EDITORIAL | El Niño waits for nobody - TimesLIVE

There is something uniquely South African about the way we talk about disasters.

We watch the water level fall. We wait for the taps to run dry. We wait for the price of maize, vegetables and meat to climb. We wait for farmers to start losing livestock. Then, when the damage is undeniable, we call a meeting, establish a task team and announce that the government is “closely monitoring the situation”.

We should not do that this time. El Niño is not a surprise. It has been coming for months.

The World Meteorological Organisation has now warned that the phenomenon is likely to intensify and could persist until February next year. South Africa is predicted to experience hotter temperatures and below-normal rainfall. The consequences are not confined to weather forecasts and colourful maps on TV. They reach straight into the kitchen, the farm, the reservoir and the national economy.

We know this movie. The last major El Niño brought a devastating drought across Southern Africa. Crops failed, food prices rose and millions of people faced hunger and water shortages. There is no reason to pretend that the next episode will somehow be painless.

And South Africa enters it with plenty of vulnerabilities of its own. Our water infrastructure is under enormous pressure. Municipalities have struggled to maintain basic services. Farmers are already dealing with rising input costs. And millions of households are hardly in a position to absorb another food price shock.

This is why El Niño should not be treated as a weather story. It is an economic story. It is a food security story. It is a water story and, increasingly, it is a governance story.

The African Development Bank has warned that a severe El Niño could cost affected African economies between $10bn and $20bn. That should be enough to make governments sit up.

But the most important question is not whether El Niño will happen. It is whether we have learnt anything from the last drought.

There are some encouraging signs. Farmers are using more drought-resistant seeds and technology, while Sadc has recognised the need for greater investment in irrigation so agriculture is not entirely dependent on rainfall.

But adaptation cannot be left to farmers and communities alone.

The government must tell South Africans, plainly, what it is doing now — before the crisis arrives.

Are water systems being inspected and repaired? Are municipalities being given the resources and support they need to prevent avoidable losses? Are food reserves adequate? Is there a plan to protect small farmers and livestock producers? Are disaster management systems ready for veld fires and extreme heat?

And, perhaps most importantly, who is in charge?

South Africans have become accustomed to living from one crisis to the next. Load-shedding was followed by water shortages. Floods were followed by drought. Municipal failures became normalised as if they were an unavoidable part of life.

They are not. The danger with El Niño is that it can expose every weakness at once.

A failed harvest means higher food prices. Higher food prices squeeze poor households. Lower water availability affects farmers and cities. Drought increases the risk of fires. Less water can place additional pressure on energy generation. The shock travels through the economy, often reaching the poorest first.

That is why preparedness matters. The warning is already here. There is still time to act. We should not need empty dams, brown fields and desperate farmers standing in front of TV cameras before we discover that prevention is cheaper than rescue.

The coming months will test whether the government has learnt to anticipate crises rather than merely respond to them.

El Niño is a natural phenomenon. Being caught unprepared for it is not.