A severe fire has ravaged a vital grazing camp in the Niani area outside Musina, leaving subsistence livestock farmers facing an uncertain future and pleading for government assistance. The blaze, which occurred last week, consumed the sprawling area known as Camp-Two, a lifeline for farmers from five villages, including Bale and Manenzhe.
The cause of the fire remains unknown, with authorities stating that no case has been opened. However, residents in the community suspect that poachers and wood cutters operating in the area may be responsible.
The 2,000-hectare camp was originally established by the former Venda homeland to preserve and provide grazing in the dry, semi-arid region. For months, the area has endured a severe lack of rain, making the camp an essential resource for farmers who depend entirely on their livestock for a living.
According to farmers on the ground, the inferno destroyed an estimated 1,500 hectares of grass. The landscape is now a charred scene, dotted with lifeless and partially burnt mopane trees, a stark contrast to the once-flourishing grazing land.
Farmers expressed deep frustration, recalling that the government previously deployed rangers to protect the camp, a practice that has since been abandoned.
“When our livestock are feeding here, we are able to monitor them. If there were rangers cutting here, it will be better,” one farmer said. “Now that there are no rangers, people just do as they like… It’s like we are not living in the same country. We are really struggling as farmers.”
The loss of the camp has created an immediate crisis. With no grass left, farmers report their cattle are already beginning to die.
“So far right now there’s no grass and we do not know where to go,” another farmer stated, making a direct appeal to the Department of Agriculture. “We wish if the department of agriculture could come and help us so that we can get enough food for our cattle. You see the cattle are dying there; there they are the bones.”
Community leaders and farmers are now urgently calling for the department to provide emergency cattle feed to prevent further losses.
Desperate farmers attempted to fight the blaze themselves with tree branches and water before firefighters were called, but their efforts were in vain against the uncontrollable fire.
“We came here trying to extinguish the fire, but we failed because we were only carrying tree branches and the fire was too much,” a witness recounted. “The firefighters were called, but we ended up leaving before they could arrive.”
In response to the disaster, a spokesperson for the Department of Agriculture confirmed that a task team has been dispatched to assess the extent of the fire damage.
Meanwhile, a spokesperson for the Limpopo police reiterated that no case related to the fire has been reported.