The MEC for Agriculture, Ms Dipuo Letsatsi-Duba, visited the flood stricken farms in Mopani District in the Tzaneen area, on Saturday, 29 January 2011. During her visit, the MEC said the affected farmers will not be compensated, but will be assisted with the rebuilding of the damaged infrastructure. She said farmers would be assisted with production inputs and vaccinations through some programmes available in her department.
Although a number of farms were affected by the floods in the area, she managed to visit three farms: Gingirikani Kinya Broiler farm, Lufafa Hatchery and Refiloe Farming Enterprises. For the past three weeks, the first farm has suffered production shutoff due to the damaged road which prevented the chicken delivery vehicle from reaching the farm. The second farm had walls of its two dams swept away by the heavy rains. This disrupted the supply of water to chickens and to irrigate the crops.
The crop farmer and owner of Refiloe Farming Enterprises, Mr Walter Moketla, said he had 80% loss. He said, "Due to floods, almost all vegetables in this farm have submerged." He mentioned that the most affected areas include two hectares of cabbages that had only two months left to be harvested, butternuts and tomatoes covering two hectares per each crop type.
Source: Limpopo Department of Agriculture
