Give the money for fixing roads to the farmers. That's the call from Albany farmers, struggling to repair already deteriorating roads now ruined by the recent floods.
Give the money for fixing roads to the farmers. That's the call from Albany farmers, struggling to repair already deteriorating roads now ruined by the recent floods.
Particularly hard hit are the Southwell road – the dirt route between Grahamstown, and Port Alfred and Bathurst – and the R400 through Riebeeck East. They have been used as alternative routes to bypass closures on the R72 and N2 respectively.
Southwell boasts several dairy farms and chairman of the Eastern Cape Milk Producers Association Simon Matthews says while flood damage has not particularly affected dairy farmers, it has highlighted the increasingly serious problem of the province's crumbling road infrastructure. Rural and secondary roads, Matthews says, have not been properly maintained for a very long time.
“This has been compounded by the flooding,” Matthews said.
Moving livestock and fresh produce has become costly and hazardous.
Bathurst West Farmers Association member Justin Stirk described how tractors had to be placed on standby at the road drifts on the day of Hobson Co’s monthly Charlgrove cattle sale near Kasouga on Tuesday, for example, farmers had tractors on standby to pull the cattle trucks out of the mud as 610 animals were moved into and out of the auction venue.
Stirk, who farms chicory and livestock, said the costs of driving on poor roads were threatening the viability of farming in the region.
“Profit margins for fresh produce are getting smaller,” Stirk says. “This is forcing farmers to stop growing food and turn to livestock instead. Farmers are being blamed for the fresh produce shortages that push food prices up. That’s unfair. Damage to crops is our problem. But fixing roads shouldn’t be our problem.
Stirk said the Southwell road had further deteriorated this week, after the R72 between Port Alfred and Kenton was closed on Tuesday and traffic redirected on to it churned up the mud even more .
“There’s going to be a terrible accident,” he warned. “Especially because these people aren’t used to driving on roads like this.”
The floods have highlighted the precarious state of the province’s road infrastructure, Matthews said.
Cattle feed, fuel and general supplies need to be brought into the area. As well as daily milk collections, livestock (95% cattle), pineapples and chicory have to be moved out. Matthews said poor road infrastructure was eroding the viability of agricultural enterprise.
The government should give the road maintenance money to the farmers' associations instead of subcontractors, Matthews said. We would spend the money on actually fixing the roads properly.
Meanwhile Riebeeck East guest house owner Cary Clark warned in an email earlier this week that heavy trucks and buses, diverted on to the R400 and through the town, were further damaging the already dangerous road.
“Countless vehicles and trucks have already left the road,” she said in her email.
Clark said in a telephone interview yesterday that she’d reported the problem to the provincial traffic authorities and by yesterday morning the R400 had been closed to heavy vehicles.
“I think the problem is that they’re using GPSes to plan their routes and it seem these are showing the R400 as a tar road. In fact, there’s 25km of dirt from the N10 to here, and there’s just a small strip of tar through the town itself.
“It’s fine for small vehicles,” Clark said. “You’ve just got to be careful if you don’t know the road though, because if you hit a clay patch at speed you’ll see your backside.”
The national roads agency, Sanral, said in an emailed response to questions this week that the bypass around the N2 breakage near Pumba will hopefully be completed by early December and they are currently establishing costs for fixing the damaged national road.
