Crippling road infrastructure is damaging supply chains for farmers across South Africa, wrecking the industry and ultimately threatening food security.

Speaking to ENCA, Pitso Sekhoto, chair of the Agri-sector Unity Forum and member of the African Farmers Association, said that the lack of useable roads is damaging to the transportation of goods or key commodities such as diesel to and from farms.

Sekhoto said that the government, especially local governments, are not doing what they are mandated to do and are responsible for this ‘mess’. He stressed that no one is taking the issue seriously despite it severely affecting farmers and the agricultural industry.

Sekhoto added that it is also important to preserve the agricultural industry as it employs thousands of people.

“If we do not fix these problems, we are slowly going to have food insecurity,” the chairman said.

“There’s no reason behind roads not being fixed,” he said, adding that the money is there as it forms part of the municipalities budget. However, most of it is going towards wasteful expenditure or corruption, he said.

Adding to farmers’ woes is the failed rail network under Transnet. If this was up to scratch, farmers could make full use of transporting large quantities of goods across South Africa. There is no working and reliable rail system, however.

“If the rail were here, farmers would have done better. If you can’t have rail, congestion on the roads is terrible,” said Sekhoto.

Growing troubles at national roads come as the agricultural sector faces persistent load shedding that is costing farmers billions of rands. At the same time, supply chain issues also threaten vaccine shortages for red meats.

Many farmers have been forced to turn to alternative power supplies, such as generators which run on diesel. Sekhoto stated, however, that the current situation is stalling diesel tankers from reaching farmers.

Diesel is not only used to power generators but also most farming equipment, including tractors.

On 12 May, Christo Van der Rheede, the CEO of Agri SA, said that without action, South Africa could expect higher good prices, crop failure and shortage of certain key products in the near future.

He said that the entire agricultural value chain relies on electricity, and without it, food goods are affected heavily.

Van der Rheede said that the organisation has called on the following measures to be put in place in an attempt to secure food supply:

• Declare the agricultural sector and associated value chain an essential service;
• Partially exempt the agricultural sector from load-shedding beyond stage 4;
• Allow for higher rebates on diesel and petrol used for electricity generation;
• Amend the current tariff structure to reduce the cost of electricity during peak times;
• Trade load-shedding schedules using a local feasibility study (a tiered approach can be taken, using red, orange, and green to identify critical areas); and
• Rapidly expand load curtailment* to all agricultural areas, which qualify in terms of the user mix.

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