By Alani Janeke
Heavy rain and flooding are causing havoc and heartbreak for farmers in certain areas of the country.
On 14 April 2025 Johan Swan Jr from Barkly West ‘swam’ among his maize! “In places the water was so deep it would go over my head. Then I just turned around. I don’t want to drown in a maize field,” says Johan Swan Jr of the Swan Boerdery Group.
Johan is 1.85m tall. In several of his fields on the farm Willowdene along the Harts River, the river pushed deep into the fields, but in two fields in particular, things looked rough.
Elsewhere in his fields along the river, the water was up to 1.6m deep. Where the maize was not standing in the water, he suspects the maize will be able to be harvested, but where the maize was underwater, the heads may start to germinate before it is dry or can be harvested.
Johan has measured a total of 154mm of rain since 1 April .
He says on his farm as well as on Dampoort, the farm on which his father, Johan Swan Sr, farms, about 70ha of fields were flooded. The damaged hectares include several lucerne fields. “We have major damage and losses here.”
Johan Sr says due to the continuous wet conditions, they cannot cut lucerne on time, which has already led to major losses. “The sun starts to shine for a day or so and the lucerne starts to dry, but then it suddenly becomes overcast again and starts to rain. And there’s nothing you can do about it. In places here, river fields were underwater up to the top of the pivot.”
The farm’s average annual rainfall is 450mm. Since January, they have already measured 600mm. “The big problem is that a lot of this rain fell in a short time.”
The Swans are monitoring river levels closely, especially since heavy rain fell widely across the interior of the country this week.
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