South Africa has correctly placed significant emphasis on bringing more black farmers, women and young people into agriculture. As we should, because agriculture cannot transform if there is no broader participation. But bringing more farmers into the sector is only half the job.
By Maile Matsimela, digital editor at African Farming
These farmers must also be equipped with the technology, infrastructure, knowledge and financial resources that will enable them to survive harsh production conditions, including the threat of another El Niño.
There is little value in celebrating the growing number of emerging farmers if one devastating season can undo years of development. We should therefore be asking a much harder question: How many of them are actually equipped to survive when conditions turn against them?
We know what drought can do
The devastating 2015/16 drought provides a painful reminder. A study involving about 3 000 households in KwaZulu-Natal’s Msinga district found that starvation and thirst during the drought killed 42% of the area’s cattle and 28% of its goats. About 9.3% of livestock-owning households lost all their cattle and 4.5% lost all their goats.
Perhaps most sobering is that nine years later, some households still had no cattle or goats, and others had not rebuilt their herds and flocks to pre-drought levels. That is the part of the drought conversation we sometimes overlook. Rain eventually returns. A farmer’s business does not necessarily return with it.
A livestock herd accumulated over many years cannot simply be replaced when the first rain falls. For crop farmers, a failed season can mean losing money already spent on seed, fertiliser, diesel, labour and land preparation, while still needing capital to plant again.
For an emerging farmer operating on narrow margins, one disastrous season can threaten the existence of the entire business.
Also read: Study finds droughts devastate SA’s communal livestock owners
Knowing drought is coming is not enough
Recent research into climate adaptation among Southern African livestock farmers reinforces the point that knowing drought is coming is not enough.
Researchers examining pastoral communities across seven Southern African countries found improved climate forecasts alone produced only modest benefits when poorer households lacked the financial capacity to respond.
We can tell a livestock farmer that drought is coming, but what good is that warning if they cannot afford supplementary feed, establish fodder reserves or reduce their herd before conditions become desperate?
What good is increasingly sophisticated weather information to a crop farmer who cannot afford efficient irrigation, water storage or appropriate drought-tolerant cultivars?
Information is valuable when farmers have the means to act on it. The research found stronger outcomes when climate information was combined with practical interventions such as supplementary feed, drought insurance, financial support and improved market access. This should be an important lesson for South Africa.
Also read: Together through the drought: When farmers stand in a circle in the dry veld
Give farmers the complete toolbox
We do not need to invent some miraculous new technology to defeat El Niño. Many tools that can help farmers withstand difficult conditions already exist.
Weather and satellite information can help farmers anticipate changing conditions. Soil-moisture sensors and precision irrigation can improve water use. Drought- and heat-tolerant cultivars can reduce production risk.
For livestock farmers, better water management, fodder conservation and information about veld conditions can support earlier decisions about feeding and stocking.
But resilience is not only about sophisticated technology. Water harvesting and storage matter. Fodder banks matter. Insurance and access to finance matter. Appropriate seed, sound grazing management and the knowledge to act early all belong in the same toolbox.
The challenge is that many emerging farmers cannot afford these measures and this is where farmer development must go further.
When we provide livestock, we should ask what the farmer’s drought plan is. When we establish irrigation, we should consider whether it will remain effective when water becomes scarce. When we support crop production, part of that support should include access to appropriate cultivars, climate information and water-management technology.
It is not enough to equip someone to enter agriculture. We must equip them to remain in agriculture.
Emerging farmers themselves also have a responsibility. During good seasons, resilience should become an investment alongside expansion. Improving water storage, establishing fodder reserves, adopting efficient irrigation or building financial reserves may be less exciting than buying more livestock or planting additional hectares, but they could determine whether the business survives the next drought.
Food security depends on farmers who survive
When an emerging farming business collapses, years of public and private investment can disappear with it. We then find ourselves providing livestock, inputs, finance and support again, effectively rebuilding businesses we have already spent years developing.
Surely it makes greater economic sense to invest in resilience before disaster strikes and South Africa needs more emerging farmers. But increasing their numbers cannot be our only measure of progress.
Real progress is having more productive, profitable and resilient farmers who can continue producing when conditions become difficult.
When farmers disappear, production disappears with them. When livestock herds are drastically reduced, rebuilding takes years. When crop farmers cannot afford to plant again, productive land can fall out of production.
Multiply that across thousands of farmers and this stops being only a farmer-development problem and also becomes a food-security problem. We cannot prevent the next El Niño or drought, but we can determine how prepared our farmers are when it arrives.
If we are serious about developing emerging farmers, let us give them the complete toolbox to survive the bad seasons too.
Also read:
11 emerging farmers begin 12-month journey to commercial independence
North West builds seven packhouses to help emerging farmers reach formal markets
‘We are not accepting defeat’: Satellite-triggered insurance gives maize farmers a lifeline against El Niño
