Drought and Water Cruises: Science, Technology, and Management Issues - Chapter 6 ppt

6 National Drought Policy: Lessons Learned from Australia, South Africa, and the United States DONALD A.. Moving from Crisis to Risk Management: Creeping toward a National Drought Policy

6

National Drought Policy: Lessons Learned from Australia, South Africa, and the United States

DONALD A WILHITE, LINDA BOTTERILL,

AND KARL MONNIK

CONTENTS

I Introduction 138

II Drought Policy and Preparedness: Defining a New Paradigm 138

III National Drought Policy: Lessons from Australia 140

A Pre-Drought Policy Period in Australia 141

B The National Drought Policy 142

C Current Status and Future Directions 146

IV Drought Policy in South Africa 150

V Moving from Crisis to Risk Management: Creeping toward a National Drought Policy for the United States 158

VI Summary 167

References 167

138 Wilhite et al.

I INTRODUCTION

Drought is a frequent visitor to Australia, South Africa, andthe United States Each country has struggled to effectivelymanage drought events, and lessons learned from theseattempts have taught these countries that the reactive, crisismanagement approach is largely ineffective, promotinggreater reliance on government and increasing societal vul-nerability to subsequent drought episodes Repeated occur-rences of drought in recent decades have placed each nation

on a course to develop a national drought policy that promotesimproved self-reliance by placing greater emphasis on moni-toring and early warning, improving decision support andpreparedness planning, and enhancing risk management.Although each nation has differed in its approach, the goal isthe same—to reduce societal vulnerability to drought throughimproved self-reliance while minimizing the need for govern-ment intervention

This chapter describes the process each country has gonethrough to reach its current level of preparedness and thestatus of current drought policies A case study of each countrywill provide insight into the complexities of the policy devel-opment process, the obvious and not-so-obvious pitfalls, andfuture prospects The ultimate objective of this chapter is tohelp other nations achieve a higher level of preparedness andimproved drought policy through the transferability of some

of the principal lessons learned

II DROUGHT POLICY AND PREPAREDNESS:

DEFINING A NEW PARADIGM

The implementation of a drought policy can alter a nation’sapproach to drought management In the past decade or so,drought policy and preparedness has received increasingattention from governments, international and regional orga-nizations, and nongovernmental organizations Simply stated,

a national drought policy should establish a clear set of ciples or operating guidelines to govern the management ofdrought and its impacts The policy should be consistent andequitable for all regions, population groups, and economicDK2949_book.fm Page 138 Friday, February 11, 2005 11:25 AM

prin-sectors and consistent with the goals of sustainable ment The overriding principle of drought policy should be anemphasis on risk management through the application ofpreparedness and mitigation measures This policy should bedirected toward reducing risk by developing better awarenessand understanding of the drought hazard and the underlyingcauses of societal vulnerability The principles of risk man-agement can be promoted by encouraging the improvementand application of seasonal and shorter term forecasts, devel-oping integrated monitoring and drought early warning sys-tems and associated information delivery systems, developingpreparedness plans at various levels of government, adoptingmitigation actions and programs, creating a safety net ofemergency response programs that ensure timely and tar-geted relief, and providing an organizational structure thatenhances coordination within and between levels of govern-ment and with stakeholders.

develop-As vulnerability to drought has increased globally,greater attention has been directed to reducing risks associ-ated with its occurrence through the introduction of planning

to improve operational capabilities (i.e., climate and watersupply monitoring, building institutional capacity) and miti-gation measures aimed at reducing drought impacts Thischange in emphasis is long overdue Mitigating the effects ofdrought requires the use of all components of the cycle ofdisaster management (Figure 1), rather than only the crisismanagement portion of this cycle Typically, when a naturalhazard event and resultant disaster occurs, governments anddonors follow with impact assessment, response, recovery, andreconstruction activities to return the region or locality to apre-disaster state Historically, little attention has been given

to preparedness, mitigation, and prediction or early warningactions (i.e., risk management) that could reduce futureimpacts and lessen the need for government intervention inthe future Because of this emphasis on crisis management,society has generally moved from one disaster to another withlittle, if any, reduction in risk In drought-prone regions,another drought often occurs before the region fully recoversfrom the last drought

140 Wilhite et al.

Four key components comprise an effective drought riskreduction strategy: (1) the availability of timely and reliableinformation on which to base decisions; (2) policies and insti-tutional arrangements that encourage assessment, commu-nication, and application of that information; (3) a suite ofappropriate risk management measures for decision makers;and (4) effective and consistent actions by decision makers(O’Meagher et al., 2000) It is critical for governments withdrought policy and preparedness experience to share it withother nations that are eager to improve their level of pre-paredness

III NATIONAL DROUGHT POLICY: LESSONS FROM AUSTRALIA

Australia is the driest inhabited continent on earth, and itexperiences one of the most variable climates Unlike other

Figure 1 Cycle of disaster management (Source: NationalDrought Mitigation Center, University of Nebraska, Lincoln,Nebraska, USA.)

Preparedness

Prediction and Early Warning

Impact Assessment

Recovery

Mitigation

Protection Recovery

continents, its patterns are determined by nonannual cycles(Flannery, 1994), posing challenges for agricultural practicesdeveloped in the relatively more reliable climate of Europe.

An early report on the prospects for agriculture in the colony

of New South Wales noted the “uncertain climate” and gested that the future of the colony “will be that of pasturerather than tillage, and the purchase of land will be madewith a view to the maintenance of large flocks of fine-woolledsheep; the richer lands, which will generally be found on thebanks of the rivers, being devoted to the production of corn,maize and vegetables” (Bigge, 1966, p 92)

sug-In spite of these early concerns, a successful agriculturalindustry developed in Australia, becoming the backbone ofnational prosperity until about the mid-20th century andremaining an important contributor to the country’s exportearnings Under Australia’s Constitution, agriculture isessentially a state responsibility, with the commonwealth gov-ernment becoming involved through its fiscal power and bynegotiation with the states This negotiation takes placethrough the Council of Ministers, first established in 1934 asthe Australian Agriculture Council and currently known asthe Primary Industries Ministerial Council The council issupported by a standing committee of senior officials drawnfrom the commonwealth and state departments responsiblefor agriculture The Ministerial Council was the mechanismthrough which Australia’s National Drought Policy was devel-oped and also the forum within which its disputed elementshave been fought out

A Pre-Drought Policy Period in Australia

Until 1989, drought was considered to be a natural disasterand drought relief was provided in accordance with statedisaster relief policy From the late 1930s, the commonwealthgovernment became progressively more involved in naturaldisaster relief through a series of ad hoc arrangements withthe states and special purpose legislation such as that passed

in the mid-1960s to provide drought relief to New South Walesand Queensland

142 Wilhite et al.

In 1971, disaster relief arrangements were revised by thecommonwealth government and a formula established underwhich the commonwealth shared the cost of natural disasterrelief with the States This arrangement has continued with

a number of minor administrative amendments In 1989, thecommonwealth government decided that drought would nolonger be covered by these natural disaster relief arrange-ments The main impetus for this decision was budgetary;drought was accounting for the largest proportion of disasterrelief expenditure, and there was suspicion that the Queen-sland state government was manipulating the scheme forelectoral advantage The commonwealth Minister for Financeclaimed that the Queensland government was using thescheme as “as a sort of National Party slush fund” (Walsh,1989)

In 1989 the commonwealth government set up theDrought Policy Review Task Force to identify policy options

to encourage primary producers and other segments of ruralAustralia to adopt self-reliant approaches to the management

of drought, consider the integration of drought policy withother relevant policy issues, and advise on priorities for com-monwealth government action in minimizing the effects ofdrought in the rural sector (Drought Policy Review Task Force,1990) The task force reported in 1990 and recommendedagainst reinstating drought in the natural disaster reliefarrangements They concluded that drought was a naturalpart of the Australian farmer’s operating environment andshould be managed like any other business risk The reportrecommended the establishment of a national drought policybased on principles of self-reliance and risk management,with any assistance to be provided in an adjustment context,

to be based on a loans-only policy and to permit the incomesupport needs of rural households to be addressed in moreextreme situations (Drought Policy Review Task Force, 1990)

B The National Drought Policy

Commonwealth and state ministers, through the MinisterialCouncil, announced a new National Drought Policy in JulyDK2949_book.fm Page 142 Friday, February 11, 2005 11:25 AM

1992 As recommended by the Drought Policy Review TaskForce, the policy was based on principles of sustainable devel-opment, risk management, productivity growth, and struc-tural adjustment in the farm sector Support for productivityimprovement and improved risk management was to be pro-vided through the commonwealth government’s main struc-tural adjustment program for agriculture, the RuralAdjustment Scheme, which was being reviewed concurrentlywith development of the National Drought Policy.

The revised Rural Adjustment Scheme incorporated thenew concept of “exceptional circumstances” under which sup-port would be made available for farm businesses faced with

a downturn for which the best manager could not be expected

to prepare Eligible events were not limited to drought Theexceptional circumstances provisions became the basis for thedelivery of support during the droughts of the mid-1990s and2002–03 Support, in the form of interest rate subsidies oncommercial finance, was available only to farmers with long-term viable futures in agriculture The rationale for thisapproach was that drought relief should not act as a de factosubsidy to otherwise nonviable businesses In addition toexceptional circumstances support through the Rural Adjust-ment Scheme, schemes were set up to enable farmers to buildfinancial reserves as part of their risk management, and gov-ernments made a commitment to invest in research and devel-opment, including climate research, and in education andtraining The state governments agreed to phase out trans-action-based subsidies such as fodder subsidies, and supportwas made available to help nonviable farmers leave the land.Farmers who decided to exit farming were supported withreestablishment grants and a loans-based income supportscheme

The timing of the National Drought Policy, which tookeffect in January 1993, could not have been more unfortunate.Parts of Queensland and New South Wales, which had beenexperiencing dry spells since about 1991, were settling intowhat was to become one of the worst droughts of the 20thcentury In addition, farmers had been coping with historicallyhigh interest rates and low commodity prices These factors

By mid-1994 the drought situation was being described

as the “worst on record” (Wahlquist and Kidman, 1994) andseveral media organizations launched a public appeal to raisefunds for drought-affected farmers In September 1994, PrimeMinister Paul Keating visited one of the worst affected areasand shortly afterward announced the establishment of a wel-fare-based drought relief payment scheme to help farmersmeet day-to-day living expenses Unlike assistance availablethrough the Rural Adjustment Scheme, the drought reliefpayment was not limited to farmers with a long-term future

in farming, but it was restricted to farmers in areas declared

to be experiencing exceptional circumstances The welfarepayment was only for farm families affected by drought andwas not available during other forms of exceptional circum-stances

In 1997, following the end of the drought and a change

of government at the commonwealth level, a review was tiated into the operation of the National Drought Policy Thereview endorsed the risk management approach of the policybut recommended some changes to its operation At the sametime the drought policy was under review, the Rural Adjust-ment Scheme was also reviewed and subsequently wound upbeing replaced by a suite of programs under the title “Agri-culture—Advancing Australia” (Anderson, 1997) The newprograms were not dissimilar from those they replaced andcontinued to be aimed at improving farm productivity andrisk management The drought relief payment was retainedbut extended to address a wider range of exceptional circum-stances beyond drought, thus being renamed the “exceptionalcircumstances relief payment.” In 1999, commonwealth andstate ministers decided to refocus exceptional circumstancessupport on welfare relief and phase out the business supportDK2949_book.fm Page 144 Friday, February 11, 2005 11:25 AM

ini-components that had been provided through interest ratesubsidies.

In 2002 and 2003, Australia experienced widespreaddrought, with some regions registering the lowest rainfall onrecord (Bureau of Meteorology, 2002) The National DroughtPolicy was once again put to the test, and a number of ongoingproblems with the system have once again come to the fore.First, the continuing lack of an agreed-upon definition ofexceptional circumstances hampers the establishment of astable, predictable environment within which policy makersand farmers must operate While the trigger point at whichsupport becomes available, and the nature of that support,remains fluid, farmers’ risk management strategies will behindered and the expectation of support is likely to generateless than optimal management decisions The term excep- tional circumstances was not defined in either the legislationestablishing the provision or any of the accompanying explan-atory material, such as ministerial speeches Attempts havebeen made over the life of the National Drought Policy todevelop an objective, “scientific” definition of exceptionaldrought, but, as is generally agreed in the international lit-erature, drought is very difficult to define (Dracup et al., 1980;Wilhite, 2000b; Wilhite and Glantz, 1985) Second, exceptionalcircumstances declarations have been geographically based,resulting in what has become known as the “lines on maps”problem Thus, farmers in arguably objectively similar cir-cumstances are treated quite differently because of the place-ment of the boundary delineating exceptional circumstancesareas Because considerable government support is available

to those on the “right” side of the line, this is an issue of greatconcern The problem was recognized in 2001 when ministersagreed to the introduction of “buffer zones” around exceptionalcircumstances areas so that farmers in “reasonable proximity”

to but outside the defined zones could apply for support culture and Resource Management Council of Australia andNew Zealand, 2001)

(Agri-The application process for assistance was also changed

to allow farmers to make a prima facie case that they qualifiedfor support If the application was subsequently rejected,

146 Wilhite et al.

farmers would still be able to receive up to 6 months of welfaresupport, whereas successful applications would result inincome support payments for 2 years (Truss, 2002b) Eligibil-ity was further relaxed by the decision to extend exceptionalcircumstances declarations to an entire state once 80% of itqualified under the exceptional circumstances program.During the 2002–03 drought there was evidence of somesuccess with the risk management approach to drought prep-aration In 2002, Australian farmers held approximatelyAU$2 billion in farm management deposits, a special scheme

to help farmers build financial reserves in preparation fordownturns such as drought

C Current Status and Future Directions

In 2004 a national roundtable was convened to considerdrought policy The roundtable considered a paper produced

by an independent panel following consultations with holders, and the roundtable results will be considered bygovernment (Truss, 2003b) A number of issues need to beaddressed First, because the policy is dependent on the dec-laration of an exceptional circumstances drought, the process

stake-of drought declaration has become highly politicized As isoften the case in Australia, the commonwealth and state gov-ernments are from different political parties, which has cre-ated an opportunity for politicians to use drought relief toscore political points (Amery, 2002; Truss, 2002a) This prob-lem presents itself in ongoing debates about funding respon-sibilities for drought support as well as in relation to thesecond problem with the system—the definition of “excep-tional cirumstances” Third, the existing system is expensive,with cost estimates of drought relief in the 2002–03 droughtexceeding AU$1 billion (Truss, 2003a) A number of questions

of equity are associated with this expenditure The taxpayerswho contribute to the drought support are often less wealthyover their lifetimes than the farmers—often temporarily cashpoor because of drought but asset rich because of their own-ership of land—who are assisted Potential inequities alsoexist between farmers, particularly between those who do notDK2949_book.fm Page 146 Friday, February 11, 2005 11:25 AM

qualify for support because of sound financial managementand poorer managers who find themselves in difficulty.Australia has successfully introduced a national droughtpolicy based on a recognition of the reality of the Australianclimate, and it emphasizes preparedness rather than disasterresponse However, the Australian experience with policyimplementation contains important lessons about the intro-duction of such a policy.

First, it is highly problematic to introduce a drought policybased on risk management during a severe drought event.Second, basing any drought relief on drought declarationsbrings up two major implementation problems: the definition

of the circumstances under which support will be available andthe inequities raised by geographical delineation of the eligibleareas Third, a system that relies on farmers to make a casefor support rather than satisfying previously agreed-upon cri-teria opens the system to politicization, particularly in a federalsystem in which both levels of government are involved in thedelivery of drought relief

Policy makers, academics, and rural commentators erally agree that the underlying principles of the NationalDrought Policy are sound (see, e.g., Botterill and Fisher, 2003)

gen-It is difficult to argue against the proposition that drought is

a normal feature of the Australian environment and thatfarmers need to manage climate risk along with other busi-ness risks they face

Given the problems with the existing system, severalalternative policy options are available One of the mostappealing approaches would see the removal of broad-brushdrought declarations, to be replaced by a system that deliverssupport to farmers on an individual basis This would depo-liticize the policy process and ensure that support wasdirected where it was most needed One mechanism for deliv-ering this style of support would be through revenue-contin-gent loans similar to the Higher Education ContributionScheme in Australia (for more detail on this proposal, seeBotterill and Chapman, 2002) Under this type of arrange-ment, eligible farmers would access a loan only to be repaidwhen the farm’s revenue stream returned to normal levels

148 Wilhite et al.

The advantages of such an approach are that it is consistentwith a risk management approach to drought because thefarmer draws on future good times to help him or her throughcurrent difficulties, it would not require geographicallydefined drought declarations, and it would be administra-tively simple

Another approach could be to return exceptional drought

to the natural disaster relief arrangements on the same ing as other natural disasters such as floods, cyclones, andearthquakes A standing arrangement along these lines wouldgreatly reduce the politicization of the process but wouldrequire an agreed-upon definition of drought and geographicaldelineation of areas that were eligible for support—both ofwhich have been stumbling blocks in the current system

foot-A further consideration would be a reexamination of fare support for farmers in Australia Australian agriculture

wel-is dominated by the family farm, and for many farm familiesthere is close integration of the farm business and the farmfamily Although political leaders have been stressing for sometime that farming is a business (Anderson, 1997; Crean,1992), for many farmers the distinction between farm busi-ness and the farm family remains blurred Australia’s socialwelfare safety net does not cope well with the self-employednor, since the introduction of asset testing in the 1980s, withsupporting those in the community who are asset rich butincome poor To date, farm welfare support in Australia hasbeen delivered as part of structural adjustment packages,with the objective of encouraging marginal farmers to leavethe land Although these programs have been largely unsuc-cessful (Botterill, 2001), governments continue to frame farmpoverty as a structural adjustment issue As noted above, theemphasis of the exceptional circumstances program in recentyears has shifted to the delivery of welfare support If thegeneral welfare safety net were adapted to deliver short-termincome relief to farmers in difficulty, there would be lesspressure for special payments during drought

The removal of drought from the natural disaster reliefarrangements in Australia in 1989 signaled a major shiftDK2949_book.fm Page 148 Friday, February 11, 2005 11:25 AM

among policy makers from a position arguably anchored inEuropean expectations of rainfall to a recognition of the real-ities of the uncertain Australian climate The new policy envi-ronment emphasized the responsibility of farmers to manageclimate risk with governments to “create the overall environ-ment which is conducive to this whole farm planning and riskmanagement approach” and to “act to preserve the social andphysical resource base of rural Australia” in cases of severedownturn (Agricultural Council of Australia and NewZealand, 1992, p 13) Although this new approach has generalcurrency among members of the rural policy community, it isless clear that it has been understood or accepted by thegeneral public, both farming and nonfarming As Wahlquisthas argued, Australia’s media does not have a good record ofpresenting in-depth analysis of rural issues (Wahlquist, 2003),and coverage of drought is patchy and often inconsistent Thisinconsistency, and the generous public response to an appeal

in support of drought-affected farmers, suggests that the sage that drought is a normal part of the Australian environ-ment has not filtered through to the general community.Bushfires in Canberra and Sydney and water restrictions inurban areas in recent years have perhaps improved thebroader understanding of the impact of drought

mes-The 2004 review of the National Drought Policy will be

an important test of the Australian policy process, because 2004will be a federal election year and a national party minister islikely to be wary of too strong a policy stance that puts furtherresponsibility on farmers to manage for drought Key farmgroups are engaged in their own internal consultation pro-cesses in preparation for the roundtable (e.g., New South WalesFarmers Association, 2003) Issues of drought preparation, dec-laration processes, drought definitions, and appropriate forms

of government support are all likely to be debated in detail.The policy is starting from a philosophical base that recognizesthe reality of Australia’s climate The challenge is to ensurethat the next review builds on this in order to achieve a sus-tainable and equitable drought response

150 Wilhite et al.

IV DROUGHT POLICY IN SOUTH AFRICA

South Africa has a long history of living with drought Adrought during the early 1930s that coincided with the greatdepression made a deep impression on many policy makers.Significant droughts also occurred during the 1960s, 1980s,and early 1990s Despite this familiarity with drought, policymakers still struggle to quantify it and to develop a stablepolicy framework Drought policy falls at the interface amongthe numerous definitions of drought that require some quan-tification of intensity, duration, and geographical extent; thedemand of human activities for water; and the safeguarding

of the natural environment Therefore drought policy ues to evolve, particularly with the dynamic political environ-ment in South Africa

contin-South Africa is characterized by east–west degradation

in rainfall, from greater than 1000 mm in the east to around

150 mm in the west Much of the country lies above theescarpment (1000 m) and experiences a combination of frontaland convective rainfall, falling mainly during summer Thesouthern coast receives rainfall throughout the year and thesouthwestern corner is dominated by winter rainfall The 500-

mm isohyet divides the country into arable land to the eastand primarily rangeland farming to the west South Africa,receiving a little less than 500 mm as a national average, isclassified as a dry country where the influence of variablerainfall cannot be underestimated

Part of the difficulty in addressing drought in SouthAfrica is the large proportion of the population that depends

on rainfed subsistence agriculture This sector relies heavily

on the success of the rainy season to maintain adequate stocks

of food Historically, the infrastructure development andrecords maintenance in these areas have been neglected,which has made it difficult to monitor food status

Traditionally, the broad definition of drought in SouthAfrica has been seasonal rainfall less than 70% of normal(Bruwer, 1990) Using this criterion, drought has been shown

to occur about 1 in 3 years in the western and northwesternregions of the country Only 30% of the country receives 500DK2949_book.fm Page 150 Friday, February 11, 2005 11:25 AM

mm per annum or more To further emphasize this, less than18% of the country can be classed as arable land, of which8% has fairly serious limitations to arable production (Schoe-man et al., 2000) This underlines the vulnerability of thecountry to the vagaries of rainfall.

In one of the early examinations into the causes ofdrought, the 1923 Drought Investigation Commission con-cluded:

Whether the character has altered or not, its quantitydiminished, drought losses can be fully explained withoutpresuming a deterioration in the rainfall Your Commis-sioners had a vast amount of evidence placed before themfrom which only one conclusion can be drawn, namely,that the severe losses of the 1919 drought were causedprincipally by faulty veld [rangeland] and stock manage-ment (Union of South Africa, 1923 p.5)

Subsequent investigations into various aspects of ture in the 1960s and 1970s reiterated this observation, indi-cating that no real lessons were learned, and once conditionsreturned to normal the policy status quo was generally main-tained Some initiatives were implemented to reduce overgraz-ing: conversion of cropland to grazing land in marginal areasand a revised scheme to limit assistance only to farmers whofollowed sound agricultural and financial practices

agricul-In the past, state aid required magisterial districts(third-tier government) to be declared “drought disaster” sta-tus This legal requirement necessitated a quantitative indexthat could be uniformly applied This index was broadlydefined as two consecutive seasons of 70% or less rainfall(Bruwer, 1990) Normal drought, for which a farmer wasexpected to be self-reliant, was for a period of 1 year or less.Disaster drought was defined as two consecutive seasons ofbelow 70% of normal rainfall A disaster drought implied that

an area would qualify for state relief

In fact, Bruwer (1990) noted that certain magisterialdistricts had been declared disaster drought areas for 70%

of a 30-year review period, whereas some eastern portions

of the country had never been declared This indicates that

152 Wilhite et al.

the quantitative index is not optimal In fact, because itdepends on a deviation from mean annual rainfall, and theskewed distribution of annual rainfall totals in the drierareas, it favored drought declarations in the lower rainfallregions

The National Drought Committee (NDC) consisted ofrepresentatives of farmers’ organizations, the Soil Conserva-tion Advisory Board, the financial sector (i.e., banking, agri-cultural credit organizations, and Department of AgriculturalEconomics and Marketing), and the agricultural community.This committee scrutinized applications concerning disasterdrought status and then advised the Minister of Agricultureregarding these applications On the local level, a districtdrought committee was formed under the chair of the localmagistrate This committee examined all local applicationsand submitted these to the NDC using the prescribed format.Declaration and revocation of drought-stricken areas wereevaluated considering the following five criteria:

1 Rainfall over at least three seasons

2 Veld (rangeland) condition

3 Availability of water (for stock)

4 Stock condition or deaths

5 Availability and volume of fodder to be purchasedDrought assistance schemes were aimed at maintaining

a nucleus herd or stock for reestablishment after the droughtwas over A phased system of drought assistance was devel-oped The first level consisted of rebates on transport costs,followed by loans and finally subsidies at increasing rates asthe drought continued The assistance scheme served to pro-tect natural resources and provide for livestock farmers dur-ing a disaster drought The maintenance of a healthy andviable nucleus herd was not to be at the expense of the naturalresources or to the detriment of a farmer’s financial position.However, by the mid 1980s it was clear the policy had failed

to protect natural resources as envisaged

The government acknowledged that the drought tance schemes contributed to sustaining selected agriculturalproduction and communities However, they struggled toDK2949_book.fm Page 152 Friday, February 11, 2005 11:25 AM

define clear onset and shut-down phases of the drought tance, and at times, assistance was out of phase with envi-ronmental conditions.

assis-Many farmers overestimated the condition and potential

of their agricultural resources Farmers who overexploitedtheir resources also benefited from the drought assistanceschemes This was clearly unacceptable The scheme did notencourage a proactive or risk management approach Duringtheir visit to South Africa, White and O’Meagher (1999)observed that inappropriate policy and incentives had led toinappropriate management, which resulted in nonviable agri-culture and degradation of scarce natural resources As notedabove, Australian drought policy places considerable empha-sis on encouraging primary producers to adopt self-reliantapproaches to cope with drought and farm management.For stock farmers, the government provided assistance

in time of drought for the movement of stock or fodder andavailability of loans The definition of drought resulted incertain areas being under a disaster drought declaration for

>50% of the time between 1956 and 1986 (Smith, 1994) dental observation of pre-1990 drought policy for stock farm-ers noted that periods of drought declaration were excessive,relating more to overstocking than to climate The effects onland degradation were serious, and government assistance,while substantial, could be interpreted as exacerbating theproblem rather than reducing it (Smith, 1994) The challenge

Inci-of determining when intervention should occur and in whatform has occupied experts in many countries Until the 1990s,drought policy in South Africa was directed primarily at stockfarmers (Walters, 1993) Stock farming was considered bestadapted to the highly variable rainfall conditions in theseareas However, assistance tended to favor the poorer man-agers and climatically marginal area (Smith, 1993)

Bruwer (1990) pointed out that most drought measures were reactive in nature The development of newpolicy in the early 1990s required greater emphasis on aproactive approach Bruwer also pointed out that droughteffects are largely human induced This signified an importantturnaround in the approach of government policy regarding

counter-154 Wilhite et al.

state drought intervention Rangeland specialists identifiedfarming areas that were overstocked by >50% Research inthe Free State province demonstrated how overstockingincreases the length of fodder shortage periods and the prob-ability of such shortages

The government concluded that if no remedial actionswere taken, land degradation could encroach on a significantproportion of the country (Bruwer, 1990) Expenditure ondrought and flood relief was increasing significantly, from

$150 million during 1984–85 to $330 million in 1992–93 nik, 1997) Was this expenditure justified in achieving thegovernment’s objectives? With the continued degradation ofnatural agricultural resources, government was provided with

(Mon-a strong motiv(Mon-ation to review its (Mon-appro(Mon-ach in providing fin(Mon-an-cial and other relief As put by Tyson (1988 p.17), who empha-sized the need for a different paradigm: “All future planningmust be predicated on the assumption that it is a land ofdrought rather than a land of plentiful rain.”

finan-During the 1980s, drought stakeholders in South Africawere captivated by a sense of anticipation Research by Tyson(1986) concerning rainfall patterns and cycles of wet and dryspells on a decadal scale led to the successful prediction ofthe drought during the early 1980s Van Heerden et al (1988)and many others internationally investigated the feasibility

of providing seasonal rainfall anomaly predictions The ever “official” long-term prediction was attempted for the1986–87summer season Because of possible misunderstand-ing, the forecast was submitted personally to interested par-ties and not released to the media (Van Heerden, 1990).Tyson’s (1986) research on 33 widely distributed rainfall sitesacross the summer rainfall region of South Africa showed aclear oscillatory pattern in rainfall, producing 9-year spells

first-of alternating generally dry and wet conditions

Parallel to the progress in seasonal forecasts were opments in satellite-based operational monitoring systemssuch as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administra-tion’s or NOAA’s Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer,

devel-or AVHRR Coupled with the availability of crop and land models and rainfall deciles, there was a sense of antici-pation that effective monitoring and forecasting were comingDK2949_book.fm Page 154 Friday, February 11, 2005 11:25 AM