Adelaide's Desperate Struggle To Survive The Drought

The drought in the district of Adelaide in the Eastern Cape has paralysed production on farms and left many residents of the town without water for months.

- ​​​​​​​Mike Burgess

“The worst drought in 100 years,” is the way livestock farmer Hannes Bosch describes the critically dry conditions confronting Adelaide farmers in the Eastern Cape. “This drought is different. Even in the 1983 drought we had no grazing, but we had water. Now we have nothing.”

Bosch, who is chairperson of the Adelaide Farmers’ Association, is grimly aware of the dire consequences if good summer rains don’t arrive soon.

“Some farmers are in big trouble,” he says. “If this carries on into November or December, we may as well close our gates.”

It is not only commercial farmers that are being pushed to the limits. Some sections of the town of Adelaide have been without running water for well over six months, while livestock owned by commonage farmers have been dying in the streets.

“We pray for rain. It’s really hard [living] here,” says Regina Williams, a resident of Adelaide’s Red Location, which has not had running water for months.

COMMERCIAL FARMERS

Although Bosch is extremely grateful for donations such as the load of lick blocks from Voermol that were recently distributed amongst farmers, he knows that the grip of the current drought can be broken only by significant rain. Showers over the past few weeks have brought hope, but a great deal more rain is needed.

When his traditional water sources dried up, Bosch took a gamble and drilled two boreholes at a cost of R80 000. Sadly, they yielded no water at all. Fortunately, he managed to repair an old, collapsed borehole, and this currently produces a daily flow of 10 000â„“. This volume, along with water from his neighbours, has enabled him to get by.

Grazing, however, is practically non-existent, and he has been forced to cut branches from wild olive trees to keep his animals alive.