Livestock owners share snow experiences

By Emily Setona

HARRISMITH – Livestock farmers in Maluti-a-Phofung local municipality have related how last weekend’s heavy snow affected their cattle.
They did this during an engagement with the MEC for Agriculture and rural development Elsabe Rockman who spent Heritage Day in Harrismith talking to farmers who suffered extreme losses of their livestock because of the snow over the weekend of 21-22 September.

In an interview with this publication, Moses Moloi gave details of the impact of the snowfall on emerging farmers in Kestell.
“Fifteen cows died in Swartfontein farm because they were already malnourished due to the lack of grass that resulted from drought and low rainfall this year.

“As emerging black farmers, we do not have proper shelter for our cattle, so the snow really had a very negative impact on our livestock. We are grateful that the department has promised to assist us with animal feed.”
According to Alison Oates who is a farmer and councillor for the area, commercial farmers didn’t suffer major animal losses. A handful of newborn calves or lambs died on most farms, but the vast majority survived.

“It seems many emerging farmers’ livestock suffered greatly. I have been pondering the reason and can’t say why. My own staff are grossly overstocked, and their cattle are very thin, but I gave the cattle some hay on Friday, to make sure their bellies were full, and no mortalities occurred.”
There was between 150 to 200 emerging farmers at the meeting.

MEC of Agriculture Elsabe Rockman with her team at the Mabate communal land to assess the loss of livestock due to the snow.

“The municipality must provide lists of farmers needing immediate relief like fodder, water and medication for their animals. I’d also like to thank those farmers who came out in their numbers today to engage with the department; we will definitely assist where we can and would like to have a database of all the emerging farmers in this community,” Rockman said.

Rockman was accompanied by Dr. Sapokie Ramorene the head of Disaster Management at the department and the HOD of the department Dr. Takisi Masiteng and the executive mayor of Maluti-a-Phofung (MAP) local municipality Malekula Melato.