we love love love love love Van Niekerk Bruwer

well I do anyway

What a breath of fresh air! The lights are on and at last somebody is at home!!! Mega-Yay

In the Riebeek Valley Reporter no 18 (June 2007), Chairman of the Riebeek Valley Farmers Association Van Niekerk Bruwer States:

"Organic farming is an excellent idea, but unfortunately there isn't a single successful table grape farm left in the Berg River Area. There is one near Piketberg and it's not going that well. The biggest hurdle for farmers in the Valley, when it comes to organic grape farming, is the density of crops in the valley. The concentration of fruit trees is so high that pest and disease outbreaks are almost guaranteed to spread from one area to the next. Organic methods in combating these diseases and pests are not as effective as their chemical counterparts. This means that organic farmers often have to spray more than the traditional farmer. Ironically there are some chemical sprays that organic farmers are allowed to use.

I think the long-term answer for grape farming in the Valley (and the rest of South Africa) lies somewhere between agro-chemical and organic farming: bio-dynamic equilibrium farming. This is a fairly new buzz-word and it can also be called biological farming.

It basically means that the producer's goal is to achieve the natural equilibrium (or symbiosis) between the plant/tree and its environment with the use of biological agricultural methods, supplemented by agro-chemicals when necessary. Farmers in the Valley are commercial - not lifestyle farm owners. An ugly description would be 'mass producers of agricultural produce for financial gain'. We're not producing grapes for the shop around the corner - the volumes are huge and the profit margins are VERY, VERY low (otherwise Bill Gates and other influential businessmen would own commercial grape farms in South Africa by now!). Organic grape farming without substantial backing from the Department of Agriculture and other industry role players would be disastrous for many farmers."

Obviously the current situation where vast amounts of uncontrolled pesticide drift is 'normal' is not sustainable.
Obviously, again, it is reasonable for ordinary people like myself to want to quietly get on with our lives without suffering from for example, pesticide induced arthritis.
Nevermind other, terminal, conditions.

The current pesticide industry and pesticide-vendor orientated ways of farming need to be replaced by farmer, worker, community and environmentally forms of agriculture.

Thanks Van Niekerk for acknowledging this and for looking for a way forward.

Bio-dynamic status would be a great marketing tool for the valley!!! And help sell lakes of wine!