Wild veld fires are a much bigger problem to farmers in general and wine grape farmers in particular than is appreciated. I would argue they are a bigger issue to the Western Cape than we think. The immediate damage affects various aspects of one’s business at various levels and the negative impact lasts long after the veld has started to regrow. Often wine farms are crippled for a generation after a devastating fire.
The insurance industry has enjoyed remarkable returns for many decades but is looking down the barrel of the climate change gun. Insurers have reacted by making premiums unaffordable where high risk lies – wine farms and fires being one. Farming operations affected by floods and fire are often impacted by slow or no payouts and a reticence to cover loss of earnings for business interruption because of fire damage.
Replacing a fire-destroyed vineyard is not only hugely expensive, but takes quality grape supply out of the model for at least four years, usually five. This can result in a precious de-listing, which may be impossible to regain.
A winemaker only really gets the full financial advantage from a vineyard twice in a lifetime. This is because, if luck is on your side, and you are an excellent winemaker and marketer, a vineyard takes about 20 years to realise a return on investment.
Without getting anywhere near the change in the Act, which I believe can hamper collaboration between farmers in strategies like preventative, controlled burnouts, when the firestorm rushes over the mountain, it is clear that farmers have only themselves and their local Fire Protection Agency organisations to rely on. If one has an experienced, proactive, and committed Emergency Services Manager, like Reinard Geldenhuys (and his support, Louise Wessels) in the Overberg District Municipality, one is indeed very fortunate. I have heard horror stories of poor leadership, indecision, and inexperience in other areas of the Western Cape that have clearly made fires much worse, not better.
Following this latest firestorm winemakers in the Agulhas Wine Triangle have been discussing strategies for the future. We believe the Roads Department could play a hugely positive role by keeping all the road reserves clean of aliens and mowed to act as a firebreak. The Stanford fire that threatened Raka Vineyards could have been stopped much earlier if aliens on government land against the R326 Stanford road had been cleared. Powerless to do anything, we watched the fire creep slowly down the mountain through the fynbos, before suddenly speeding up and jumping the road once it hit the aliens, flames five metres above our bakkies.
If the Roads Department and government kept road reserves clear, farmers would then be motivated to create firebreaks alongside these road reserves at their own expense, thus extending the firebreaks to a width that would be much more effective in firefighting. As members of GoFPA farmers get cheaper aerial support cover for the water bombing helicopters and as members we are required to have proper firebreaks. A suggestion was raised about this. Perhaps if GoFPA members do not maintain strategic firebreaks they should not be allowed to be members or take advantage of cheaper aerial cover insurance?
When a fire threatens a wine farm it is not just the damage to infrastructure like fencing that tears your financial sustainability apart, but something called smoke taint. This is like exposing a vineyard to the human equivalent of nuclear radiation. If the exposure is long and intense enough, the smoke gets absorbed through the skin of the grapes and results in a wine that smells and tastes of burnt rubber – basically unsellable.
Unfortunately, one can only mitigate the problem through winemaking techniques, none of which enhance the wine – rather they do the opposite and strip the wine. At best you are left with weedy, thin, neutral wine. Unfortunately, one only knows if your wine is smoke-tainted after you have gone to the expense and effort of making the wine – it is impossible to test for it before the flavour and aroma pre-cursors are changed through fermentation and become organoleptically apparent. This has obvious financial implications.
It’s hard enough selling great wine from South Africa. Throwing good money after bad is the one mistake wine businesses cannot afford to make – there is no room for that in a heavily capital intense business with very slim margins. Following a fire close to harvest, you land up in an existential crisis of “You are damned if you do, and damned if you don’t”. This causes as much stress as fighting the fire in the first place.
We are a resourceful bunch. We know how to fight fires – many of our members have been doing so for generations. So, what has changed to make these challenges so devastating? Invasive alien trees play a massive role. In wind they throw the fire ahead 500m. The lack of coordinated management, and lack of government funding to tackle this underlying issue results in the almost overwhelming odds we faced already this fire season.
It also results in a bigger financial burden for our province and municipalities after the fact. Budget spending by roads department, municipalities etc… could be prioritised to avoid these heavy losses to all when fires fueled unnecessarily by invasive alien vegetation threaten.
There’s a very strong argument to actively encouraging the re-establishment of endemic Renosterveld corridors, which by comparison to alien vegetation, burns at a lower temperature, slowly and with difficultly. Could funding not also be made available for this long-term strategy on government land and alongside roads?
The wine industry is one of the biggest employers in the Western Cape. We have survived despite an ANC government, who have shown deliberate neglect and disdain for us over the last 30 years. Being under threat now by the increasingly devastating effect of wildfires may be a burden some cannot carry. Job losses will follow, including those indirectly linked to tourism.
This is a much bigger issue than it at first appears.