The fear factors

The past decade has been torrid for South African farmers, with a nexus of factors conspiring to scare them away from their ”way of life”.

The first of these, say most farmers quizzed by the Mail & Guardian, is the uncertainty created by South Africa’s land restitution and reform process.

Add to this the threat posed by farm killings, shrinking profits, a lack of government subsidies and increasingly temperamental weather patterns, and you start to get an idea of why farmers are leaving the land.

Though it may seem that current high food prices should benefit farmers AgriSA president Lourie Bosman is quick to nip this notion in the bud. Rising input costs, such as the doubling of diesel prices, and fertiliser that has soared more than 100% cancel out the prospect of big profits for most.

The KwaZulu-Natal Agricultural Union (Kwanalu) recently released a report consisting of 12 case studies detailing the impact of property rates on returns for farmers across the food production board.

According to the report each enterprise would need an average annual subsidy of R144 000 to break even, while the farmers made positive returns in only 40% of the five-year period of the survey. With housing estates developing along the coastal belt and in the KwaZulu-Natal Midlands there is also far less prime arable land being used for agriculture.

In Limpopo many farmers cite land reform as their main reason for leaving.

Tzaneen timber farmer Theo de Jager says even with massive land claims in the province, farmers will stay if they can farm profitably. He is concerned that most of the claimants have no history or background in farming and often come from as far as the township of Alexandra [in Johannesburg] hoping to reap the benefits of their newly awarded land.

”They get here and they find that farming is not so easy after all,” says De Jager, who sold his last mixed crop farm in the Trichardsdal area in 2005. He says that this situation can only be rectified if the government promotes a black farmer class.

Land claimants are just as critical of the process and say what should have been a brand-new life for them has become one big struggle.

Asaiye Letsoalo (94) is leading a claim for 200 farms covering more than 30 000ha in the Tzaneen area on behalf of the Banareng Letsoalo Mthunyeng tribe. ”I started with the claiming process in 1997. That was 11 years ago and I think it might take another decade,” says Letsoalo, who lives in Meadowlands, Soweto. ”The government is very slow to give us the land.

”Many of our people have nowhere to stay — they want to stay on the farms. We are hungry for our land because we know how we lived. We had no trouble and plenty of food.”

When claimants do finally receive their land, they are often left to fend for themselves. New farmers such as Michael Phasha, a Limpopo fruit farmer, say government schemes intended to assist emerging black farmers often come to nothing.

Following the murder of farmer David Greene in December last year Kwanalu criticised the plodding pace of land settlement in KwaZulu-Natal and the effect it was having on farmers. It noted the fallout of unresolved land claims included ”blatant physical threats” — including ”threats of murder” — to the wellbeing of farmers.

Farm security solicits frowns from farmers. Figures released by AgriSA show that from 1991 to 2008 there were 10 730 farm attacks, in the course of which 1 669 people were murdered. These included farm workers.

Last month about 300 Free State farmers took nine government departments to court over security along the Lesotho border. ”The border farmer’s ability to produce is gone. Their land is worthless due to the situation,” said Organised Agriculture’s Free State president Louw Steytler, adding that both black and white farmers were suffering because of stock theft.

”The faster we have black farmers, the faster the government will listen,” says Theo de Jager.

Additional reporting by Niren Tolsi, Surika van Schalkwyk and Yolandi Groenewald

Making of a crisis:The precarious state of agriculture in SA

Lack of farmers:

South Africa is short of more than 400 000 farmers and farm workers ‹ the biggest skills shortage in any sector € Shortage of crop farmers: 102 670 € Shortage of crop and livestock farmers: 150 000. This is according to the Department of Labour, while the below figures have been made available by Grain SA:

Food price increases: Jan 2007 to Jan 2008

Decline of farming:

Approximately 90% of farms in the Limpopo province are under claim. Only 13% South African land can be cultivated) and Limpopo is the province with the most arable land. It is also the province with the biggest loss of farmers in the country: 84% of the original farmers left and only 7% of those left are still farming full time. All the farms in Levubu, Limpopo, known as the fruit basket of the agricultural sector, are under claim, according to AgriSA.

Increase in production costs: April 2007 to April 2008

Research: Surika van Schalkwyk