“The government has to realise that the current energy crisis puts food security in question. This is something no country can afford,” says Bennie van Zyl, general manager of the agricultural organisation TLU SA.
TLU SA will participate, on invitation from Thoko Didiza, minister of agriculture, in a meeting today where different parties will discuss the current energy crisis in South Africa.
“TLU SA represents agriculture and the people who make it possible. The National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa) has just announced a 18,65% increase in electricity as from 1 April, which puts agriculture under even more pressure in the midst of load shedding and load reduction. Even the largest famers are now facing unreversible losses. This definitely fortifies the arguments and requests we are submitting to the minister today. Eskom is an excellent example of an institution, as a result of transformation, that harms the economy and the image foreign countries has of South Africa.”
Van Zyl shortly discusses the matters TLU SA will lay on the table:
- The government should consider agriculture as an essential service for the sake of food surety where no load shedding is applied. TLU SA requests that cold chain farmers and farmers dependent on irrigation will be released from load shedding or that load shedding will be applied outside of peak times.
- Producers of cold chain products (temperature regulated) cannot guarantee shelf life as it is. Farmers who use irrigation cannot sustainably produce with diesel and some potato farmers needed to stop production because of their inability to irrigate as necessary.
- Farmers had huge input costs after the president’s promise that the electricity situation will improve with already established crops that will now desiccate. Not only do crop farmers suffer from this, but also winter crops and lucerne, which will cause animals not surviving the winter.
- A shortage of food will increase crime (looting and rebellion) and causes further price increases.
- Farmers who produce less causes unemployment.
- Farmers had to register for irrigation water according to estimates. Due to load shedding these estimates cannot take place, but the amount of water that was registered for cannot be reduced. This is because a farmer, when he wants to irrigate at full capacity again, needs to register all over again, with an environmental impact study of more than R100 000 together with administrative red tape.
“We have reached a point in South Africa where responsible, active citizens realise that we are left to one’s own resources and to look at and implement alternative solutions. Eskom has failed our country under the pressure of the ANC’s policy. Son SA, brought to life by several organisations, is planning an energy conference which is a step forward to make alternative electricity the primary electricity supplier in South Africa. Eskom needs to get out of government hands in order for proper business decisions to be made instead of the ideological decisions made by the ANC.”
Support TLU SA’s campaign to insist on the privatisation of Eskom here.
