The severe load shedding has increased food security risks in South Africa and financial pressures on farmers, agribusinesses and the value chain role-players, and as a result it was it was holding continued engagements with Eskom, the Agricultural Business Chamber of South Africa (Agbiz), said yesterday.
It was lobbying that load shedding did not exceed Stage 2 or 3 as it was critical for the near term, it said. It wanted to also develop contingency plans that allowed greater predictability should outages be unavoidable, so that companies can plan their operations around a more predictable schedule.
Agbiz has also been engaged in various meetings with the Department of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development, and Eskom to find ways to ease the pressure on agribusinesses.
“In the near term, Agbiz has urged for less severe load shedding in areas under irrigation, and food-processing facilities,” it said.
In crucial field crops, roughly 20% of maize, 15% of soybean, 34% of sugarcane and nearly half of the wheat production were produced under irrigation, which faced severe challenges due to persistently hot and dry conditions, coupled with constrained ability to irrigate.
It said fruits and vegetables also heavily relied on irrigation and thus face similar challenges.
Similarly, in the dairy industry, aquaculture, red meat, poultry, animal feed manufacturing and piggeries there were also concerns that load shedding beyond Stage 2 made operations and planning challenging, as these industries all required continuous power for their usual activities.
Agribusinesses faced similar challenges in various downstream processing activities, such as milling, bakeries, abattoirs, wine processing, packaging, and animal vaccine production.
Agbiz said it conducted a survey last week across all the sectors and the results were currently being analysed by a joint team of experts.
“Insights will be shared as soon as possible. The survey will also be used to inform possible interventions that the government and private sector representatives are formulating to ensure a sound approach,” it said.
BUSINESS REPORT