WESTERN Cape Agriculture MEC Gerrit van Rensburg yesterday announced the immediate rollout of R26,9-million in drought relief for embattled livestock farmers in the Eden District.

Van Rensburg made the announcement at a meeting of about 100 Eden farmers at the Outeniqua Agricultural Union’s premises near George Airport yesterday. “We are prepared to work with farmers to fight this crisis, confident that we will come out of this situation stronger than before,” he said.

Andre Roux, director of sustainable resource management in the provincial Agriculture Department, told the farmers they could receive their first livestock feed vouchers within a few weeks.

“Farmers who qualify need to register for drought relief if they are not already registered. We are pushing to distribute the first vouchers towards the end of February. If not, then it will happen in March,” Roux said.

The relief would take the form of feed vouchers, not cash, to avoid any abuse of the scheme and only farmers of cattle, sheep and goats qualified.

“There will be spot checks to ensure that the state’s money is being spent for the purpose for which it has been provided,” Roux said. Farmers were, however, free to spend the vouchers on whatever feed they required, and could purchase the feed from any supplier also registered with the scheme.

In terms of the drought relief scheme, farmers could claim R600 a month per head of cattle or per six or seven sheep or goats, up to a maximum of 50 cattle.

Small farmers with 10 head of cattle or fewer had to pay 10% of the feed bill. Farmers with more than 10 head had to pay 30%.

Roux said the most drought relief any single farmer could qualify for was R21000 per month. The relief could not be carried over from one month to the next. Any relief not claimed would be forfeit.

Monthly limits had been set to stretch the available funding out, because it was not known when the crippling drought would end, Roux said.

A number of ostrich farmers at the meeting expressed unhappiness that they had not been included as beneficiaries of drought relief funding. Roux said this was because they had been classified as game farmers.

Van Rensburg said he had wanted to include ostrich farmers, but the existing ground rules prohibited it. Addressing the problem now would have delayed the process. Drought relief for ostrich and crop farmers was under consideration, the MEC said.