Thank very much hon Chairperson, hon Minister; you have rightly said that climate change affects everyone, including our agricultural sector. One of the consequences of this is drought.
My constituency is in the western Free State, which has experienced one of the worst droughts in many years. This past weekend, one
farmer, a 58-year-old Mr Viljoen, committed suicide because of the state of his finances and the consequences of the drought in that area; it is believed. There are other farmers who are also emotionally not in a very good space. They go to the banks for loans and they get told that they can't be given any loans because of the uncertainty that the whole issue around section 25 has created. They currently in many places rely on private help. Charity and goodwill can only go so far.
Premier Ntombela was there just before the elections and consulted with them and made some undertakings but we haven't seen anything resulting from that.
So, what I would like to know, hon Minister, is that there is some help in other provinces that was given but in this specific area we haven't seen any help going to the farmers. Will you please make an undertaking to help them urgently in any way that you can and in what way would that be? Thank you very much.
The MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE, LAND REFORM AND RURAL DEVELOPMENT:
Thank you very much hon member, the question that you are asking is new. It links with another question that I am sure will come on the Order Paper relating to drought assistance. Maybe, one of the things
that we must appreciate as a country is that we are in an arid zone and therefore, the way in which we undertake our farming systems should factor that into our planning and operation. This is part of the work ... as I indicated earlier, working with my colleague, hon Barbara Creecy ... to look at how we can be climate smart with regards to our agriculture and also look at different adaption mechanisms.
We also are going to look at various options working with our Agricultural Research Council, ARC, and others to look at how we ensure that our agriculture takes into consideration the reality of climate change.
You would know that as a Department of Agriculture Land Reform and Rural Development both nationally and provincially, the function of disaster management lies with the Department of Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs. Various municipalities as well as provinces do have some limited assistance on disaster management. Nationally as well, there are particular procedures that have to be followed on the declaration of the disaster but there are other mechanisms in my view that we could look at into the future as to how we can ensure that we have insurance products for agriculture that would ameliorate the problems, as we do when we put aside money
for insurance for our cars and property so that on rainy days when we have challenges, we claim for them.
With respect to the specific matter of the western Free State that you have indicated, I hope that we will be able to talk to the MEC for Agriculture in the province to better understand what it is that they are doing and you can assist me with the name of the district which I can forward to my MEC so that she can visit and work with the farmers on how they can be assisted going forward. Thank you. [Applause.]