Last August when President Thabo Mbeki visited what his imbizo programme called a “land reform project” in Ceres, he was perhaps unaware of the Deo Volenti farm’s looming ruin and tattered relations between farm workers, shareholders and the trust’s chairperson.
Mbeki listened to local emerging farmers talking of a lack of support and difficulties in accessing water and acquiring farming implements and seeds. Now some shareholders say they could not attend because of rising internal tensions on the farm.
“The farm workers were very disappointed. They wanted to ask the president questions, but were not allowed in,” says Hanna Muller, who has lived on the farm for 11 years.
“We can’t farm. There’s no money. We did not put a harvest in the ground this year,” she says. “The [shareholders] went back to other farms as seasonal workers. They have nothing.”
This is a far cry from 1997, when 85 families of farm workers from surrounding areas and those living on Deo Volenti pooled the R16 000 settlement and land acquisition grants they each received to purchase the farm. Then there was talk of basic business training courses. Subsequently the women on the farm received a further cash amount to encourage their participation.
“We looked to this for the future for our children,” shrugs Muller. “Now we would like to know what’s going on.”
The presidential visit came a month after Piet Waterboer — who was simultaneously farm manager, chairperson of the Deo Volenti trust and a Democratic Alliance councillor, and who had recruited the 85 shareholders — left to take up a position on the Witzenberg council’s mayoral committee.
“He told us he had to choose between the council and the farm; he could not [earn] money from the farm,” says Isak Snyders, a shareholder who is now also trying to manage the farm.
With Waterboer gone the shareholders felt they were left in the dark, and since then matters have taken a turn for the worse. There was no electricity over the festive season but the power came on again last week. No-one knows why, because the farm is heavily indebted — R800 000 is said to be owed to the bank and another R65 000 to the local co-op — while questions are being asked about an amount of R400 000, allegedly raised through the sale of a portion of the land.
Farming never really got off the ground as there was no money for implements or production because of the lack of government support, according to a former trustee. Additional “internal problems” also contributed to the crisis.
In recent months there has been much finger-pointing. Attempts by some shareholders to meet Waterboer — to obtain the keys to the trust office on the farm, the post box in the town, bank statements and chequebooks — have come to nothing.
Similarly, farm workers have failed in their efforts to obtain their share certificates.
But Waterboer has dismissed claims that he snubbed scheduled meetings. Instead, he says there was never a quorum because farm workers failed to arrive. And as he had not resigned as trust chairperson, Waterboer said, he was still in control of the chequebook and bank statements.
“They must not make [up] their own stories,” he told the Mail & Guardian.
Waterboer said the land had to be sold to cover the loss sustained because of an unsuccessful onion harvest and had been discussed, and approved at a meeting.
“If we hadn’t done this, the farm would have gone a long time ago. The management of the farm is now a disaster.”
But he also admits the share certificates have not yet been distributed. They were printed and typed in 2001, but could not be handed out because of “the harvest and then vacations”.
David Mason, research, information and advocacy manager at the Surplus People’s Project, says that what happened on the farm was “not an unusual scenario at all”.
Land reform in South Africa has been beset by problems. Often land affairs officials are unaware of agricultural needs. “Few of the projects get any post-settlement support. Many of the project designs are done by consultants who are in and out,” he added.
When the Deo Volenti scheme was launched the Department of Land Affairs did not have any monitoring and evaluation guidelines in place for land reform projects. Such monitoring policy was fully implemented only from late 1999 alongside an aggressive offer of post-settlement support.
“It makes no sense to us as government that each time we put up empowerment projects we must spend sleepless nights worrying that they’ll collapse,” said Department of Land Affairs spokesperson Abbey Makoe.
Minister of Agriculture and Land Affairs Thoko Didiza was aware of the situation at the farm, as the Ceres Advice Office had sent her a letter outlining the problems.
Last month the shareholders approached the office for assistance after other requests to the town’s luminaries failed to bring results. A meeting was held this week at the Department of Land Affairs regional office in Worcester.
Meanwhile, the Deo Volenti shareholders try to get by. Last year Snyders organised a group of volunteers to cut back the peach trees. And now they are hoping to sell a small crop of boerpampoene [large pumpkins]. “We want to keep the farm because we’ll never get help from the government again,” says Snyders.