Eight of South Africa’s nine provinces are being been severely affected by drought, the Department of Agriculture and Land Affairs said on Wednesday.
Hardest hit are northern parts of KwaZulu-Natal, said the department’s senior manager of drought and risk management, Ikalafeng Kgakgatsi.
These are followed by the western parts of the North West; the Karoo and southern parts of the Northern Cape; northern parts of the Western Cape; isolated areas in the Eastern Cape; and the western and north-western parts of Limpopo.
The only province largely unaffected is Gauteng, which has experienced only small pockets of dry weather.
”Certain parts of Limpopo have been flagged as disaster areas since 2003/04. The drought has since spread from those areas into other municipalities this year,” Kgakgatsi said.
”The drought is affecting 27 out of 37 of Limpopo’s municipalities,” said Mogale Nchabeleng, spokesperson for Limpopo Premier Sello Moloto.
The province has set aside R100-million for water provision and drought relief, but hopes the national government will respond this month to submissions for additional funding, he said.
”The money is needed not only for farming, but also for hospitals that have run out of water and game farms with no food for the animals,” said Nchabeleng.
”We have made sure that national government is aware that the drought situation requires serious intervention and that is it adversely affecting both the economic and social fibre of our province,” he said.
The National Treasury has already put up R120-million to help farmers deal with the drought, said Kgakgatsi.
This will be used for early-warning systems to alert crop farmers to impending droughts and provide animal feed for livestock farmers, among other uses, he said.
The South African Weather Service is predicting a 50% chance of below-normal rainfall in the western parts of the country between December and February next year.
In north-eastern parts those chances drop to 40%, and in central parts to 35%.
Limpopo’s dams are, on average, the emptiest, at 36% of capacity, compared with 64% last year, according to the Department of Water Affairs and Forestry.
The level of the Gariep Dam, off the Orange River, is down 10% year-on-year to 45,4% this week, and that of the Blyderivierpoort Dam, in Mpumalanga, has fallen nearly 30% to 55,7%.
Gauteng’s Vaal Dam is 38,3% full this week, compared with 32% at the same time last year, and dams in the Northern Cape are 87% full, only slightly down from 93% last year. — Sapa