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Farming is one of the most expensive addictions on Earth. More costly, I’d wager, than gambling or crystal meth. And for those who suffer from terraphilia – an intrinsic affection for and connection to the earth – there is no rehab.
My parents are thus afflicted. They live on a farm in the southern Cape, just off the Outeniqua Pass between George and Oudtshoorn. They bought it 15 years ago and planted their pear orchards. Surrounded by some of the most gorgeous scenery in the world, it takes away the breath of all visitors – except mine.
To make their pear farm work, my parents have two tractors. The one is called Snot-en-Trane, the other Kak-en-Drama. The local mechanic is summoned to emergency breakdown scenes on an almost monthly basis. S&T and K&D appear to have inconvenience sensors that can detect the most inopportune times to cease to function – at spraying time at 3am, during pruning season or whenever the 15 hectares of orchards are in urgent need of a mow.
The tractors are just the start of it. There are pests, drought, floods, and fussy European laws that stand in the way of my parents bringing their pears to market.
The boomslang that hangs out near the back door is nothing compared with the farm’s most vicious beasts: the swarms of fruit-piercing moths, which penetrate the fruit with a barbed proboscis, causing the fruit to decay on the inside, but leaving it deceptively beautiful on the outside. If your crop has fallen prey to this moth, you can kiss it goodbye, along with the hundreds of thousands of rands spent on labour, sprays and electricity.
That’s what happened to a bit of last year’s crop and most of 2013’s crop. And I think it happened in 2012 too. These tiny insects have forced my parents to spend a small fortune on erecting bright lights to shine over their orchards at night (the moths have to work in the dark, apparently), which means they pay Eskom many more thousands each month.
Then there’s the rain – always a pain. This year, a bad drought dried up the dams, but in previous years, there have been floods that caused at least one landslide and left reservoirs dangerously close to bursting and flooding the lot. You have probably heard the expression: “Farmers are never happy.” Believe me, if you live with one, there is not much to be happy about.
Remember when we urbanistas were scratching our heads, wondering why the farmers were objecting so strongly to having to pay municipal rates and taxes? It’s because the poor bastards have to do all the council’s jobs themselves. My father has been up close and personal with other people’s excrement while sorting out overflowing septic tanks – which municipalities would do in a town. Other council jobs they do include grading dirt roads, providing water and electricity to workers’ houses, refuse removal and fighting fires. Literally.
One of several farms I grew up on was in Gauteng where, every winter, we’d have to put out several veld fires. My five-member family would stumble out of bed in the garage, where we lived for three years while we built our house, to save the land from the flames.
After going through hell all growing season, my parents try to sell their fruit for the best price possible – so the pears are sent to a packinghouse that exports them to Europe. But to do that, the farm has to comply with European legislation, the prescripts of which border on the vaguely humorous. All their orchards have to have individual names and the entire operational part of the farm must be a strict no-smoking zone. Huh?
Shopping at my local grocer, I have nothing but admiration for farmers and workers who face the torments of getting produce to market in return for rewards that are nowhere near handsome.
My siblings and I are not exactly clamouring for a chance to become the next generation of pear farmers. I, for one, will carry on living no further than a kilometre from my nearest Woolies.
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