AGRICULTURE NEWS - Organised agricultural organisations have expressed serious concern that any further load-shedding carried out by Eskom during important production periods could negatively impact the profitably of farmers and the affordability of food for South Africans.
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Earlier this week, Eskom instituted Stage 4 load-shedding, which required the utility to reduce the national electricity supply by 4 000MW, after failing to meet the country’s electricity requirement of about 30 000MW.
A statement issued by Eskom on Monday said the utility’s board had convened an urgent meeting with Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan after load-shedding had been unexpectedly introduced the previous day.
The initial plan had been to institute Stage 2 load-shedding, but Eskom had been forced to escalate this to Stage 4.
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“The escalation from Stage 2 to Stage 4 load-shedding was [the result of] a further seven generating units [tripping] within a period of five hours,” the statement said.
The situation was further exacerbated by Eskom experiencing diesel shortages.
Chairperson of the Centre of Excellence for Economics and Trade at Agri SA, Nicol Jansen, expressed relief about the immediate crisis seemingly being over, but said he did not believe the country was “out of the woods yet”.
