Hon Minister, with all due respect, the R30 million that was provided to the farmers in the Northern Cape is the small portion of the R640 million that your department said is required. Your department is like an ambulance arriving at the accident scene seven days after the accident occurred. It is too late, it's too little. My question to you, hon Minister, is: Since your government has taken too long to react to this drought, breading herds in ... not only the Northern Cape but several other provinces, breading herds have been depleted. Those are herds that it has taken a long time to build up those herds. Due to this drought, those herds have now been depleted, grazing has been trampled to such an extend that
it will take much longer than in the past for those grazing to recover. What I'm asking is, we are all aware of the effects that global climate change have and that we are a water scarce country, what will your department do to ensure in future you have a faster response time to disasters such as this drought and other disasters in order to mitigate them for our farmers? Our farmers - who by the way - are the foundation of food security in this country. Thank you, Minister.
The MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE, LAND REFORM AND RURAL DEVELOPMENT: Hon
Aucamp, I must say that I applaud and appreciate hon Groenewald who is in the NA; his attitude in addressing this matter was very positive. He actually appreciated that government doesn't have all the resources to assist in this regard. He invited the Deputy President and myself, visited the Northern Cape, met with the farmers, indicated to the farmers what government was doing and the commitment that government was going to put.
You are correct, the analysis of the Department of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development in terms of what would be required to mitigate the problems that the farmers in the five districts are facing, was indeed R500 million. But what we could give from the Department of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development not
disaster management, which is the function of CoGTA, was
R30 million, which had actually been made upfront. And farmers, contrary to the way in which you are responding, were very positive; and they appreciated, they even advised us what would be the better mechanism to deliver foda utilising that resource.
Farmers in the Northern Cape themselves, offered to government that they would work with small holder farmers if government were to provide land where they can plant foda that would continuously assist.
So, the attitude of farmers on the ground is very different than the way in which you are portraying government's intervention. They actually appreciated it.
If government was like an ambulance that comes later, surely that R30 million would not have been expanded. And remember that this is the sixth year in the Northern Cape that they have been experiencing drought. From year one the government has been giving resources to assist in the Northern Cape.
You can shake your head, good. It may not be enough but remember what I said, going forward, firstly, we need to ensure that in terms
of the strategies to respond to the drought, region in which we belong as the country would require different farming system that we must employ. Secondly, farmers, themselves, must provide to actually mitigate when there are challenges like any of you and me included to do in terms of your car insurance and other insurances. And that is the issue that also our financial institutions must be alive to that financial services including insurance for agriculture should actually be considered not as an incidental issue but as a norm.
And I think we must appreciate what currently the government has been doing and it's important to remember that as opposed to the past, you've got many farmers that this government must support. You've also got many other areas of need which this government must respond to.
I mean some of the earlier questions that have been asked in this House does indicate the many needs of resources from government that must be expanded to. So, I don't really think, at times when we deal with issues like this, we must take the posture that we do because we are dealing with a natural disaster that has really hurt ... serious negatives, consequences, some of the farmers have taken their own lives because they couldn't cope. So, I don't think it
could be a matter of politicking in the manner in which we deal with it. And we must be appreciative of what is being done.
Hon Aucamp, thank you very much. [Applause.]