CAPE TOWN – Medium-scale farmers on Monday said they could not afford generators to keep the power on during load shedding.
Power cuts intensified over the last few weeks, and this led to Eskom implementing stage 6 load shedding.
But farmers in the Western Cape said the blackouts were hitting them hard and could do with some help form government.
Whernit Dirks said winning the young farmer of the year award in 2018 had been one of his career highlights.
He said providing food for others was why he started farming but that load shedding had put the brakes on that.
Dirks said: “I can't afford generators; the average farmer doesn't really have generators. We try to put up solar systems for our pumps. Just to get our water pumps up and running out of the boreholes. But I don't have a generator because I can't afford it.”
Dirks has reached out to government for urgent assistance with money vouchers for small to medium farmers.
He said farmers needed help, not only to keep producing food, but also to keep workers employed.
Artmotion S.Africa
