THE DROUGHT IN AFRICA

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18255, 25 November 1933, Page 3

THE DROUGHT IN AFRICA

SHEEP LOST BY MILLION TREKKING FOR WATER PEOPLE PRAY FOR RAIN CAPETOWN, Sept. 20. Throughout South Africa to-day (writes the London Times’ correspondent) the people prayed for rain. Almost the whole country is in the grip of a. drought, whose like no Soutn

African can remember, and the Prime Minister (General Hortzog) set aside to-day as a day of humiliation an.l prayer, inviting the people ”to bfcseech Almighty God with, the greatest possible unanimity to give relief from distress.” Special services were held jin nearly every church in the Union, land at nearly every service there was la packed congregation. There have been disastrous droughts in South Africa before. But never, so say farmers with long memories, • has there been a drought like this. } In previous droughts there has always been some part of the country that has | escaped. This time, except for a j narrow belt round the coast, the whole j country has dried up. The Cape Province has lost thousands of sheep; the j Free State is a wilderness of dust j storms; the Kruger National Park in j the Transvaal has beeome so dry that ' the wild animals are trekking in great | numbers into Portuguest East Africa sin search of water and grazing; in South-West Africa wild animals from j uninhabited parts are invading the | farms and devouring the little grazing {which, the farmers have managed to preservo for their stock;. Even the fields of sugar cane in Natal are wilting for lack of rain. STORIES OF HARDSHIPS. The sheep districts of the Cape and the Free State have felt the drought most. Terrible stories of the hardships of .men and animals have come from there. It is the custom in this country, when his grazing and water give out, for a farmer to take to the road with his flocks in search of pasture. The pastoral districts are crisscrossed with “trek-paths,” over which any farmer driving his animals has a right of way. Ho is allowed by law to graze his sheep for a certain distance—from TOO to 200 yards, according to the district regulations—on each side of the road; and he must move at least six miles a day. Sometimes he rails his stock to districts where he can hire grazing. This year there has been little good grazing anywhere, and the few districts that had escaped the worst of the drought were soon overrun with starving stock from drier parts. One example which was given nmcti publicity at the time was when thousands of sheep from the Northern Cape were railed to Matjesfontein, .150 miles from Capetown. Truckload aider truckload arrived at Matjesfontein station containing sheep many; of which were too weak to stand. It was bitterly cold, and the sheep died in hundreds. It was reported thuf some of the animals, in. their desperate hunger, had cropped the wool from their companions’ backs.

One after* another of the owners of these sheep told how they had lost from 100 to 700 in a week. One farmed had only 150 left out of 1000, and Ihose were nearly too far gone to stand. Two months later the carcases of 8000 sheep still littered one farm in the district. The owners of the sheep had disappeared with tdac remnants of the docks, and the ownier of the land could not. afford to employ the army of workmen it would need' to bury the carcases. HARD HIT FARMERS.

A Government official who returned about a fortnight ago from a tour of the drought-stricken districts in'the Cape Midlands gave a vivid description of the utter desolation of tile sheep areas. Between Fraserburg and Sutherland, a distance of G 5 males, every homestead except one was deserted. At some of the deserted homesteads cats and dogs ran into the road at the sound of the car, and ravenously devoured hard crusts off bread thrown to them. One farmer was found trekking with his famiiy and 300 sheep —all that remained of 1(300. He burst into tears when the party in the car sympathised with him. Farmers who were rich a year or two ago are now living on pauper rations. It is impossible at present to estimate the number of sheep that" have been lost, but the general guess is about 10,000,000 —roughly 20 per cent, of the country’s sheep population.

What has made tho drought worse is the two years’ depression that has gone before. Not only has it left the farmer with no reserve funds, but it lms left him with many more ■sheep than his veld can support. In the last, two seasons wool was sold at unpayable prices, and in order to keep up with the interest payments—most South African farms are bonded more or less heavily—the farmer has had to produce more wool. This meant running more sheep on his farm. At the same time stock prices have made it almost impossible to sell sheep except at a heavy loss. For those two reasons many fawners have been forced to overstock. The carrying capacity of South African sheep country is very limited, and the overstocked farms, which could just support tho flocks in ordinary dry seasons, were hopeless as soon as the big drought started. TREK LOSSES. Trekking has hastened tho farmer’s losses except in the rare cases where he has found new grazing quickly. A sheep can remain alive for weeks without food if it has plenty of water and if it allowed to rest. On trek it has little water and less rest. Trekking, in fact, instead of saving tho sheep, very often kills them off more quickly. The Government tried to prevent trek losses by providing railway transport at nominal rates, but many of the sheep were entrained in such poor condition that they were detrained as dead carcases. Lately the Government has begun to supply the farmers with maize to keep their stock alive till the rains come. A few weeks ago there were general rains over the Capo Province and iff isolated parts of the Free State, but. unfortunately, they were followed by a severe cold snap that killed almost as many slieop as the drought which preceded it. Now wawn weather has come again, and the veld is rapidly recovering where rain has fallen. Here there has been more misfortune. Tho sheep are ravenous, and in their hunger they crop every green thing they see without discrimination. The result has been further losses from ,

poisoning. The sheep that have come through all this, however, will stion bo in good condition again, and those Cape farmers who have not lost everything are beginning to regain their old optimism. The high wool prices this season have put heart into them. SEVERE DUST STORMS. But the {Transvaal and the Free State are skill parched, and unless their usual summer rains come soon their losses Will be terrific, because the hot sunSmer weather will destroy' the miserable little bits of grazing they have left, and water supplies will give oat over wide areas. At present those parts are suffering ' severely- from dust storms. These storms are sometimes as thick as an old-fashioned Loudon fog. and leave a deposit of fine sand over everything in their path. The farmers, with the amazing optimism of their class, comfort themselves with the belief that dust storms are always followed fairly soon by thunderstorms.

Once rain does fall the veld becomes green again at an astonishing rate. It is sometimes covered with good grass in a few days, and in a few weeks drought-stricken stock will be regaining weight. Unfortunately for the country this void recovery is only superficial. In most of our dry areas, and especially in the sheep country, The staple dry-season grazing is not grass or annual shrubs, hut the leaves and twigs of perennial bushes. Whenan overstocked district has a prolonged dry spell these bushes arc first cropped to tho stem and then trodden into the dust, by sheep in search of food. Tramping round tho bushes cither loffsens the soil, so that it is washed away by tho first rain, or stamps it to concrete hardness. In cither case tho roots of the bush are generally killed or severely damaged. Our sheep, veld Will not regain its strength for years. If we have a succession of good seasons all will be well; but if we have another big drought soon our veld will give out even more quickly than it has this time.