Sheer devastation with farmers bursting into tears, maize fields turned into desert patches, heaps of dead sheep, cattle too weak to stand and dying wild animals. This is the picture that has been edged in photographer Willem de Lange's mind and on his photographs of drought ravaged western Free State.“I was pained by a farmer in Bultfontein who said he was forced to take his two daughters out of university so he could cut costs to buy animal feed. The drought has run his farm to the ground. The despondency on his face was just too much to bear,” he said.De Lange, 52, said he went out to take the pictures in the beginning of this month and what he was met with was shocking. Where there was supposed to be maize fields has been reduced to a desert, with temperatures reaching the maximum of 43 degrees.He recalled how he was confronted by the reality of the drought currently ravaging some parts of the country, saying he will never forget the 12 dying Wildebeest as well as cattle too weak to stand.“What was supposed to be their grazing land was just dust on dust. It is terrible,” he said.De Lange's photographs are amongst 25 of the 50 heart-rending drought photographs documenting the devastation that will go under the hammer during an auction organised by trade union Solidarity in Pretoria tomorrow.Free State Agriculture has indicated that livestock farmers in the province will need up to R2.984 billion in feed to keep their animals alive until the grazing has recovered.Starting at R1,000 apiece, the union's chief executive, Dirk Herman, said proceeds from the auction will go to the Transvaal Agricultural Union’s drought fund. “The 2016-17 season will be remembered as the driest recorded since 1904. As a result of this drought humans and animals, as well as our fields and pastures, are under tremendous pressure. Solidarity decided to document the countrywide drought by means of a historic series of photos,” he said...