Ferial Haffajee
Brussels and Paarl are worlds apart. One is cold and rich. The other poor and hot. Brussels is also the site of trade negotiations between South Africa and the European Union which has 400-million consumers in 15 countries. An agreement could have a huge impact, bringing Paarl and South African industry more firmly into the global economy with access to the wealthy European market.
But the jury is out on whether a free-trade agreement is still an unqualifiedly good deal. Talks broke down last week when South Africa put its foot down – the first time a developing country has said it will not conclude a deal with the world’s wealthiest conurbation at just about any cost.
Trade relations with Europe are already making waves in Paarl, the beautiful Cape valley with its bounty of world-class grapes, peaches, apricots, apples and other fruits.
Salina Kruger doesn’t know Brussels. Her world is somewhat different from that diplomatic capital with its jargon of protocols, side agreements and trade concessions. Yet continuing European tariffs and other protective measures by EU countries like Spain and Portugal may have cost Kruger her job and her well-being.
She was recently hospitalised for depression and said at the time “… I’m now in hospital for high blood pressure, stress, depression. You lie in bed and look at the ceiling, and in the morning you are still looking at the ceiling. When you are working nothing worries you.”
In November last year, the young mother of two was given one days’ notice from the Langeberg Foods factory in Paarl. She and more than 2 000 other women who work for only about four months of the year lost their jobs which paid about R2 000 a month.
The reason: in 1997 South Africa’s canning industry (along with many others) lost their government export incentives in line with World Trade Organisation rules. But Europe still protects its vulnerable industries, including agriculture. The result was that canned fruit and other goods from South African – a major export line – are not as competitive in the European market as they were under apartheid. Exports of deciduous fruit to Europe – canned and fresh – have dropped by a third.
There is a domino effect of European trade practices in other non-European countries as well because of a generous set of export refunds which are still in place. In Japan, for example, South African fruits’ share of the market has been halved.
Langeberg Foods was the bedrock of Paarl’s economy until recently. It employed mostly women workers who made enough to keep their homes going and to provide a little money to their extended families. One woman’s wages supported about eight people. They also triggered a range of downstream industries like babysitters and small businesses which grew from their patronage. Some even had money for luxuries like a gym contract and an account at Foschini.
Says Charmain Jooste: “I miss not being able to buy stuff for myself. I’ve lost my independence. I can’t go out. I can’t dance. I can’t go to braais much because there is no cash for meat.”
Local school principals in Paarl told Dr Judith Head – who did an impact study on downscaling at Langeberg Foods – that 70% of pupils came to school hungry. At a school in Charleston Hill, a survey of senior pupils who brought sandwiches to school yielded a show of no hands.
The number of shacks in Paarl’s poorer areas like Fairyland and Chicago is growing because of the increasing number of homes being repossessed.
No hope. That’s all that Paarl has a lot of at the moment. Kruger is a keen baker whose skills at making watermelon and ginger konfyt (preserve) are legendary. But she cannot afford the sugar to make konfyt and cakes.
African National Congress constituency worker Katie Martin says the debt trap that many women now find themselves in, and the growing incidence of teenage pregnancies, tuberculosis, gangsterism and crime indicate a “vicious circle” in Paarl.
It’s a circle which in part can be broken in Brussels. “South Africa has made fairly large adjustments because it believes there will be positive net benefits,” says MP Rob Davies, whose constituency is Langeberg. “But at the end of the 20th round [of talks with the EU] there were no concessions to canned fruit.”
Head puts it even more strongly. She argues that: “The EU claims to be committed to using trade as a means of promoting development … However, as things currently stand, the proposed EU/South Africa free trade area agreement is unlikely to bring any relief to the people of Paarl and others dependent on the deciduous fruit canning industry for their livelihood.”
Minister of Trade and Industry Alec Erwin stepped into the fray this week to jumpstart the negotiations which were suspended last week. They resume again in October and the gloves are off for tough talking.
Not only is the local fruit-canning industry looking for concessions, but the fishing industry is also getting vocal in its efforts to ensure Spain will not have access to local fishing fields.
And the local distillers of port (originally from Portugal), sherry (from the Jerez vally in southern Spain) and grand cru will not easily raise their glasses to efforts by the EU to stop them using these age-old terms on their products.
But the EU’s ambassador to South Africa Michael Laidler remains optimistic. “We are very close to an agreement. Difficulties could be dealt with effectively and sympathetically in the context of an intimate and bilateral committee.”