Fruit rots as deciduous industry despairs

FRUIT
LOST in
hot weather and
a producer unable
to honour a contract
to deliver several tons
of broccoli without
(power-driven) irrigation
systems were just
two of the grim tales
emanating from the
Western in the wake of
South Africa’s power crisis.
As Eskom last week
announced its intention to
reduce the nation’s power
by 10% over the next five
months, the Western Cape
deciduous fruit industry,
South Africa’s largest,
voiced grave concerns that
ongoing and prolonged
outages could have serious
consequences for both
export and domestic
markets.
“Ongoing power cuts
will make the cost of doing
business more expensive
as capital equipment, like
generators, is not cheap,”
said Stuart Symington,
CEO of the Fresh Produce
Exporters’ Forum.
“The knock-on effect of
this is that we will become
less competitive in the
market and chase away
foreign direct investment.”
What most concerns
Stefan Conradie, manager
of the pome and stone fruit
division at the Deciduous
Fruit Trust, is the potential
impact of loss in foreign and
local investor confidence in
the deciduous industry.
“The power crisis has
definitely impacted on
agriculture in the Western
Cape. We represent the
growers and anything that
affects the production side
will impact in a major way
on one’s available supply
and continuity of supply
and that could lead to
programmes being lost.”
Conradie says were
outages to start occurring
on a daily basis, it would
become a “major issue” for
the deciduous sector.
The major co-operative
packhouses have their
own power supply sources,
as have major exporting
companies like Tru-
Cape, whose two major
shareholders, Two-a-Day
and Ceres Fruit Growers,
decided in favour of backup
generators last year.
Even though Western
Cape companies are doing
brisk business in generator
sales, fact is the cost of
these is beyond the means
of many farmers.
Eskom has apparently
undertaken to cut farm
power only at certain times
on Mondays, Wednesdays
and Fridays. The effect will
be that water cannot be
pumped from boreholes to
dams and that packhouse
cold rooms will become
ineffective with prolonged
outages.