Saai in 2 minds about farm safety report - 'It's welcome, but...'

AGRICULTURE NEWS - Theo de Jager, the chairman of Saai and past president of the World Farmers Organisation, says despite its shortcomings, the report on farm safety adopted by Parliament last week, marks a significant breakthrough in acknowledging one of agriculture’s greatest challenges, farm safety, attacks and murders.

But, says De Jager, it still falls short and is out of touch with the realities that farmers face on the ground every day.

In a statement De Jager neatly sidestepped taking sides in the spat between the Freedom Front Plus (FF Plus) and the Democratic Alliance (DA) about the adoption of the report.

"In the contentious parliamentary debate surrounding the report, Saai will not side with the FF Plus or the DA, but - true to our calling - will articulate the voice of the farmers," De Jager said in a statement released by Saai, an organisation that champions the rights of family farmers.

De Jager says farmers largely rely on the DA and FF Plus to represent their political interests and Saai is concerned about the deep differences in the two parties’ approaches to a matter that is vital to farmers' and agriculture's survival.

The DA and FF Plus were at each others throats last week after the FF Plus refused to vote for the joint report by the parliamentary Portfolio Committees on Police and Agriculture on the situation surrounding farm attacks.

FF Plus: report points finger at farmers

The leader of the FF Plus, Dr Corne Mulder, said the report, intended to address a petition calling for Parliament to investigate farm murders and attacks, was manipulated to point the finger at farmers.

"The few positive aspects of the report are overshadowed by several misconceptions and flawed assumptions; it even accuses farmers in general of treating their workers so poorly that it amounts to human rights violations," Mulder said.

He added that the FF Plus was surprised and alarmed that the DA voted in favour of this report in Parliament. Read Mulder's full statement here.

The leader of the FF Plus, Dr Corne Mulder Photo: FF Plus

DA: the FF Plus voted against NB safety reforms

The DA accused the FF Plus of political opportunism saying the party showed just how far it will go to remain politically relevant, "even if it means voting against the most important rural safety reforms ever adopted by Parliament".

"Despite not attending a single meeting of the joint Portfolio Committees on Police and Agriculture during the months-long development of this report, and showing zero interest in its work..., the FF Plus joined the EFF and MK Party in voting against a landmark joint report on farm attacks and rural crime, " said DA spokesperson Willie Aucamp.

Aucamp said the FF Plus has fixated on a single recommendation calling for Parliamentary oversight to ensure the protection of all rural residents, including farm workers, from any form of abuse or intimidation.

"This is not 'blaming farmers' - it is basic human rights oversight and a call for balanced and fair protection for all. Twisting this into a political weapon is both dishonest and deeply irresponsible."

He said the DA believes that farmers have nothing to hide and that, by no means, is the abuse of farm workers a norm in South Africa.

He said the FF Plus rejected the very reforms their voters desperately need. Read Aucamp's full statement here.

DA spokesperson Willie Aucamp Photo: Facebook

The reforms adopted include:

A specialised Rural Safety Unit within SAPS, formally established and resourced;
A national audit of rural policing capacity, including vehicles, personnel, and operational readiness;
Better coordination between SAPS and community safety structures like farm watches and farm guards;
Stronger intelligence-sharing, cross-border crime cooperation, and action against syndicated stock theft;
An urgent fix to the broken prosecution chain for rural crimes, including cooperation with the NPA;
Outreach to vulnerable farmers, including small-scale producers without access to private security;
A requirement for SAPS to disaggregate rural crime statistics for improved oversight and response.

Saai: Trump's concerns ignored

In response to the political parties' spat, Saai's De Jager says the Trump administration is "ironically" the political entity that most accurately reflects the security concerns of South African farmers.

De Jager says none of the security-related conditions the US set for restoring relations with South Africa are addressed in the report.

These are:

That farm murders be declared a priority crime;
That the ANC distance itself from “Kill the farmer, kill the boer”.

Even so, the fact that the report acknowledges the extraordinary brutality that characterises farm murders, is a major breakthrough, says De Jager.

"It is the first time it has been officially accepted that the nature and extent of farm murders are abnormal and cannot be compared with the country’s already high general murder rate.

"Farmers also welcome the recommendation that a specialised unit within the SAPS be established to combat farm attacks and stock theft."

However, says De Jager, that these acknowledgments still do not justify declaring farm attacks a priority crime is inexplicable and raises suspicions.

Artist and equestrian, Valerie Enzer (79) was murdered on her farm near Van Wyksdorp in the Klein Karoo during the weekend of 12 and 13 July. A local boy (16) was arrested in connection with the murder.

Farmer-worker conflict an old ANC narrative

He says what troubles farmers about the report is that it recommends parliamentary visits to farms to seek out examples of farmer-worker conflict or poor labour relations.

"This stems from an old ANC narrative that farm murders are driven by worker mistreatment - something that was investigated and rejected by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) in 2014.

"In 2015, the ILO, together with the University of Cape Town and the University of KwaZulu-Natal, published a report on farmworker conditions which debunked this narrative.

"The parliamentary report makes no reference to these reports, nor to what has changed since then."

He said Saai wants access to the data on which the report’s findings are based.

"Apart from the fact that there is no scientific basis in the farm murder data for allegations of poor labour relations, the logic behind this argument is alarming.

This is a report about farm attacks, yet it scrutinises labour relations. It implies that disputes between workers and their employers might somehow justify brutal murders," De Jager says.

De Jager says underlying the report are several serious allegations against a dysfunctional state, and this should have been Parliament’s focus instead.

The focus should be on:

What is so ineffective about the regulatory labour environment that Parliament must conduct farm visits to find out why workers resort to murdering farmers, instead of asserting their rights through the CCMA or labour courts?
Why must Parliament decide on better cooperation between police stations and farm watches, and how does this relate to the recent revelations about SAPS involvement in organised crime at the highest levels?

He says Saai is involved in several cases - on behalf of both black and white farmers - who are instituting civil claims against the police due to losses suffered from police inaction against trespassing, crop thieves and poachers on farms.

"During Willie Aucamp, MP from the DA’s speech on the report, MPs from the MK party interrupted him, saying he made them feel like singing 'Kill the farmer'.

"Regardless of what the Constitutional Court may say, the rest of the world - especially the USA - does not accept this call to murder as a mere cultural tradition. It has no place in a civilised South Africa and should have been addressed in the report," says De Jager.

He says the most recent incident comparison meeting has once again proven that the true extent of crime on farms and in rural areas is severely underestimated, particularly because many incidents are not reported to the police.

Saai makes an urgent appeal to all farmers, land users, and rural communities to report every crime incident to SAPS, no matter how minor it may seem.

This includes: