mathidi, who has employed hundreds of permanent and part time workers, says job cuts are inevitable. “There were two personnel working on the field. Each field had a security guard to look after it for wild animals and any other thing that comes here.

“So, it means because of this their job is finished, their job is finished now. Then there are people who come to do harvesting, it means they won’t have that chance. Usually for harvesting and packaging we always have over 200 people working for this field, so it’s going to be a challenge.”

Mathidi has made an impassioned plea to the Department of Agriculture to declare Limpopo a disaster area. “Please declare that Limpopo is a disaster area as far as farmers are concerned because this damage has covered all over Limpopo. Please take care of us.”

Benny Van Zyl of farmers organisation Transvaal Agricultural Union of SA has warned of possible food price hikes following the disaster. “The impact of black frost that we experienced for three days in a row in the Limpopo province had a severe impact on the production of especially tomatoes, potatoes and other vegetables.

“And the impact of this for the consumer will be severe for the future for the production and availability of these vegetables. We experienced now a lot of problems especially for our farmers that to keep them in production for the future. At this stage we have to make plans as to what we are going to do for the next production process.”

Minister of Agriculture John Steenhuisen says they are working around the clock to deal with natural disasters such as veld fires and black frost.

--SABC--