Drought in numbers: what provinces need

The Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries has received emergency funding requests from five drought-stricken provinces.

In a report to the agriculture committee in Parliament on Tuesday, the department broke down the numbers.

North West province seems to be the worst off, requesting R2.9bn for feed and R179 425m for livestock water resources. This would be to cover almost 500 000 affected livestock.

The other requests were:

Free State Province: R77.89m for animal feed, R24.6m for livestock water resources for almost 3 000 affected farmers, and 109 245 affected livestock;

KwaZulu Natal: R142m for animal feed; R800m for water for livestock for 153 000 farmers and 2.7 million affected livestock;

Limpopo has requested R20m for animal feed and R31m for livestock water resources for 67 445 farmers and 51 560 affected livestock;

Mpumalanga has requested R50m for feed, R21m for water for livestock for 1 804 farmers, of which 396 are commercial. This would be for 114 400 affected livestock.

The department on Tuesday could not proceed with their meeting after striking Nehawu members disrupted proceedings in Parliament.

Source:News24