You can’t irrigate the lands because the dams have no water" "All my tractors are standing in the garage.
You can’t irrigate the lands because the dams have no water," Potgieter said.
One year of drought, okay, or even two.
Added to the drought was the blow in March last year when the EU, South Africa’s largest importer of ostrich meat, banned ostrich meat imports from here after an EU audit found that the national government testing laboratories were not up to standard.
Kleyn said the local industry did not use growth hormones or other chemicals banned by the EU.
Getting back into the EU "It was not an industry problem, it was the national laboratory in South Africa that failed the audit.
Since then the ostrich industry, working with the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, has sent ostrich blood samples for chemical testing to a laboratory in the UK and all have been negative.
A state of crisis Carl Opperman, CEO of Agri Western Cape, said the Gouritz River catchment area, which included the Little Karoo, was in a state of crisis.
While the Little Karoo irrigation dams are very low or empty, Oudtshoorn Municipality spokesperson Ntobeko Mangqwengqwe said the town’s Raubenheimer supply dams, which had dropped to 31% last year, summer rains had filled it to 54% by the end of December.
Herman Pieters, spokesperson for Garden Route District Municipality, said Calitzdorp’s main supply dam had sunk to 11% of storage capacity, leaving the town with about five months of water.