Water Wheel July/Sept 2025: Smallholder Farmers

Abstract

Bridging the water divide: Climate-resilient pathways for smallholder farmers in the Western Cape For South Africa’s smallholder farmers, often the backbone of local food systems, water insecurity has always been a fact of life. But climate change is turning a challenge into an existential threat. The Western Cape’s rainfall patterns have become erratic, droughts more prolonged, and competition for scarce resources fiercer than ever. When your farm relies on seasonal streams or a gravity-fed furrow system laid down decades ago, a single season of failed rains can mean the difference between a harvest and hunger. A Water Research Commission-funded study, conducted by the Cape Peninsula University of Technology (WRC Report No. 3194/1/24), provides a comprehensive examination of this unfolding crisis. It examines not just the weather and the pipes, but the governance structures, economic inequities, and institutional gaps that determine who gets water, when, and how. And crucially, it offers a set of climate-resilient pathways that could transform vulnerability into resilience.

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