Farmers in the North West province warned the government this week to improve its support of resettled land claimants — or face the doom of the land reform programme.
Pieter Meyer, president of Agri North West, the farmers’ union, criticised the government for dumping hundreds of families on small pieces of land, and then expecting them to run sustainable farms.
He said that, politically speaking, it might be the right thing to resettle people who lost their land under apartheid, ”But the government has to decide whether they want to simply give housing to the communities or whether they want them to farm. Not everyone in South Africa is cut out to be a farmer.”
The North West is also known for the right-wing sentiments that persist among some whites. But the farmers at the conference were quick to point out that they, at least, were firmly focused on the future and on making South Africa work. ”You cannot fight the tide,” Fanus Coetzee, a farmer at the conference, remarked.
The traditional Afrikaans community has looked on as farm land has changed hands, going to its original black owners under the auspices of the government’s land restitution programme. The province’s programme has benefited more than 58 000 people since it began and 68 000ha have been handed to claimants.
Fanie van Zyl, a farmer from Christiana, told the Mail & Guardian that he is concerned about land reform in the province. ”It simply is not working. Managing a successful farm is not an easy task. You have to be ready to get up at 4am if your cow goes into labour … South Africa needs to identify passionate farmers in these resettled communities and they must be given the necessary support.”
But North West Department of Agriculture representative Annelie de Beer said that although the government wants to help it simply does not have the resources: ”We are understaffed and overworked. Finances are a problem. Quite honestly, the government does not have the capacity to give the new farmers the support they need.”
Farmers should stop criticising and get involved, said Koos Laas, chairperson of Agri North West’s land reform committee. ”We are the ideal people to help emerging farmers and give them the necessary training,” he said. ”If we simply snicker at our struggling neighbours and attribute it to the government’s bad governance we are becoming part of the problem.”
Robinson Makoko is one of Agri North West’s newest members, and was one of the few black faces at the conference. He said it was extremely hard for new farmers to start out, even if they had the passion and even knowledge to farm.
”We struggle with financing,” he said. ”The government has a lot of money, but they seem to be giving it away to everyone … Thus everyone receives a small grant. Why not give a bigger grant to those new farmers with the skills, those that are more likely to succeed?”
Financing by banks has always been vital to farmers, who often remain in debt for years. Absa’s Pine Pienaar says the bank will finance emerging farmers as well as it can, but it will not give 100% loans. ”If we give the new farmers all the money, they will never be able to pay it back and the farms will collapse.” But, he says, there are other ways: ”We will even buy into the farm to help them and sell them back their shares when they can afford it.”