Durban: Ven Moodley's family-owned sugarcane farm suffered R20 million in crop and infrastructural damages due to the floods.
Moodley, 67, has been farming with his cousin Raymond Moodley since they were children.
They have 3 000 acres of farmland in Darnall, on Durban's north coast.
"A portion of the farm is used by my family to grow sugarcane and we lease the other to fellow farmers. We also grow fresh produce and more recently, macadamia nuts," said Moodley.
"During the heavy rain, all our crops were destroyed. They were uprooted and were floating in the water and the mudslides. There was nothing we could do to salvage them.
"The roads and bridges on our farm have also washed away. This has made it difficult for us to travel out of the area. Our main source of income is the Gledhow Sugar Mill because we supply sugarcane to them. The electrical system at the mill was destroyed and parts of the mill were flooded."
Moodley said whatever sugarcane they had harvested was soaked in water and may not be suitable to use for making sugar.
"Sugar mills only purchase the sugarcane if it is sweet and the water could affect the taste. The flooding has impacted the cash flow of the farm. We have between 800 and 1 000 employees. Some are permanent workers and the others are on contract. They work on a no-work, no-pay basis and with the inclement weather we cannot do much work on the farm."
He said employees are seeking assistance from the Unemployment Insurance Fund (UIF).
"We have asked the government to supply food hampers to our employees who have been affected. Our farm has damages and crop losses to the value of R20 million. We are using our savings to pay creditors and where it is possible, we are negotiating with the creditors to be patient with us."
Moodley said they had submitted applications for relief through the South African Farmers Development Association, SA Canegrowers, and the KwaZulu-Natal Agriculture Union.
"During the unrest in July last year, protesters set our crops alight. We submitted claims to the government and we have still not received any funding. It is a waiting game now."
He said the damage to the crops would result in a sugar shortage.
"Consumers will start to see the price of sugar and products associated with sugar, like cakes and biscuits go up. The industry has to also ensure that the price is not increased drastically because it will open the door for people to start importing products."
Moodley said apart from the flood damage, farmers were also dealing with a rise in the price for fertiliser and chemicals.
"Last year we were paying R7 000 a ton for fertiliser. It is now about R15 000. Whatever fertiliser we used on our crops has since been washed away due to the flood."
Dr Thomas Funke, the chief executive officer of SA Canegrowers, said the organisation had conducted a survey among 300 canegrowers in the rural areas of KwaZulu-Natal to determine the impact of the recent rains and flooding.
Funke said canegrowers reported that 2 516.65 hectares of cane had extensive crop and root damage.
"The total replanting of these fields to bring them back into production and the damage comes to an estimated R194.9 million.
"Farm infrastructure to the value of R27.9 million has also been destroyed bringing the total losses to R222.9 million."
He said local roads and bridges were also washed away.
"These are not only the main transport nodes to mills but also the access routes for farm inputs and workers employed on these farms. This catastrophic damage comes just as many cane growers had started recovering from the riots and arson attacks that took place in July last year. This saw 554 000 tons of cane being burnt and R84 million in losses."
Funke said small-scale growers were most at risk of not recovering from losses of this magnitude.
"SA Canegrowers has collated all this information into a report, which is sent to the national government, the Department of Trade, Industry and Competition as well as the Department of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development.
"We have requested urgent financial and infrastructure relief from the government to all affected growers so they are able to replant their cane fields and sustain a cash flow while they rebuild their farms in order to be in production by the next harvest season."
He said the report also included a list of local roads and bridges that needed to be prioritised for repairs so that workers can access farms, and growers can transport cane to mills.
Azar Jammine, director and chief economist at Econometrix, said: “The floods would have disturbed (farm) production and it will affect the earnings and indirectly through that, the economy as a whole will be affected.”
Reggie Ngcobo, the spokesperson for the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, said the department met with farming organisation, agro-processing companies and unions in the province last Thursday.
"At the meeting, we agreed to set up a task team which includes the sector and government. The team will look at the actual cost of the floods and come up with ways to assist those affected by the floods."
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