Issued by: Department of Water Affairs and Forestry
DROUGHT AID TO TIMBER FARMERS 7 NOVEMBER 1995
As part of the allocation for disaster assistance for 1995/96, drought assistance to timber farmers has been announced by the Minister of Water Affairs and Forestry, Prof Kader Asmal, MP. From 16 October 1995 this drought assistance programme, formerly administered by the Department of Agriculture, is being administered by the Forestry component of the Department of Water Affairs and Forestry. The amount of money allocated is R2,5 million.
A guiding documents and application forms were distributed to the South African Timber Growers' Association and four known financiers in the form of Agricultural and/or Timber Co-operatives, i.e. Natal Co-operative Timber, Transvaal Wattle Growers' Co-operative, Laeveld Co-operative and Northern Transvaal Co-operative.
Copies of the guiding document and of the application forms are therefore available from above-mentioned organisations as from 30 October 1995. Copies will also be available at regional Forestry Offices of the Department.
The drought assistance is in the form of a single-amount interest subsidy on re-establishment loans in respect of timber crops. The drought losses must have occurred between 1 September 1994 and 31 August 1995 and all timber plantings, including woodlots, qualify, i.e. every crop where a loan had to be obtained to re-establish the drought damaged tree crop.
Due to the limited amount of drought assistance that has been made available, a maximum area of 200 hectares per application has been set, i.e. the total area for which drought assistance was received in both 1993 and now in 1995, may not exceed 200 hectares. Co-operatives, public companies and their subsidiaries, and State co-operatives and their affiliates, do not qualify for any assistance in terms of this programme.
Qualifying farmers should obtain an application form from one of the above-mentioned organisations as soon as they can, complete it in as a matter of urgency and take them to their financier (usually one of the above-mentioned co-operatives) before 30 November 1995. The financiers must submit the forms plus their recommendations before 31 December 1995 to Dr D.W. van der Zel, Forestry Development, Dept, of Water Affairs and Forestry, Private Bag X93, Pretoria 0001. De van der Zel and his assistant, Mr George Olivier are available to answer any queries at tel no. (012) 299 2040/3430 and fax no. (012) 328 6041.