Posted on 12/10/2002 10:22:36 AM PST by backhoe
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Announcement from Managers of Adriana Stuijt's "journalism during apartheid "site |
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Reply
Dec 9 2002 - Jan Cilliers of the authoritative Afrikaans agricultural weekly "Landbouweekblad" warns this week that South Africa is heading for a "food shortage disaster" this season.
- http://www.landbou.com -
- With the maize-sowing season now passing rapidly, most of the country's commercial maize fields still lie fallow as it remains too dry to sow.
If the rains don't come before Christmas, the country won't have enough maize to feed its own 46-million population.
The country also won't have enough surplus to export to any of its neighbouring famine-struck120-million residents in the southern African region.Maize is the main staple food of most of the southern-African region's 120-million people and South Africa 20,000 commercial grain farmers usually supply between 50% to 60% of their neighbours' annual requirements.The SA Grain Information Service (Sagis) reports that South Africa's maize farmers have produced only 8,437-million tons of maize thus far this season -- 5,046 million tons of white maize, 3,391-million tons of yellow maize.
That 's why the country has had to import an extra 274,000 tons of white maize and 125,000 tons of yellow maize until the end of October to keep its own population fed -- yet at the same time, the government was keen to earn foreign currency, and, in spite of formal protests and warnings by SA-Grain, has allowed the export of 518,000 ton of whole maize and 50,000 tons of maize products, mostly to prop up the regime of famine-struck neighbour Zimbabwe.If enough rain does not fall between December 15 and December 25 -- a rapidly-closing window of opportunity in which enough moisture could still germinate sown crop seeds -- a very serious shortage of maize and other grains will be inevitable.This warning was issued by Bully Bothma, chairman of Grain Suid-Afrika (GSA). This organisation, which represents the country's 20,000 commercial grain farmers, has been warning since last year that the South African government should not allow the export of maize to avoid shortages.Bothma this week asked for an urgent appointment with President Thabo Mbeki to discuss measures to stave off a threatening famine situation inside South Africa.
. "The government will have to help to stave off the threatening food shortages which will occur of the rains don't come soon," he said.Grain-SA's latest survey among its farmer-members shows that:
- Mpumalanga -- only 20 % to 80 % of Mpumalanga sowing has been undertaken thus far.
- Highveld-- Highveld farmers -- where the planting season has already passed -- did not sow any grain crops thus far this season.
- Free State: In some Free State areas -- which supplies 80% of the country's entire maize crop -- 30% less crops were sown this season as compared to last year's thus far.
- In the Free State's largest maize-crop regions, Frankfort and Villiers, farmers have sown 85% less maize than they did last season.
- Failed crops: And the few crop fields which were sown in the Free State's Marquard and Senekal districts have already failed completely.
- North West -- In the other large grain-producing regions in North West, only 20% to 30% of the fields have been sown. Farmers in the Koster and Ventersdorp districts have planted nothing at all thus far. If sufficient rains fall by 15 December they can still sow maize.
Only 1-million hectares maize sown thus far; but 4,026-million hectares needed:According to Johan van den Berg of Enviro Vision, a Bloemfontein-based weather-and-crop related forecasting company, South Africa has thus far planted only one-million hectares of maize.
And if sufficient rain does not fall very soon, a full 3,026-million hectares of designated maize fields will lie fallow this season.The ANC-ruled government's National Harvest Estimation Committee's predictions would thus be reduced considerably: if the first rains arrived between 15 to 25 December, the total surface area planted with maize would be reduced by 2,3 million hectares.
If the rains stay away until Christmas, the total maize planting area could become as low as 1,8 million hectares.
The SA Grain Information Service (Sagis) reports that maize farmers thus far produced 8,437-million tons of maize this season -- 5,046 million tons of white maize, 3,391-million tons of yellow maize.
KITCHEN GARDEN PROJECT KZN:Meanwhile, the KwaZulu-Natal department of agriculture and environmental affairs is distributing food production packs this week to help poor families grow their own food.
Also, African leaders will meet in Nigeria from Wednesday to find ways to better spearhead regional food security programmes, the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) said on Monday.Liberal Afrikaner academic slams Mbeki for neglect of the poor
December 07 2002 at 07:01PM - By John Battersby - An explosive new critique of the government of President Thabo Mbeki by Sampie Terreblanche, a Stellenbosch University academic - to be published by Moeletsi Mbeki, the president's brother - slams the ruling African National Congress (ANC) for abandoning the poor and perpetuating inequality and exploitation in post-apartheid South Africa.
Terreblanche charges the Mbeki government with forming an unholy alliance with the corporate sector for the the "systemic exclusion and neglect" of the poorest half of the population.
The controversial attack on the new democratic government, which is to be published by the University of Natal Press early in the new year, is set to spark a stormy national debate and could raise tensions within the ANC ahead of its 51st national conference next week.
The ANC membership is already tense after last week's purge of people viewed by Mbeki's ruling clique as "ultra-left elements" in the Eastern Cape.
The book, which will boost the case of the left in the ANC tripartite alliance, argues for a social democratic system rather than the ANC's pact with big business, which led to the ANC abandoning its redistributive economic policies and opting for the free-market model.
Terreblanche calls for an urgent rethink of government policy to create a social-democratic version of democratic capitalism rather than the "neo-liberal democratic capitalism" which, he argues, is at the core of the country's massive failure to alleviate endemic poverty.
Terreblanche, who was once at the heart of apartheid's intelligentsia and was a former economic adviser to former president PW Botha, emerged in the latter years of the apartheid era as a leading critic of National Party policy.
He was one of a group of Afrikaner intellectuals who had held secret talks with the ANC leaders in the 1980s.
The president's brother Moeletsi Mbeki, who chairs the KMM Review Publishing Company co-publishing the book, is a businessman and former trade unionist who has long been a critic of the ANC from the left.
"He read earlier versions of the manuscript and encouraged me to persist with my ideological and economic apporach," Terreblanche said.<!-- ADMSmLnk{font-family:verdana,system;color:#336699;text-decoration:none;} ADMSmLnk:hover{color:#ff6600;text-decoration:underline;} -->
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Ok, I'll bite- what is it?
I don't really care if everyone in South Africa starves to death....If they can't figure out what the problem is, and change their lives by forcing freedom...then they deserve starvation.....
SCREW 'EM ALL!
When a people is starving they shouldn't be so picky about what food is given to them. If I were starving I would be happy and thankful for anything I could get.
I suspect it will be the whirlwind they harvest...
(sigh) So do I, so do I. It's sactioned genocide.
"Pity About Earth..."
I firmly believe that very soon one day, we all will be saying:
"Pity About Africa..."
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