Agriculture employs 5.2% of the workforce but only accounts for 2.5% of annual gross domestic product (GDP), statistician general Pali Lehohla said on Monday.
“Agriculture contributes 2.5% of GDP, but in terms of employment agriculture punches above its weight with 5.2%,” he told reporters in Pretoria on Monday.
Lehohla was releasing figures obtained on farming in South Africa during the last population count in 2011. He said a more expansive study would be conducted on agriculture in particular.
The census showed that 2.8-million households were involved in agriculture in some form or another. It contained three questions related to agriculture but did not make a clear distinction between commercial and subsistence farming. A more nuanced picture was needed, Lehohla said.
The provinces with the highest number of households practising agriculture were KwaZulu-Natal with 24.9%, Eastern Cape with 20.7%, and Limpopo with 16.3%. The Northern Cape had the highest proportion of households that reported livestock ownership.
Lehohla said the census data would allow for a follow-up study because government had now identified the households that would be canvassed.
“The purpose was, in part, to give us a frame so that when we go for a fully-fledged agricultural census we know where to go. When we do the agriculture census we will go to those 2.8-million.”
Government planned to use the information obtained to strengthen agriculture in a bid to see the sector provide jobs to more people, he said.
Lehohla said the census showed families involved in agriculture in general had poor access to facilities, but the explanation for this might lie more in their location than in any government policy.
“We also know that agriculture is practised in rural areas where the provision of facilities is very difficult. When you look at the Eastern Cape and the altitude, when it comes to things like the provision of water, then it becomes very expensive to provide water.” – Sapa
Nearly 10 percent of Malawi’s 13 million people face hunger due of low yields of the main staple maize, prolonged dry spells and flooding, a report said.
“The total number of people who will not be able to meet their annual food requirement during the 2013/14 consumption period is 1,461,940, representing 9.5 percent of national total population,” the Malawi Vulnerability Assessment Committee said.
The grouping of several government departments, the United Nations, embassies and humanitarian agencies said those affected will need assistance for a period of between two to five months.
The shortages will affect poor households in 21 districts of the southern African country.
Food shortage in this impoverished southern African country is often caused by drought and economic difficulties as wellas backward farming practices.
One in two Malawians lives on less than a dollar a day.
Malawi had a good food security record in recent years after late president Bingu wa Mutharika implemented a subsidy programme giving poor villagers access to fertilisers and inputs. – Sapa
South Africa may run out of yellow maize if exports of the grain rise further, a stock firm specialising in agricultural futures has said.
South Africa, the continent’s largest producer of maize, may run out of the yellow variety if exports of the grain rise further, pushing up the cost of white maize, one of the nation’s staple foods, stock broking firm BVG said.
The nation shipped 79 055 metric tonnes of yellow maize in the week to June 28, including 54 112 tonnes to Japan and 23 043 tonnes to Taiwan, the South African Information Service said in a statement on its website.
The country has exported 377 367 tonnes of the grain since the start of the marketing year in May, according to Sagis. That compares with 18 333 tonnes in the same period a year earlier and 413 152 tonnes for the entire 2013 marketing year that ended in April.
“If we continue at this brisk pace, we will definitely have shortages of yellow corn,” Brink van Wyk, a trader at BVG, said by phone from Pretoria. “What we have available this year for exports of yellow corn is one million tonnes.”
South Africa uses yellow maize as animal feed, while meal made from the white variety is one of the country’s dietary staples. The country will probably consume 4.54-million tonnes of yellow maize and could supply 5.74-million tonnes in the marketing year through April, the Grain and Oilseeds Supply and Demand Estimates Committee said in its first ever report, released on June 28.
“We either need to export less, or we use more white corn for cattle feed, or we import more yellow corn,” Van Wyk said.
Forecast Lowered
The Crop Estimates Committee cut its forecast for corn output by 0.6% to 11.38-million tonnes, it said in a June 25 report. South Africa produced 12.8-million tonnes in 2010, the biggest harvest since 1982.
Grain SA, the biggest representative of farmers in South Africa, says the nation has 620 000 tonnes of yellow maize available for export.
“If the average weekly export tempo of the past eight weeks should be maintained, the remaining export maize of 321 688 tonnes should be exported within the next nine weeks,” the organization said in an emailed newsletter yesterday. “This means that the yellow maize available for export should be completed by the end of August. South Africa can potentially experience a shortage in yellow maize for the biggest part of this marketing year.”
Yellow corn for delivery in September, the most active contract, declined 0.4% to R2.176 a tonne, the lowest since May 21, by the close on the South African Futures Exchange on Tuesday. The white variety fell 0.6% to R2 236 a tonne. – Bloomberg
We have a serious crisis in this country. With many millions of South Africans affected by poverty and unemployment, many millions more are expected to be affected. With high food prices already knocking the pockets of every South African, we can expect astronomical prices in the coming years and a scarcity of basic food stuffs. “A scarcity in basic food stuffs? You must be joking!” That’s what I’d say 10 years ago, but no longer. From an agricultural giant and leading world exporter, we have quickly found ourselves in the realm of net importer status. All because the ruling party got it wrong.
After our transition to democracy, the ANC decided that land redistribution was the way to go. And like planting seeds, they drew up their policies and passed a number of bills. These plans were meant to redistribute white farmers’ land to black farmers and to communities which were previously the ‘rightful owners’. Today, many years down the line, these seeds have grown to such an extent that a disaster looms for all. Let me illustrate the ruling party’s end produce.
Decline in commercial farmers, skills lost in 1994 there were some 120 000 commercial farmers but today a mere 37 000 remain. Yes, many of the previously 120 000 commercial farmers were white and transformation needed to take place, but with a sum total of 37 000 commercial farmers today, how many successful, black, commercial farmers have we produced and how many successful, white, commercial farmers has our country lost?
Farming has become “SA’s most dangerous job”. The threat of being the next farm murder victim (almost 4 000 farmers since 1994) and the threat of land grabs have resulted in many successful, white, farmers packing their bags and heading for greener pastures. And many of these farmers have indeed found greener pastures abroad and in other African countries. Congo, Malawi, Uganda, Tanzania and Mozambique are some of the governments who have invited them to farm in their countries on land earmarked for farming.
Other countries such as Gabon, Guinea and Ghana are also in talks. The starving continent of Africa has a huge demand for agriculture, job creation and filling empty stomachs. What better place for these farmers to apply their knowledge and skills. Further up north, Georgia has invited this group of endangered species to attempt to revive their agricultural industry by providing land and equipment. Quoting the Georgian government spokesperson, “South African farmers are some of the best farmers in the world. They have good experience and we would like to see such farms in Georgia. There is a lot of potential here.”
Regarding Georgian farmers who generally struggle to earn a decent living, “They want to set up joint ventures with South African farmers because they think they could raise the profitability and productivity of their farms,” he said. “They are more than delighted to have South African farmers and South African expertise on their farms.”
Meanwhile our government has opposing, often moronic, views to the rest of Africa. The Agriculture Minister, Tina Joemat-Pettersson, last week said the following regarding the departure of commercial farmers from South Africa, “This will not be a threat to food security in South Africa; instead, this will enhance food security in the continent.” This a real irony considering that other countries are trying to do the same thing but by attracting our farmers to their farm lands. It gets more idiotic when she says, “South Africa has skills it can share with other South Africans and with the rest of the continent.”
To an educated mind it would appear that skills are departing with the departing farmers and these skills are to be applied in other African countries indefinitely. Back at home, along with the loss of these farmers and their skills and experience, the former workers of these farms have lost their jobs. From around 1.6 million tax-paying farm workers (mainly black) which were employed in 1994, to around 300 000 in just 16 years.
I challenge anyone to provide me with intelligent reasons on how losing 83 000 commercial farmers and losing over a million jobs are to the advantage of our country and our people.
Demise of profitable, food producing farms According to the ANC itself last year, 90% of redistributed farms do not produce excess food. Farms which once produced hundreds of thousands of tons of produce and employed hundreds of workers now lie idle and are a mere shell of what they used to be. The remaining few black farmers are but a handful and use the land for subsistence farming.
Mismanagement, corruption and the lack of sufficient skills and experience has had catastrophic effects on many farms. To mention one of a thousand examples of farms which are now liquidated/idle/non-producing:
The Zebediela Citrus Estate (Limpopo) – Once described in the Readers’ Digest, “400 million oranges are harvested each year from the groves of Zebediela, the world’s biggest citrus estate. The output is sufficient to provide one orange for every eight people on earth.” This magnificent farm went from riches to ruins in just a few years after being taken over by the state.
Yet the talk/threat of land grabs/redistribution continues.
To avoid looking like a second Zimbabwe and forcibly removing white farmers off their land, the government has now come up with cunning plan to grab land without having to remove the white farmers by force. This plan is called the “Land Tenure Security Bill”. If signed off by the ANC government it will amongst other things, give farm workers the right to keep livestock on the farms where they work, which will be allowed to graze “indiscriminately” on the property.
The bill will also give workers the right to plant their own crops and build homes for themselves and close relatives, from which they may never be removed. Andy Tladi, a black sunflower farmer, says he is leaving to the DRC this year as the bill “gives farm workers a ‘blank cheque’ to do whatever they want to do on land that doesn’t belong to them. The bill is going to worsen the situation for farmers. You are actually going to see workers putting up villages on farms. If you allow 10 people to build houses on a farm, in about 20 years you could have up to 30 families. So how does the farmer continue to grow and invest under those circumstances? I am a black farmer and I won’t be able to handle that. A lot of farmers will fly out of the country.”
The high likelihood of failure for black farmers is a reality. Without the necessary skills and experience, even a successful farm which has been acquired through redistribution most often fails. Then when a rare success does happen, more often than not, there is a lack of backing from government which leads to failure or inability to grow. Steven Mohale, a leading black, tomato farmer in Limpopo, has been battling for years to get government assistance in order to grow his business. But it seems the only help he received was from private banks and white farmers.
To quote an article about Steven in Farmers Weekly, “I’m very disappointed in the way the government treats farmers. It’s high time government stopped insulting farmers. We spend a lot of time with white farmers in this area and almost all are very helpful. People who accuse farmers of bad things are talking nonsense. South Africans need to realise the sector is responsible for feeding the nation and creating employment – and so farmers deserve respect. But government’s attitude doesn’t help.”
In conclusion, it is clearly obvious to someone with a little bit of intelligence that we are heading for disaster. In fact we are already looking at a disaster if you look at how the majority has suffered in the last decade or so in terms of poverty, unemployment and starvation. Billions of taxpayers’ rands have been pumped into redistribution projects and this money has literally been flushed down the toilet, not to mention the millions stolen by corrupt, ANC linked officials. Now billions more has to be spent of which another 90% will be wasted. With calls for 100% nationalisation by Julius Malema, we could be in for even more serious trouble. At this moment I do not see much hope for agriculture in our country and in turn not much hope for the economy and our people.
Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, Tina Joemat-Pettersson has refuted a media report that she received kickbacks, her office said on Monday.
The allegations in the Sunday Times that Joemat-Pettersson benefited from a game-farm sale were “unsubstantiated and regrettable”, her spokeswoman Palesa Mokomele said in a statement.
“Those who know Minister Joemat-Pettersson know her to be a people orientated leader who consistently serves others and strives for the development of rural women and rural communities,” Mokomele said.
“The said farm was for the benefit of rural women through skills development and employment creation.”
The Sunday Times reported that Joemat-Pettersson was being investigated for allegedly taking a kickback for arranging the purchase of a R18 million game farm for disadvantaged women.
According to the report, she was allegedly paid R100,000 in 2006 for her efforts in closing the purchase of Sunset Game Lodge, outside Douglas, while she was MEC in the Northern Cape.
Joemat-Pettersson and the lawyer who facilitated the deal, Monica du Toit, are the focus of an investigation by the Asset Forfeiture Unit and the Special Investigation Unit, the Sunday Times reported.
Mokomele said Joemat-Pettersson would fully co-operate with any investigation into the matter.
“The minister will request that both the Parliamentary Ethics Committee and the African National Congress’s integrity committee investigate all allegations levelled against her and her conduct,” said Mokomele. – Sapa
TAU SA is highly upset about trade unions’ proposed public actions to expedite land transfer. “The country is still licking its wounds from the labor unrest in the mining industry, which led to the Rand experiencing near-record lows. Now there are threats of labor unrest in the agricultural sector,” said TAU SA’s General Manager, Mr Bennie Van Zyl. “It seems if the unions have the support of Pres Jacob Zuma, who stated in his reply to its budget debate that land has to be transferred faster from those who need to give land to those who want to have land. This creates a supportive climate for unions’ radical demands and sends a message that the country’s farmers must not expect any sympathy or assistance if the industrial action would turn violent. In addition, it is time that the Government sets an example by transferring the millions of hectares of unused land in its possession to those who say they need land,” said Mr Van Zyl.
“There is a political agenda behind the proposed actions of Numsa and Fawu. Numsa has nothing to do with the agricultural sector because it is the metal workers’ union. However, his president Cedric Gina is revolutionary outspoken in his unfounded, untested and untrue allegations about alleged ‘land transgressions, theft and violent land expropriations’ that would have occurred in the past “
Mr. Van Zyl notes that the unions concerned have section 25 of the Constitution in their sights. “The government needs to state urgently and in unambiguous terms where it stands in terms of the Constitution, and whether it is considering changing it in order to allow expropriation without compensation. Government will have to show whether it is willing to respect and uphold the Constitution, and whether it is going to give in to pressure from the unions,” said Mr Van Zyl.
Meanwhile, TAU SA urged farmers to intensify their security measures in the light of the impending industrial action by trade unions and to be intolerant against any act of insurrection or vandalism that would be a threat to life or property resulting from this action. “We as law-abiding citizens also have rights, and we also have the right to protect those rights,” said Mr Van Zyl.
The news that South Africa supplies 70% of the citrus fruit consumed in the European Union adds another ingredient to the debate around farmland in South Africa. In strictly economic terms, both farm murders and ANC’s radical land reform plans serve European protectionist interests.
Our farmers are almost superhuman. Against all odds, they manage to compete against the pampered, subsidised EU agricultural producers. They live within a virtual war zone of terrorist attacks on farms, hostile propaganda from the left-liberal media and concerted attempts by neo-Marxist think tanks like the Cape-based PLAAS that advocate the abolition of property rights altogether.
The ANC government is amenable to the radicals of PLAAS, such Dr. Ruth Hall, an Afrikaner-hating, Oxford academic who came to this country with the sole intention of instigating a Soviet-style “agrarian revolution” that would push Afrikaners off their ancestral, family-owned lands. In the process, agriculture as we know it will be destroyed and our sought-after fruit will again disappear off European supermarket shelves as in the days of the anti-apartheid boycott against South Africa when French communists and Dutch anarchists focussed their hate on the word “Outspan”.
Apart from the teaching profession, there are few areas of economic activity in South Africa that are so dominated by Afrikaners as agriculture. To understand why, one must briefly look at the history of this country. During the nineteenth century, colonial British mining companies snapped up all the minerals in the old Boer republics and when that wasn’t enough, they persuaded Britain to invade us, burn all our farms and put our women and children in concentration camps.
In the cities, Afrikaners were discriminated against and even forbidden to speak their language in stores. With most of business, mining and industry closed to us, we had only farming and the professions open to us. That is how Afrikaners doggedly stuck to agriculture, through droughts and crises, and managed to get fifty percent of the postgraduate qualifications in this country. We also produced a large number of accountants, doctors and lawyers.
With the ANC’s revolutionary takeover, the first thing they did was to apply stringent affirmative action to our medical schools so that hardly any Afrikaner physicians are being trained anymore. The legal profession was dumbed down so that just about anybody could get a degree and even a mediocre advocate could become a judge, as long as he happened to be black. Accounting standards are still being upheld, but one wonders for how long before racial quotas will be applied there too.
Agriculture therefore represents a last economic foothold for Afrikaners. Despite European and American protectionism, we have managed to carve out a niche in the world market. Our beautiful, tasty, healthy oranges and grapefruit grace the breakfast tables of Europe.
However, when EU Commissioner Catherine Ashton and the South African Minister of International Relations, Maite Nkoana-Mashabane, met yesterday in Brussels, there was no-one representing the Afrikaner interest around the table. Neither the protectionist EU, nor the anti-white, anti-Afrikaans ANC, gives two hoots about our economic survival in this country. We are already excluded from government, from the big corporations, from the mines, from the bench, from hospitals and banks.
Once our academics were able to build some of the finest universities in this country and in the world. Yet even there, the imperatives of “transformation” have dictated our exclusion on racial and cultural grounds from the very institutions our fathers and grandfathers had founded and developed. Foreign academics from the United Kingdom, Nigeria, Zimbabwe and other African countries have flocked to our universities to displace us, the indigenous whites of South Africa.
Until now, the European Union has said nothing about the vicious attacks on our farmers. Unless Europeans want to be seen as siding with the radical, ethnocentric and even genocidal elements in this country who wish to ethnically cleanse Afrikaners from the land, they will have to speak out and condemn such attacks.
At the same time, we insist upon open access to the EU market in fruit as it is one of the few lifelines we have left in this left-fascist environment where an alliance of UK academics and farm killers threaten to destabilise our agriculture further, or even destroy it completely.
We also appeal to European political parties sympathetic to Afrikaners to voice their concerns about maintaining the health of our exports and trade. Stability needs to return, against the outlandish ideas of “land reform” advocated by unreconstructed communists. “Land reform” is a slogan for extending the full-spectrum racial dominance that we already experience in the rest of the economy and the public sector, but it will also serve those in Europe who see a threat in our honest and fair competition with them.
Policy uncertainty is affecting investor confidence in the country, farmer union Agri SA president Johannes Möller said on Tuesday.
“It is important to guard against South Africa being seen as a risky, unstable and uncompetitive economy by investors,” he said in a statement.
“A visible lack of consensus on economic and social policy is undermining the feasibility of the National Development Plan and confidence in the country as an investment destination.”
Möller said that in light of the decline of the rand last week, the country’s economy paid a “high price” for uncertainty and its handling of problems in the labour market.
“The negative sentiment extends further than mere concern about wage demands and violent unrest,” he said.
“It is exacerbated by sharp increases in administered prices, such as those of electricity and fuel; unhappiness with and mass action due to poor service delivery; and, alarming statements regarding property-related issues.”
He said parliamentary debates on budget votes served as guidelines that local and foreign investors responded to.
Möller said Agriculture Minister Tina Joemat-Pettersson’s budget speech was “moderate”, and her support for farmworker organisations could contribute to further unrest in the industry.
He said Rural Development and Land Reform Minister Gugile Nkwinti’s budget speech ended on a “low note”.
Nkwinti said on Friday it was an “honour” to have South Africa’s land reform process compared to what had happened in Zimbabwe.
Möller said he hoped Nkwinti’s comments on land reform were made “in the heat of the debate”.
“However, the potential damage that remarks of this nature can cause should not be underestimated.”
Government had developed good policy documents, which would result in a better society if implemented effectively.
“The National Development Plan is a good example of this, which should be used more consistently by all role-players,” he said. – Sapa
'Fast-track land reform' of the Zimbabwean style, as sought by Max du Preez
by TAU Bulletin
Anti-apartheid journalist and apologist for South Africa’s democratic dispensation Max du Preez has been caught short with his latest efforts to justify the unjustifiable. In a Natal Mercury piece (30.4.13), Du Preez tells us we can “learn from Zimbabwe’s flourishing farms”, and goes on to laud a new book by three London (where else?) left wingers: London School of Economics’ Joseph Hanlon, an anti-apartheid and commonwealth sanctions activist in the 1980’s; Jeanette Manjengwa, Deputy Director, Institute for Environmental Studies, University of Zimbabwe; and Teresa Smart, visiting fellow at the University of London.
Du Preez says the book “Zimbabwe Takes Back its Land” shows that Zimbabwe’s radical land grab “has worked” and that “agricultural production is on levels comparable to the time before the process started.” What is meaningful, says Du Preez, is that these production levels were achieved by 245,000 black farmers on land previously worked by some 6 000 white farmers. He clearly does not see the irony in this – does it take 245 000 Africans to produce the same as 6 000 white farmers?
(It is interesting that euphemisms such as “the process”, “land redistribution” and “fast track land reform” are used in the book and by Mr. Du Preez to describe one of Africa’s most haunting and terrifying attacks on any country’s productive agricultural sector. Who can forget the horrifying television footage of mobs of so-called war veterans storming white farms, destroying farm animals, beating to death family dogs trying to defend their owners’ properties, while farm families who couldn’t flee fast enough met sometimes gruesome fates at the hands of these thugs, all in the name of land reform. Ironically, these destructive mobs received few farms at all – the choicer properties were taken by Mugabe’s cronies for, in some cases, weekend parties.)
From the book, Du Preez says lessons South Africans can learn is that new black farmers can actually farm successfully and commercially if given enough time and help, and that an “ambitious land redistribution programme (in South Africa) can play a role in alleviating poverty and providing employment and dignity to large numbers or marginalized people”. (It is reported that the London team spent one month in Zimbabwe before writing the book, and that they used a simplistic method based on a very small section of agriculture – they used three farms that were “taken back” while more than five thousand farms were stolen by the Mugabe government.)
It is further common cause that many “flourishing” farms are owned by the Chinese, and that the few still owned by white farmers operate at the grace and favor of President Mugabe.(He, his courtiers and his army have to be fed after all!). We are also told that when certain farms are targeted by the ubiquitous war veterans, all the owner has to do is phone the Chinese Embassy and nothing more is heard from the mob. Sizeable tobacco contracts have been signed with the Chinese government.
What is to be gleaned from this puff piece by someone who clearly feels the need to continue defending South Africa’s current dispensation?
Millennia
Black South Africans have existed in Africa for millennia. They never developed anything better than subsistence farming –maybe food for today but little for tomorrow. They had no written language, and it was left to early Christian missionaries to formalize and put into script African languages which had been solely an oral tradition. Thus there was no recorded title to land – it is a non-African concept – so to entitle a book “Zimbabwe Takes its Land Back” is disingenuous. One commentator declared: Zimbabwe takes back its land from whom? It was taken back from Zimbabweans, seventy percent of whom had bought their farms after President Mugabe came to power and whose agricultural skills were the bedrock of a country that had been a savannah until they came.
Yes, in another way, land in Zimbabwe was “taken back” – it was plundered and stolen from white productive farmers whose accomplishments showed up the incompetence and inability of others to produce a surplus, let alone enough to eat for themselves. This highway robbery was based on racial resentment, fuelled by a tyrant afraid of losing an election and who used white achievement as a scapegoat to foster black pique.
The United Nations
Before Mr. Du Preez decided to wax unctuous about Zimbabwe’s “flourishing farms”, he could have visited the websites of the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP), the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) in Rome, the World Bank and a few other organizations trying to keep Zimbabwe afloat. According to WFP director Felix Bamezon (14.3.13), Zimbabwe’s current food insecurity levels are “the worst in four years.” The WFP is presently providing food aid to 1,58 million people in 37 districts of the country. In March this year, the WFP said approximately 19% of the population of Zimbabwe was estimated to be in need of food assistance.
If a government cannot even feed its people, let alone have surplus production, this can hardly be termed “flourishing”. The Japanese government recently provided nearly $6 million for flood, drought and food relief to Zimbabwe. This contribution allowed the WFP to purchase maize for 215,000 people and pulses for 835 000 people for two months. During the last decade, Japanhas provided more than $29 million to the WFP’s operations in Zimbabwe.
In January of this year, the Zimbabwean finance minister admitted to journalists the country only had $217 in its bank account! David Smith of the London Guardian wrote on 30 January of this year that “from 2000 the seizure of white-owned farms led to chaos in the agriculture sector and the economy shrank by half. In 2008 hyperinflation of 231,000,000% broke the national currency and left millions of people hungry.” (Emphasis ours)
Where did the money go? The opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) says that income from diamond sales is being stolen by President Mugabe’s Zanu/PF party to finance the forthcoming election. The watchdog “Partnership Africa Canada” said last November that at least $2 billion of diamonds form the Marange fields has been stolen by Mugabe’s ruling elite.
What flourishing really means!
In the October 2009 edition of THE ROSARIAN, a publication distributed by the Flame Lily Foundation (created to secure the interests of former residents of Rhodesia/Zimbabwe), Dr. Mick Gammon writes a lengthy piece on the destruction of Zimbabwe under President Robert Mugabe, with particular emphasis on agriculture. (Dr. D.M. Gammon was a former specialist in the Department of Conservation and Extension in the Rhodesian Ministry of Agriculture.)
“The first white traders and missionaries who came to the region in the 19th century found a land devoid of infrastructure. The wheel was not yet in use. Travelers went for days without seeing any human habitation. With a population of around 250 00 at the time, most of the land was not occupied. Commercial farming started in the 1890s on what was for the most part, virgin land. There were no roads or railways, no electricity or telephones, no fences, boreholes, pumps, windmills, dams, irrigation schemes; no cattle dips, barns or any other farm buildings.
“These first farmers had to discover how to contend with predators that killed their livestock and other animals that consumed their crops; how to control diseases, pests and parasites of livestock and crops that were foreign to them. Knowledge and experience built up over generations in the developed world had limited application, since the local climate, oil and vegetation was vastly different.
“From this starting point, agriculture developed faster than it had anywhere else in the world. Soon the country became self-sufficient in most agricultural products. In many cases yields per hectare and quality equalled and bettered those in the developed world.
“The United Nations Food and Agriculture Year Book 1975 ranked the then Rhodesia second in the world in terms of yields of maize, wheat, soya beans and ground nuts, and third for cotton. In the combined ranking for all these crops, Rhodesia ranked first in the world.
Rhodesia’s Virginia tobacco was rated the best in the world in yield and quality, while maize entries in world championships were consistently placed in the first three places.
“The world’s largest single citrus producer was developed early in the country’s history. The indigenous cattle were developed through breeding and selection to highly productive breeds. Wild life was incorporated into farming systems to develop a highly successful eco-tourism industry, and endangered species found their most secure havens on farm conservancies.
“Zimbabwe was the world’s second largest exporter of flue-cured tobacco. This together with exports of maize, soya beans, cotton, sugar, coffee, tea, fruit, vegetables, flowers and beef, made agriculture the major source of foreign currency. It was the largest employer of labor, providing employment for about a third of the country’s work force.
“The country’s state departments of veterinary services, tobacco research, plant and seed research, livestock and crop management were world class. Each farm was, to a large extent, an outpost of civilization and many farms established schools for the children of their workers. Every farm was a clinic and dispensary and ambulance service for the surrounding areas.”
What happened to these farmers has been splashed around the world. It is a tragic history. From prosperity to a government balance sheet of just $217; to perennial food aid, to a tyrannical dictatorship, corruption and government theft; to poverty and large-scale emigration. From a bread basket to a basket case. The only thing flourishing in this scenario is the scary imagination of Mr. Du Preez.
President Jacob Zuma proposed a new land reform plan in Pretoria on Monday evening.
“This is an innovative proposal that needs to be tested,” he told the first annual general meeting of the African Farmers’ Association of SA (Afasa).
The plan proposed a district-based approach to land reform and its financing.
“It proposes that each district should establish a district land reform committee where all stakeholders are involved,” Zuma said.
“This committee will be responsible for identifying 20% of the commercial agricultural land in the district and giving commercial farmers the option of assisting its transfer to black farmers.”
Implementation of this land reform proposal would include five steps.
Firstly, it would entail identifying land readily available from land already in the market; land where the farmer was under severe financial pressure; land held by an absentee landlord willing to exit; and land in a deceased estate.
“In this way, land can be found without distorting markets.”
Secondly, the state would buy the land at 50% of its market value. This, Zuma said, would be closer to its fair productive value.
The current owner’s shortfall would be made up by cash or in-kind contributions from the commercial farmers in the district who volunteered to participate.
Thirdly, in exchange, commercial farmers would be protected from losing their land and gain black economic empowerment status.
“This should remove the uncertainty and mistrust that surrounds land reform and the related loss of investor confidence.
Fourthly, a stepped-up programme of financing should also be created, Zuma said. This would involve the Treasury, the Land Bank, and established white farmers.
“The model envisages that the cost of land reform be spread between all stakeholders.
“It also envisages new financial instruments being designed for the purpose of facilitating land reform.” These could include 40-year mortgages at preferential rates for new entrants into the markets, as well as land bonds that white farmers and others could invest in.
The fifth step was increasing investment in agricultural research and development.
“We also need to use the investment more strategically.”
Zuma said the government looked forward to ongoing engagement with Afasa.
“So that we can develop and harness our vision for agriculture and food security together.” – Sapa
Over the past fifteen years it has been taken as a given that commercial farmers have subjected to extremely high levels of violent and often murderous attack in South Africa. Many intellectuals and human rights organisations have however been anxious to underplay the import of this problem: The underlying concern apparently being that farmers might end up being regarded as ‘victims’ rather than as ‘perpetrators’. The line generally taken has been that there is no evidence that these attacks are in any way racially or politically motivated.
However, the question has now been raised whether farm attacks are such a unique problem at all.On Friday the South African Institute of Race Relations (SAIRR), a well-respected research organisation, issued a press statement – titled “Farmers not uniquely vulnerable to armed attack” – which claimed that the “number of farm attacks per 100 000 farmers and their families is comparable to the number of criminal attacks per 100 000 people in the general population.”
This claim has been widely reported on and could, if left unchallenged, end up being accepted as fact given the pre-existing biases of many in the media. The question needs to be asked: do the Institute’s claims hold up to scrutiny?
The SAIRR analysis was based upon farm attack figures compiled by the Transvaal Agricultural Union (TAU SA). The Institute used this data as the SAPS have not released farm attack figures since the 2006/2007 reporting period.
In 2011 TAU SA counted 85 farm attacks. Based on this figure the Institute calculated that “in 2011 the number of attacks per 100 000 farmers and farmworkers in the formal sector was 16.8. If it is assumed that farmworkers are not targeted and that attacks are aimed at commercial farmers and their families only, the rate of attack was 45.8 per 100 000 (assuming three dependants each).”
The Institute argued that although “It is difficult to benchmark farm attacks against other types of crimes… the rates calculated above are broadly comparable to rates per 100 000 people for other serious crimes among the general population. For example, in 2011 South Africa had a murder rate of 31.9 per 100 000 people. In that year the house robbery rate was 33.4 per 100 000. The total aggravated robbery rate was 203 per 100 000.”
On request the Institute provided the data on which it based its analysis. It reached the 45.8 per 100 000 figure by taking the number of commercial farmers in South Africa (46 400) and quadrupling the figure to 185 600 (on the assumption that each farmer has three dependents). The formula used was (85/185 600)X100 000 = 45.8 farm attacks per 100 000 people.
There are number of obvious flaws in the Institute’s methodology.
Firstly, it assumes that the average household size of a commercial farmer is four. This seems unlikely given that the average age of a commercial farmer is, according to Agri SA, 62 years. If one assumed the average household size of a commercial farmer was, for example, 2.6 the “rate of attack” would be 70.5 per hundred thousand (holding the Institute’s other assumptions constant).
Secondly, the Institute’s analysis effectively assumes that a single individual is victimised in each farm attack. In reality a single farm attack may involve several different crimes (murder, attempted murder, robbery, assault with intent to cause grievous bodily harm etc.) and more than one victim.
Thirdly, TAU SA’s figures for farm attacks include attacks on smallholdings (which do not necessarily fall under the 46 400 figure) as well as farms. This assumption, unlike the previous two, would tend to inflate the “rate of attack”. Offsetting this is the fact that Agri SA estimates that there are actually only 37,000 commercial farmers at present.
Finally, and most importantly, the TAU SA farm attack data is not comprehensive and does not claim to be. TAU SA’s data is collected from press reports and informal reporting networks. Their data on farm murders is pretty solid but there is significant under-counting of farm attacks. This can be seen by comparing TAU’s SA’s figures with those of the SAPS before the latter stopped publishing their data. See Graph 1 below.
Note: SAPS data from April to March the following year. TAU SA’s (via the SAIRR) from January to December.
In 2006/2007 the SAPS recorded 794 farm attacks as opposed to the 81 TAU SA recorded in 2006. It is unlikely that this level of under-counting has changed over the past few years. This can be illustrated by comparing TAU SA’s figures for farm attacks in KwaZulu-Natal with those collected by the KwaZulu-Natal Agricultural Union (Kwanalu). In 2011 TAU SA recorded 3 farm attacks in the province, Kwanalu 36. See Graph 2.
Sources: TAU SA figures (via the SAIRR); Koos Marais, KwaZulu-Natal Agricultural Union
All this goes to show that the Institute’s conclusions are based on incomplete data and some dubious assumptions, and they should not be regarded as reliable. The question raised by the Institute remains however: Are farmers less or more vulnerable to armed attack than other South Africans?
One alternative approach is to compare the farmer murder rate with the national murder rate. Drawing on TAU SA’s more complete statistics on confirmed farm murders Johan Burger of the Institute of Security Studies wrote that of the 50 victims in 2011 32 were farmers, 14 were direct family, three were workers and one was a visitor. He noted: “According to Statistics South Africa’s Census of Commercial Agriculture, there were 32,375 farmers (i.e. people farming either full-time or part-time) in South Africa in 2007. Therefore, the murder of 32 farmers (exclusive of their families and workers) in 2011 provides a ratio of 98.9 killings per 100,000.” This is three times the national murder rate.
One problem with this comparison is that most murders fall under the category of ‘social fabric crimes’ i.e. cases where someone is stabbed by an associate in a drunken brawl or a man beats his wife to death in a rage. A like-for-like comparison would be between the rate of farmer murders with the national rate of South Africans killed during robberies and other such crimes. In their report on the 2011/2012 crime statistics the SAPS state that 16% of murders are committed during the commissioning of other crimes. A back of the envelope calculation puts the national rate for this kind of murder then at just under 5 killings per 100 000 people.
An alternative approach to answering the question raised by the Institute would be to compare the rate of farm attacks (per 100 000 farms) with the rate of house robberies (per 100 000 households) using official SAPS data for both. The advantage of this approach is that it limits the assumptions that have to be made; uses data from the same source (the SAPS); and compares like-with-like.
There is however a limited period during which this comparison is possible. The SAPS only started collecting and publishing house robbery data in 2002/2003, and they stopped publishing “farm attack” data in 2007.
A further problem is that the headline SAPS data on farm attacks includes attacks on smallholdings. The Report of the Committee of Inquiry into Farm Attacks (July 2003) did however publish a breakdown of SAPS figures for 2001 which differentiated between attacks on farms and attacks on small holdings. See below.
Source: The Report of the Committee of Inquiry into Farm Attacks, July 2003
It is thus possible to compare the rate of farm attacks in 2001 at least with the rate of house robberies in 2002/2003. See the Table 2.
Table 2: Comparison of rate of household robberies (2002/2003) with rate of farm attacks by province (2001):
Province
Households 2002 ‘000
House robberies 2002/03
House robberies per 100 000 households
Farms(2002)
Farm attacks 2001
Attacks per 100 000 farms
Rate of farm attacks 2001/ Rate of house robberies 2002/3
Gauteng
2 683
4701
175.2
2206
18
816.0
4.7
KZN
2 073
1569
75.7
4038
108
2674.6
35.3
Mpum
768
316
41.1
5104
234
4584.6
111.4
E Cape
1 484
1397
94.1
4376
66
1508.2
16.0
W Cape
1 166
335
28.7
7185
40
556.7
19.4
N Cape
256
29
11.3
6114
12
196.3
17.3
N West
791
396
50.1
5349
87
1626.5
32.5
Limpopo
1 081
228
21.1
2915
35
1200.7
56.9
FState
713
92
12.9
8531
30
351.7
27.3
Total
11 015
9063
82.3
45818
630
1375.0
16.7
Note: These farm attack figures exclude attacks on smallholdings
On average then a farm was over fifteen times more likely to be attacked in 2001 than a household was likely to be robbed in 2002/2003. This however obscures wide variations by province. The lowest ratio of the rate of farm attacks to the rate of house robberies was in Gauteng (4.7/1) and the highest in Mpumalanga (111.4/1). The ratios in many provinces were probably, in reality, even greater given that many of those farm attack incidents (on farms and small holdings) would also have been counted as house robberies in the SAPS figures.
I do not have the breakdown for the figures for attacks on farms versus smallholdings for subsequent years. However, assuming that the proportions remained constant the rate of farm attacks compared to the rate of house robberies (per 100 000 units) would be as follows:
Assumption: 60% of recorded “farm attacks” are attacks on farms (not small holdings)
According to these estimates then the “rate of attack” on farms in South Africa has been over ten times the “rate of attack” on households. In the more rural provinces this ratio would be considerably greater. It is unlikely that this ratio has narrowed too much over the past five years. This can be seen by analysing the “rate of attack” in KwaZulu-Natal using the Kwanulu data referenced above. See Graph below.
The data collected by Kwanalu on attacks and murders on commercial farms in the province is all confirmed. However, it is a minimum not a maximum figure. It suggests however that the “rate of attack” on farms in the province was, at least, around seven times higher than the rate of attack on households in the province.
In conclusion then, the Institute based its analysis on some questionable assumptions and – more critically – highly incomplete data on the number of farm attacks. Simply correcting for the latter would effectively debunk the conclusions of its analysis. As the SAPS no longer publish data on farm attacks it is not possible to do a proper comparison between the rate of farm attacks and the rate of household robberies in 2011. It is clear however from both the historic data and the limited current data that farmers have been, and still are, uniquely vulnerable to armed and often murderous attack. – James Myburgh
Rural Zimbabweans in need of UN food relief after Mugabe's 'successful land reform' Photo: WFP
Whereas the New York Times sang the praises of Zimbabwean “land reform” only a few weeks ago, the UN food agency has just said that hunger was worsening in Zimbabwe after erratic rains, shortages of seeds and fertiliser and “poor agricultural practices” in the troubled economy.
This, the UN said, had led to a reduction in fields planted with the main staple foods. The World Food Programme said cereal harvests in the current season were down by an estimated one-third compared with last year. It said about 1.1million rural people would need food aid up to December, rising to 1.6million in the traditionally “lean months” to March.
The agency’s latest bulletin yesterday said $119-million was needed for upcoming food assistance. It said food shortfalls were becoming especially critical in arid southern Zimbabwe where Matabeles live. The Zimbabwean leader has previously been accused of genocide in Matabeleland where 20 000 people were killed in the early 1990s, with a large proportion of the inhabitants fleeing to South Africa.
Irregular rains, poor agricultural practices and ongoing economic challenges have pushed Zimbabwe into an increasingly critical food security situation, the United Nations food relief agency warned.
Lydia Polgreen of The New York Times Photo: Twitter
However, the New York Times’s correspondent in Johannesburg, Lydia Pogreen, differs from the WFP assessment and sees a “golden lining” amid any dark clouds over Zimbabwean agriculture. On 20 July 2012 the New York-based liberal paper wrote:
“The success of these small-scale farmers has led some experts to reassess the legacy of Zimbabwe’s forced land redistribution, even as they condemn its violence and destruction. “
The paper also stressed that the illegal confiscation of white-owned land does not necessarily lead to greater farming productivity but creates greater equality. It quoted a Zimbabwean pro-Mugabe researcher as saying: “But does it share wealth more equitably? Does it give people a sense of dignity and ownership? Those things have value, too.”
According to the World Food Programme (WFP), the past several weeks have provided signs of growing distress across the African country with high food prices, empty silos and granaries, and a reduced cereal harvest, aggravating the country’s food security outlook.
“Late and erratic rains, poor agricultural practices, constrained access to inputs, and a reduction in planted area have all contributed to reducing the national cereal harvest by 33 per cent this year,” WFP said in a news release on its Zimbabwe Vulnerability Assessment (ZimVAC). It further noted that a lack of diversified livelihoods and the rising cost of living were combining to create a perfect storm of income and food insecurity.
WFP, in fact, pointed out that according to the ZimVAC, over 1.6 million Zimbabweans will be in need of food assistance during the peak hunger period spanning January to March 2013.
ZimVAC is an annual study conducted by the Government of Zimbabwe in collaboration with UN agencies and non-governmental organisations in order to estimate national food insecurity levels.
In response to the deteriorating food situation, the UN agency announced it was scaling up operations in conjunction with the Government and other stakeholders to provide a combination of food distribution and cash transfers to those in need.
The WFP further noted that it would require approximately $119 million to complete its operations in Zimbabwe until the end of March 2013, though it said that almost three-quarters of the funding has not yet been accounted for.
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Agriculture employs 5.2% of the workforce but only accounts for 2.5% of annual gross domestic product (GDP), statistician general Pali Lehohla said on Monday.
