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Vhembe region


Vhembe region

In my second blogpost I shortly mentioned my study trip to the University of Venda in South Africa. This post I want to elaborate on this region. I wanted to do this partly because it is spatially different than both Johannesburg and Cape Town, the cities I have written about in my previous posts, in it being a more rural area and partly because of my connections there. Instead of diving into the literature, I this time texted my friends there with a few simple questions on both water and climate change in their region. Therefore this blog post will be less academic than the other ones but in my opinion just as important. Their perceptions will hopefully both help me creatively with new insights and are important because it is them living there and experiencing changes.

Image 1: Me together with my fellow students from Univen and UvA. 

The four students I have had contact with respective study/studied Agricultural Economics, Micro Biology, Agriculture and International Relations. Two of them are originally from Zimbabwe, but they all study and live in the Vhembe region in South Africa. This region is a district in the northern part of Limpopo Province (image 2). This province is one of the poorest provinces in the country (Maponya & Mpandeli, 2015). The city in which the University is located in Thohoyandou, also the location of the local government. Together with mining and tourism, agriculture is the most important sector (Maponya & Mpandeli, 2013).  The Vhembe District produces 4.4% of South Africa’s total agricultural export. The region has subtropical climate conditions with mild moist winters and wet warm summers. The annual rainfall per annum is about 300 mm but the evaporation differs a lot spatially and annually in the region (Maponya & Mpandeli, 2015). Droughts have for a long time affected this sector and have had impacts on the region for decades (Maponya & Mpandeli, 2013).  
Image 2: The Vhembe Region in Red in the Limpopo Province. 


 In the next part of my post, I will deal with the answers the students gave me by categorizing them in both temperature, food security, and water availability 
Temperature
According to one of the students the high temperatures they have experienced in the last years in both September and October are unusual.

Food security
Two out of the four students mention the shift in rainfall, with more sporadic rainfall patterns and earlier season endings. All of them mention an overall decline in the amount of annual rainfall. Livestock starvation, drying of water bodes, food insecurity and early pasture deterioration are all mentioned as negative consequences of less annual rainfall. Especially droughts affecting the agricultural sector with reduced crop yields worry the students. One of the students mentions that especially in the even more remote areas this is a problem where the people cannot practice irrigation, leaving them prone to hunger. In addition, the student studying agricultural economics mentions the impact of droughts on households. According to him, a shortage of food as a result of droughts lead to both cattle death and starvation. Cattle, he sais, are often used as an investment and fall back plan for households in case of emergency. Once their cattle die, the farmer and their household becomes therefore very economically insecure.
        One of the students, originally from Zimbabwe, mentions the uneven distribution of rainfall patterns together with the patterns being more “erratic”. This resulting in more flooding and again negative impacts on food security because of both livestock death and destroyed crops.

Water availability
Simbarashe, studying microbiology, experienced in river studies that some rivers around the Venda region hardly had any water in the last couple of years. Two of the other students have also noticed more dry water bodies. On top of this, the water available in remote areas for the rural communities is often salty due to prevailing hot weather in those areas. Besides, one student mentions that droughts have different impacts on different people. Some households can afford to drill boreholes and therefore have access to water whereas others can’t. On top of this, he thinks education matters. Well informed and well-read people can, according to him, better anticipate the droughts by for example plant small grains that are more drought-tolerant or do early destocking of livestock, whereas less educated people have fewer coping mechanisms.

Conclusion
Although this blogpost is not based on scientific information but on experience and the experiences can not with certainty be linked to climate change, these worries in food security and water availability show what kind of effect a changing climate can have on a region. Interestingly both where you live, more remote or more urban, education levels and income are mentioned as a factor in how much people are vulnerable to changes in climate. 

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