CAPE TOWN – The agriculture sector in the Western Cape will take an economic knock of more than R5-billion due to the impact of the drought.
GVA is a measure of all the goods and services produced by a sector.
The estimated number of job losses in the sector remains at 30,000 Winde said in a statement.
IN PHOTOS: Cape Town goes crazy as rain falls As a result, there has been a significant decline in farm output as farmers prioritise crops with higher profit margins, such as fruit, and abandon vegetables and other crops.
There was a reduction of about 1,000 hectares of area planted for both potatoes and onions.
Furthermore, smaller export volumes have resulted in income losses and export prices are being affected because fruit is smaller or sunburned.
Agriculture and agri-processing contribute a combined R54-billion to the provincial GVA.
Of all the province’s exports, 52% come from the agriculture and agri-processing sectors.
As a sector, it represents 10% of the provincial GDP and employs 340,000 people, mostly in rural areas.
READ: ‘Day zero’ pushed back further to July Winde further added that “we recognise how difficult this period has been for farmers.

Enviroment groups, which have been warning for years of the impact of coalmining on drinking water welcomed the move but called for a moratorium on any expansion of mining activity until the conclusion of the review.
The department announced that a new independent expert panel on mining in Sydney’s drinking water catchment would be established, and headed by the yet-to-be appointed NSW chief scientist and engineer.
In the interim, emeritus professor Jim Galvin will be the acting chairman.
“There are proposals for a significant expansion of coal mining under the catchment special areas,” said the Lock the Gate Alliance NSW coordinator, Georgina Woods.
“Consideration of these project must be halted while the panel considers the long-term damage these operations are inflicting on Sydney’s catchment and water security.
NSW to weaken water quality test for extensions to mines Read more “This is the time to choose.
Do we want to safeguard Sydney’s drinking water, or let it be jeopardised for more coal mining?” The Coolong Foundation, which has campaigned on the issue for years, while welcoming the move, said Ray was wrong in declaring that mining had taken place so far without any big impact on water supply.
“There clearly have been significant impacts, if major impacts include the drying out of upland swamps and streams due to widespread cracking of surface rocks,” the director of the Coolong Foundation for Wilderness, Keith Muir, said.
“So the department needs independent advice on what should define ‘major impacts’.
Too often inquiries become mired in expert reports, when the truth is out there in what should be our pristine drinking water catchments.”

With the month of February behind us, it should come as no surprise that both precipitation and surface temperatures took on large ranges.
The KVUE Storm Team tracked the largest amount of precipitation on Feb. 22 that added 0.60 inches of rainfall in one day followed by an additional 0.30 inches the next day.
Eight days of precipitation accumulations were recorded at zero, five days had trace amounts, and 11 days had 0.10 inches or less.
In addition to the precipitation, there was also a combined element of cloudy skies throughout the region.
Austin-Bergstrom International Airport reported 21 cloudy days compared to Camp Mabry’s 15 cloudy days.
At Camp Mabry, monthly rainfall totaled 1.71 inches, which was 0.31 inches below normal.
This made February 2018 at this site the 52nd driest February on record.
At ABIA, monthly rainfall totaled 1.07 inches, which was 1.24 inches below normal.
That ranks as the 22nd driest February on record.

When people are called upon to rally around a “public good” such as conserving water, they are more likely to do so if they believe they are working together to achieve a common goal.
As of February 2018, Cape Town’s residents must cut their water consumption drastically, as the region’s dams run critically low following the worst drought in a century.
This can give people an incentive to free-ride on others’ efforts, where some will benefit from the resource, while contributing nothing to its conservation.
Our team at the Environmental Policy Research Unit (EPRU) worked with the City to run a series of “behavioural nudges” to encourage voluntarily water-wise behaviour among residents – for example, sending targeted messages comparing a household’s consumption to the average consumption in their neighbourhood.
Remarkably, then, even before the new recommended use of 6 kilolitres per household came into effect in February 2018, 30% of households were already reaching this target.
Households across Cape Town have reduced their water use dramatically in the past four years, co-operating to meet the City’s monthly targets.
But in recent months, as restrictions have tightened, we see a dramatic change in consumption, particularly among the higher income households, while lower income groups, who don’t have as much scope to cut their use further, have always had rather low levels of water consumption.
The graph below shows how, by this January, wealthier households have reduced their consumption to the levels of poorer households.
In four years, wealthier households in Cape Town have reduced their water usage to that of lower income homes, who have much less scope for reducing an already low consumption level.
It’s crucial, therefore, that we signal to citizens that their efforts are working: that we are co-operating, and that our communal efforts are actually working to push back Day Zero.

Created by JFK, the Delaware River Basin Commission emerged as a unifying force amid record dry spell Thom Carroll/PhillyVoice Facing an unprecedented water crisis, Cape Town, South Africa is restricting residents to a mere 13 gallons of water each day.
Philadelphia is unlikely to wind up in a situation similar to Cape Town, in part because climate change is expected to make the region wetter – not more dry.
But lessons learned decades ago, when the Delaware River basin endured a severe drought, prompted infrastructure and management procedures that now protect the entire basin’s water supply, which feeds both Philadelphia and New York City.
Because the lower portions of the Delaware River are tidal and contain saltwater, freshwater flows are needed to keep the salt line from advancing too far upstream, where a major Philadelphia water intake is located.
They’re not set up for it, but no one wants to drink salt water."
– Carol Collier, former DRBC executive director During the preceding decades, the Delaware River Basin had experienced an array of water supply shortages, apportionment disputes, water quality issues and devastating floods.
In 1931, the Supreme Court ruled that New York City could export 440 million gallons per day from the basin, prompting the construction of two of the three Delaware River basin reservoirs that are owned and operated by New York City.
Through the DRBC, the four basin states devised a drought management plan that reduces reservoir releases, lowers streamflow objectives and reduces water diversions to New York City and New Jersey.
The plan effectively preserves the water supply for New York City, while preventing the salt line to move too far upstream.
Under the most severe conditions – when a drought emergency is called – the DRBC can request water releases from various basin reservoirs, or ask water to be stored in federal reservoirs.

Dozens of local water agencies are opposing state regulations to ban wasteful water practices, partly due to issues relating to the water board’s authority.
The regulations would make permanent some rules California enacted temporarily during the recent drought, which ended last year.
“The regulation is defective because it has the effect – if not the purpose – of diminishing water rights by legislative means, without any process whatsoever.” But the issue also appears to go beyond the fight over this set of regulations and centers on the water board’s authority and a disagreement over state versus local control of water policy.
The Regulations The proposed regulations prohibit such actions as hosing off driveways and sidewalks, watering that causes more than incidental runoff, operating decorative fountains that don’t recirculate water and watering ornamental public medians.
Gomberg said that he doesn’t expect major statewide impacts to water savings relative to other conservation measures, but “what it does is really help raise awareness of the need for conservation and efficiency at all times because of the way the state’s hydrology is changing,” he said.
“This is not a wholesale new statewide set of prohibitions, it’s taking a patchwork that was in place locally and making it uniform,” said Gomberg.
He said his clients are “concerned with this narrow issue of water rights and due process with the waste and unreasonable use approach to the regulation.” However, Donlan said that the groups that he has been working with support the concept of the regulation and the conservation measures that are in the regulation, but the concern is really around that narrow issue of the appropriate process to ground the regulation.
Jennifer Harder, an assistant professor at the McGeorge School of Law at the University of the Pacific and an expert in water law, thinks that in this particular situation the water board is operating within its rights and that “the water rights argument isn’t very strong in this case.” She said, “Although there are circumstances where questions can be legitimately asked about actions that the water board is taking with respect to conservation, and there are some circumstances in which local action might be wisest, my opinion is that this particular resolution prohibiting wasteful uses is an easy case.” One of the main reasons, she explained, is that the regulation focuses on egregious waste and “a prohibition on waste is one of the fundamental principles of all water rights since the beginning of water rights,” she said.
“The real problem here is that they have a fear that if the water board is going to take this action, that it may be an opening salvo to more actions,” said Harder.
Also at issue, believes Gomberg, is a state versus local power struggle.

CAPE TOWN (Reuters) – A severe drought afflicting South Africa’s Western Cape province is expected to cut agricultural output by 20 percent this year, decimating the wheat crop and reducing apple, grape and pear exports to Europe, officials said on Thursday.
“If we compare the past quarter to the same time period last year, we see the severe impact that this drought is beginning to have on jobs and livelihoods,” Winde said, adding that 30,000 jobs had been lost.
Among the worst hit crops is wheat, whose output is projected to plunge to 586,000 tonnes in 2018 from 1.1 million tonnes harvested in the previous year – a 2.4-billion-rand loss for the grain sector.
This will force a more than 100 percent rise in wheat imports to 2.1 million tonnes in 2018 from 935,000 tonnes last year, industry body Grain SA said on Thursday.
Fields of harvested wheat are seen near Cape Town, South Africa, February 3, 2018.
Western Cape’s famed wine industry has also struggled under the prolonged drought, with forecasts indicating the next grape harvest could be the smallest since 2005.
Cape Town, whose picturesque ocean front location with mountain backdrop is a major tourist draw, expects to run out of water on July 9 unless residents can stick to a rationing plan limiting them to a maximum of 50 liters per person per day.
A series of restrictions imposed over the past three years has cut collective consumption by over half since 2015, as city officials look to see out the hot summer months into winter, when rain normally replenishes reservoirs.
“If each one of us continues to use 50 liters a day, we can not only beat Day Zero this year but also be in a better position to avoid it next year,” said Deputy Mayor Ian Neilson.
“If each one of us continues to use 50 liters a day, we can not only beat Day Zero this year but also be in a better position to avoid it next year,” said Deputy Mayor Ian Neilson.

During a media briefing last week, Umgeni Water warned that there are serious low water levels in dams, which ultimately supplies water to an estimated six million consumers in uMgungundlovu, Pietermaritzburg, Durban, iLembe, Middle South Coast (Ugu) and Ixopo (Harry Gwala DM), Randburg Sun reports.
Albert Falls augments Nagle Dam which, in turn, supplies water to Durban Heights Waterworks for treatment and supply to some of Durban’s reservoirs.
Today we hosting media at the Albert Falls Dam, sharing our plans towards ensuring that the water crisis is managed in the province #waterislife #UmgeniWatercares pic.twitter.com/TXuSOLJ1wn — Umgeni Water (@UmgeniWater) February 13, 2018 The Mgeni system comprises of Mearns Weir, Spring Grove Dam and Midmar Dam in its upper part, and in its lower part Albert Falls, Nagle and Inanda dams.
It ultimately supplies water to an estimated four million consumers in uMgungundlovu, Pietermaritzburg, Durban and in the north of Ugu.
Of great concern to Umgeni Water is the level of Albert Falls, a strategically important dam that has consistently remained at under 30% for at least two years.
A complication is the high evaporation rate of surface water at Albert Falls, and current high temperatures are not assisting in preservation of water resources.
These restrictions are now in their second year.
While they have seen an improvement of rain in Midmar Dam’s catchments, the dam levels remain significantly low preventing Umgeni Water from lifting the water restrictions.
Indeed we have seen large rainfalls but we urge households to continuously save water – Mr Steve Gillham #WaterIsLife pic.twitter.com/fBWQZ8YMnf — Umgeni Water (@UmgeniWater) February 13, 2018 During a Mgeni system Joint Operations Committee JOC meeting, it was decided that water restrictions of 15% in about 80% of Durban, all of Pietermaritzburg and all of uMgungundlovu will remain in place.
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According to the Oklahoma Mesonet, between 6 to 9 inches fell across the area in seven days as flooding closed area roads and two state highways until the water receded and Oklahoma Department of Transportation crews could make emergency repairs.
“We have three crews working in the McAlester area,” said Annahlyse Meyer, a public information officer for the Oklahoma Department of Transportation.
Numerous drivers complained of tired and vehicles damaged by the potholes on U.S. 69.
Anyone who suffered damage can contact the Office of Management and Enterprise Services, Division of Capital Assets Management at 405-521-4999 to file a claim — which is not a guarantee for reimbursement.
But the rain didn’t bring just bad news for the area.
According to data from the Oklahoma Climatology Survey, Pittsburg County was between 6 and 8 inches below normal rainfall since mid-October and was under severe drought conditions.
Due to the rainfall, county commissioners let the burn ban that was in place expire last week — but that doesn’t negate the wildfire risk.
In a press release from Oklahoma State Forester George Geissler, conditions are still conducive to sustaining wildland fire.
“We are still in our winter fire season, and we could find ourselves right back in high fire danger within a week or so,” Geissler said.
“The rain just gave firefighters a break from the extreme fire behavior that necessitated burn bans.”

KLAMATH FALLS, Ore. — With winter storms proving elusive and the prospect of water shortages likely, Klamath County commissioners have declared a drought emergency.
The declaration allows state and federal officials to consider a similar declaration, which would then allow water users access to drought mitigation resources.
Oregon Gov.
Kate Brown is expected to take action later this month.
“We have worked closely (with various agencies) to ensure as much water as we can for agriculture.” Based on data collected in 2012 by the USDA that was presented at the meeting, a summer drought in the broad Klamath Basin could result in an estimated $557 million loss to agriculture countywide and the loss of almost 4,500 jobs, the Herald & News newspaper reported.
In approving the declaration, commissioners said a drought is likely because of this winter’s exceptionally dry conditions.
I think we have her commitment to help us every way they can.” Boyd said officials from the Oregon Water Resources Department and federal agencies are aware of concerns and are “very involved.” He likewise believes lessons learned from 2001, when water was withheld from irrigators for most of the summer because of concerns about endangered fish, have helped farmers and ranchers become better water managers.
He estimated Klamath County has nearly 440,000 acres of agricultural land and, based on estimates, the drought could reduce production by 50 percent.
Preference would be given to water used by humans and livestock.
If state and federal emergencies are declared, Lindsay said the Oregon Water Resource Department will work with Klamath County Watermaster Dani Watson and that federal aid would be provided by the Farm Services Agency and Natural Resources Conservation Service.