Cathrin Hennicke and Claus St,cker
WESTERN Transvaal tobacco farmer Daan van der Merwe doesn’t smile much. The yellow, sweetish-smelling leaves on which his livelihood depends are shrivelled, with brown, decaying edges _ the effect of the drought which has gripped the region for the past two years. This year, the tobacco industry will pay him much less than last year, or perhaps nothing at all.
Much of his recent harvest he won’t be able to sell. In front of the stoves which he uses for drying the leaves lies a huge pile of unusable tobacco. “This could be enough to buy two farms,” he says. But he can’t even use it as compost.
“The situation is desperate. If we don’t get rain this year, I’ll have to retrench all my workers and may hang myself. The banks gave me more credit for this year, while my debts from last year aren’t paid off. I have to pay R18 000 a month on debts and interest. This is definitely the last year I can stand it _ it’s the last chance I have,” he says.
Rotten luck has dogged Van der Merwe and his fellow tobacco farmers at Skuinsdrif for the past three years. In 1991, hailstorms struck three times. The next year, the Department of Water Affairs recorded a drop in the region’s annual rainfall from 642mm to 423mm _ tobacco needs at least 700mm a year.
In addition, tobacco consumption worldwide has declined since 1989. A low was reached last year when the world market price dropped by about 50 percent as good yields swamped the market.
On the recommendation of the Magaliesberg Co-operative Tobacco Planters’ Association, which comprises half the country’s estimated 800 tobacco planters, Western Transvaal farmers grew as many plants as they could. Some 40-million tons were harvested, but farmers had guaranteed sales for only 11-million.
Van der Merwe, whose farm of 400ha is one of the biggest in the area, harvested about 136 000kg, of which he could sell only three quarters, and only half at full price. Some of the balance he sold for 10c a kilogram. He lost R360 000 and had to retrench 36 of his 150 workers.
The 40-year-old father of three has now reduced his growing area from 200ha to 70ha. But the Marico Bosveld Dam is still only 18 percent full, offering too little to the 25 tobacco farmers it supplies. Underground water is also dwindling.
Seven Skuinsdrif farmers and farm managers have already given up, taking jobs to raise the money to pay their employees’ wages. One now works as a pipefitter 800km away. To save money, he visits his wife and three children once every couple of months. Another tells how he has no money for petrol to fetch his children from school in Potchefstroom at weekends. Another had his bakkie repossessed when he couldn’t meet the repayments and now uses an aged tractor.
“This is going to happen to all of us if we don’t get help,” Van der Merwe says. “I couldn’t pay my labourers an increase for three years. But it would break my heart to tell them it’s over. They’re so hard working, so well behaved, so disciplined _ they would die for the farm.”