A unique scheme allows workers to become co-owners of the farm they once only laboured on, reports Gaye Davis
LIKE his father before him, Herklaas Botha (26) started working the land just as soon as he was old enough. But it was always someone else’s land.
When he arrived at Whitehall Farm, near Grabouw, six years ago, he was glad of the chance to earn a better wage. It was why he’d made the journey from the Eastern Cape in the first place. If you’d told him then he’d one day be a co- owner of one of the Western Cape’s most profitable fruit- growing and export enterprises, he’d have laughed at you.
“I have never in my life had this kind of chance,” said Botha, taking time out from overseeing his 10-member team busy ridding pear trees of flawed fruit. “And it’s a chance not just for me but for the generations coming after me.”
Botha is one of Whitehall Farm’s permanent workers who this year — and in years to come — gave up his Christmas bonus. The equivalent of four weeks’ salary, it will be no small sacrifice for workers who depend on it for a properly festive season and to provide for exigencies like school fees and uniforms early in the new year.
But Botha will be doing it willingly, for it will be buying him equity in a farming operation that guarantees him and his family rich returns: the chance of a good education for his daughter, nine-year-old Monique; a comfortable retirement for him and his wife, Debra; a home of their own.
In terms of a ground-breaking agreement signed last month, farm owner Henry Hall signed over one-third of the farm to the Whitehall Workers’ Trust. The trust paid Hall R10,7- million for the stake, using money provided by the Development Bank of Southern Africa (R3,6-million), the Standard Bank (R4,8-million) and the Independent Development Trust (R2,3-million).
Hall, whose geniality is exceeded only by his impatience to get things done, knows what dispossession feels like: a farm he owned in the Eastern Cape was expropriated when the Ciskei homeland was created.
When he had a bad year and was wanting to enter semi- retirement, he was casting about for ways of reducing his debt burden. “We thought we’d have to sell off one of the farms,” he recalled. Then he read a report in Effective Farming on a paper by Development Bank official Craig McKenzie, which described a unique land-reform model involving the redistribution not of land, but of equity, in profitable farming operations.
“We lend to the trust, and the trust buys shares from Hall,” explained McKenzie — associate director of the DBSA’s Centre for Policy Analysis. “The workers buy in with their bonuses, or by saving over the year.”
This money goes into a metaphorical pot. Fattened by the trust’s annual one-third share of the farm’s profit, it’s used to repay the loan. Any surplus can be used to pay workers an annual dividend — or to repay the loan faster. “It’s up to the trust to decide,” said McKenzie. “Once the loan has been repaid, workers will see significant gains.”
For Hall, the scheme was just what he needed. He’d be liquid. His farm would remain intact. He’d also be able to realise his dream of bringing his workers into the business. “And why not?” he said. “They helped build up the farm. They deserve it.”
Designed for large-scale, capital and labour-intensive farms, the scheme, governed by a web of mutual agreements and checks and balances, benefits both owner and worker. Workers have a one-third stake in the 270ha farm producing apples, pears, nectarines, plums, peaches and oranges, as well as in the machinery and technical and management expertise required to make it profitable.
They also have a real say in decision-making: workers are represented on the management committee which runs the farm.
Said trainee production manager “Oom” Jan Witbooi: “It’s not like other farms where the boss is white, the foremen are white and management sits to one side. Here we have the space to take decisions affecting the running of the farm.”
For the workers, the scheme has meant a steep learning curve. “We had to explain to people what a share was,” said staff training officer Johannes Muller (29). “It was difficult for people to understand, especially when we told them they must throw their bonus into the pot to qualify. At first, they thought we were in with management against them. We had a problem getting them to understand this was a real thing, the new South Africa.”
Enter the IDT. “The IDT’s role was not only to put in a low-interest component of the loan but also to ensure a Workers’ Trust was established, whereby the workers could hold on to their stake,” said Dr Sholto Cross, director of the IDT’s health and rural development portfolio. The IDT organised training sessions, so that workers could make informed decisions, and provided finance so they could employ their own financial adviser to negotiate fine details on their behalf.
“There were lots of questions,” said Muller. “Nobody’s forced to come into the scheme — it’s voluntary. But people saw they couldn’t lose.”
For the workers, the scheme means more than long-term security.
Said Witbooi: “In this business you can work all day, every day, and at the end still end up with nothing. What we’re involved in is a whole educational process. I’ve worked on a farm all my life, I know about fruit farming.
“Now I’ve learned a lot about interest rates, markets and productivity — the business side of things. I’ve got a much better understanding of what’s going on.”
For Herklaas Botha, up in the pear orchard with his team stripping trees, it means a changed attitude to his labours. “I’ve got a share in what we make, so I work harder,” he said.
“On the other farms I worked on before coming here I was always on the same level, just a worker.
“You couldn’t say anything about how the farm was run, you just did your work. Here we learn about profits and losses. The farm runs 100 percent smoothly, and we’re proud because we are part of it. You feel more of a human being.”