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The Reality of Farm Murders in South Africa · UK Column Radio

0:38
Speaker 1: Theodoka. Thank you for joining me in the trenches.
0:42
Speaker 2: Oh what a privilege to be on your show again. Jeremy,
0:45
Speaker 2: thank you for inviting me.
0:47
Speaker 1: I think the best place to start is for my
0:51
Speaker 1: audience who don't know who you are. What is your background.
0:54
Speaker 2: I'm a farmer. I farm subtropical fruits and timber in
0:58
Speaker 2: the Lampopo province, not that far from the Zimbabwean and
1:01
Speaker 2: Mozambiquan borders. I've spent a lifetime in organized agriculture, from
1:07
Speaker 2: a local level as a chairman of a farmer's organization
1:11
Speaker 2: in our village, up to international level with the World
1:14
Speaker 2: Farmers Organization. Currently I'm chairing the board of agriol Africa
1:21
Speaker 2: and of PSAI, our network for family farmers in South Africa.
1:27
Speaker 1: So you have a lot of experience in farming.
1:34
Speaker 2: Have enough experience in farming. You know, farming is not
1:39
Speaker 2: the same from this season to that season, and there
1:43
Speaker 2: are no two farmers in the world who farm the same.
1:46
Speaker 2: But yes, I've been farming since nineteen ninety seven.
1:52
Speaker 1: It's a calling.
1:55
Speaker 2: And it's a blessing and it's a privilege. It is
2:02
Speaker 2: great news for me that you now have a baby
2:07
Speaker 2: in the house. Jeremy. But let me tell you, thank you,
2:10
Speaker 2: there's no greater joy than raising a child on a farm,
2:15
Speaker 2: letting them sit on your shoulders, introducing them to nature,
2:21
Speaker 2: helping them to develop that love for mother nature.
2:27
Speaker 1: So when we talk about farms or a farmer here
2:32
Speaker 1: in South Africa, what are we talking about.
2:37
Speaker 2: There are three kinds of farms. Yeah, like on the
2:42
Speaker 2: rest of the continent, just in different mixes. So the
2:49
Speaker 2: vast majority of our farmers, people who eke out a
2:55
Speaker 2: livelihood from the soils, are small holder farmers, and many
2:59
Speaker 2: of them in the deep areas, in the communal areas.
3:03
Speaker 2: We have just more than two million of them in
3:06
Speaker 2: South Africa, and they produce for themselves for their own consumption,
3:11
Speaker 2: and they trade a little in their local communities, and
3:15
Speaker 2: the linkage to market is mostly rawcers or direct marketing.
3:21
Speaker 2: And then you have your small and medium sized enterprises,
3:27
Speaker 2: of which there are about thirty two thousand, typically family farms,
3:33
Speaker 2: and they would produce for the local markets in Jannsburg, Pretoria,
3:38
Speaker 2: Cape Town Urban, but they would also export. And never
3:43
Speaker 2: in our lifetime have we had a year in which
3:47
Speaker 2: we were not a net exporter of food in South Africa.
3:51
Speaker 2: We've always been a net exporter, and then we have
3:56
Speaker 2: these mega farmers and corporate farmers and more and more
4:01
Speaker 2: of them, where big companies and even sometimes multinational companies
4:05
Speaker 2: start to farm. And when they do so, you know,
4:09
Speaker 2: they don't support the local bookkeeper in the small town,
4:13
Speaker 2: the local lawyer, the local distributor of fertilizer or agrochemicals.
4:19
Speaker 2: So their contribution to the growth of the rural areas
4:23
Speaker 2: and to counter urbanization is actually very little, if any,
4:29
Speaker 2: And we cannot really compete against these big companies because
4:34
Speaker 2: in agricultural production size matters the ends our organization side,
4:41
Speaker 2: which are try to promote and protect the interests of
4:44
Speaker 2: your typical family farmer and our context, a family farmer
4:49
Speaker 2: is not big or small, is not rich or poor,
4:53
Speaker 2: is not white or black, is not a newcomer or
4:56
Speaker 2: a well established farmer. It is a family making a
5:01
Speaker 2: living from the soil. Okay.
5:05
Speaker 1: So if we talk about farms or farm attacks, for example,
5:09
Speaker 1: in South Africa, we are mostly referring to commercial farming.
5:13
Speaker 1: Is that right?
5:15
Speaker 2: Yes, it is that middle group the farmers who are
5:19
Speaker 2: farming for profit, who are farming to produce surpluses and
5:25
Speaker 2: to sell it. Mostly into cities or export it. It
5:29
Speaker 2: is those farms where there is where there is a board,
5:36
Speaker 2: a sign at at the gate post with the name
5:43
Speaker 2: of a farm and a family's name on it.
5:46
Speaker 1: How many are there.
5:48
Speaker 2: More or less thirty two thousand, of which mora or lease.
5:55
Speaker 2: Ten of the successful ones are now black farmers are
5:59
Speaker 2: beneficialies of land reform or who entered through their own
6:04
Speaker 2: investment on land and equipment. But the rest, you know,
6:10
Speaker 2: it takes more than one generation to set up a farm.
6:14
Speaker 2: Typically you would have someone who decide to buy a farm,
6:19
Speaker 2: and he spends a lifetime to pay it and to
6:24
Speaker 2: develop it and to get all the equipment together, and
6:30
Speaker 2: it literally takes a lifetime. Then these children, because they
6:35
Speaker 2: know the farm and they have the experience and they
6:38
Speaker 2: don't have the burden of the capital outlay, usually they
6:41
Speaker 2: go big. And then it's in the third generation when
6:46
Speaker 2: cousins need to farm together that they often lose the
6:49
Speaker 2: farm again because they don't know where it came from.
6:52
Speaker 2: They were not there and it's not that easy for
6:56
Speaker 2: cousins to share that vision. Remember, family farmers who rise
7:01
Speaker 2: in is never the end of the next financial year.
7:05
Speaker 2: It is the next generation or the generation after that,
7:09
Speaker 2: and you need to be focused for more than a
7:13
Speaker 2: lifetime to get there. So very often you'll find that
7:19
Speaker 2: cousins or the wives of cousins, they start to quarrel
7:25
Speaker 2: about exactly what needs to be reinvested on the farm,
7:30
Speaker 2: where should this farm be developed to what will be
7:35
Speaker 2: the legacy.
7:38
Speaker 1: It's not just something you can do, and it's not
7:40
Speaker 1: just something you can study for four years. Even it
7:43
Speaker 1: takes almost a lifetime to get right.
7:47
Speaker 2: It is so, it is so, and then you know
7:51
Speaker 2: you are aiming at the moving target all the time
7:55
Speaker 2: because the preferences of the consumers are changing all the time. Yea,
8:05
Speaker 2: in South Africa were still produce into three markets too,
8:10
Speaker 2: and elsewhere like in Europe there are only two markets
8:15
Speaker 2: for us. The biggest part of the market, unfortunately, is
8:19
Speaker 2: still the poorest part, those families where food security are
8:25
Speaker 2: an issue, where it's an issue where they don't necessarily
8:30
Speaker 2: know what they will eat tonight. What they will eat
8:33
Speaker 2: will very much depend on what is affordable and what
8:37
Speaker 2: is close by, what can I buy in the immediate environment,
8:41
Speaker 2: And much of it is stars driven. And it's only
8:46
Speaker 2: when you break out of poverty and move into the
8:49
Speaker 2: middle class that the consumer bother about the mix on
8:53
Speaker 2: the plate, how healthy is it, how nutritious is it,
8:58
Speaker 2: and what's the relationship between proteins and the the rest
9:04
Speaker 2: They must be meat and vegetables and stars, et cetera.
9:09
Speaker 2: And then at the top end of the market, that
9:12
Speaker 2: consumer want to make a difference with their buying power
9:18
Speaker 2: in on on biodiversity, on climate change, on nature conservation.
9:26
Speaker 2: So they want to know how was this pig treated
9:29
Speaker 2: before it was lautered, what kind of accommodation did it have,
9:33
Speaker 2: And they want to scan a barcode to see the
9:36
Speaker 2: history of production, what was sprayed on these fields or
9:40
Speaker 2: on this fruit, what kind of herbicide or insecticide was used?
9:45
Speaker 2: And thence they will pay even more, but to ensure
9:53
Speaker 2: that nature friendliness was applied in the production process. Now,
9:59
Speaker 2: the ex sport market has very strict regulations on that,
10:04
Speaker 2: and it costs a lot. You must invest a lot
10:08
Speaker 2: to be able to meet all those criteria. And in
10:12
Speaker 2: this middle group of farmers, the family farmers who are commercial,
10:18
Speaker 2: they still produce into all three these markets.
10:22
Speaker 1: A topic that always comes up, which I think we
10:24
Speaker 1: must deal with, is how it came to be that
10:27
Speaker 1: the majority of South African farmers are white.
10:31
Speaker 2: Yeah. Remember, whites came here to farm in the middle
10:36
Speaker 2: sixteen hundreds, the Dutch Indian Company, they decided to set
10:45
Speaker 2: up a halfway station between Europe and the Middle East
10:51
Speaker 2: because they needed fresh produce for the ships. The ships
10:56
Speaker 2: would dock here, replenish the wood, and sail on. And
11:05
Speaker 2: literally the very first whites to establish themselves here were
11:11
Speaker 2: the farmers farming for those ships. And then more and
11:15
Speaker 2: more of them became independent contractors, having a production contract
11:22
Speaker 2: with this Dutch East Indian Company, which at the time
11:26
Speaker 2: was the biggest multinational company in the world. And then
11:31
Speaker 2: they started to expand further and further away from Cape Town,
11:38
Speaker 2: and then they started to clash with the authorities. The
11:43
Speaker 2: British also came here and they were not that friendly
11:46
Speaker 2: towards these farmers of Dutch, German origin, French origin. And
11:57
Speaker 2: remember when they came here, they found the Queen's son
12:01
Speaker 2: who were Unti gatherers, not farmers. And as they expanded,
12:08
Speaker 2: they met with the Bantu tribes who came from Central
12:14
Speaker 2: and West Africa. They moved downwards and they met moralist
12:19
Speaker 2: with the Eastern Capees today on the Cairo River, and
12:27
Speaker 2: these caches were often violent. You have two different kinds
12:32
Speaker 2: of societies, two different kinds of value systems to cultures.
12:39
Speaker 2: And then, yeah, in the early eighteen hundreds when the
12:46
Speaker 2: British took over again and these farmers decided not to
12:53
Speaker 2: be under British rule and they moved up north through
12:58
Speaker 2: the Great Track. Now up north you had many different
13:03
Speaker 2: tribal entities, and some of them were very friendly, like
13:08
Speaker 2: the water along Balsileica in the Eastern Free State where
13:12
Speaker 2: most of the tracks stayed over for a while fixed
13:16
Speaker 2: their wagons again, but they were asked empty spaces in between.
13:21
Speaker 2: And because they had guns and because they had a
13:28
Speaker 2: much modern approach to warfare, very often they were given
13:34
Speaker 2: land as a buffer zone between conflicting tribal entities. So
13:40
Speaker 2: there are quite a number of these tracts, these agreements
13:46
Speaker 2: between tribal authorities and the old four trackers to settle
13:51
Speaker 2: on specific areas to be a buffer between the between
13:58
Speaker 2: conflicting tribes. And then of course came the first anti
14:05
Speaker 2: colonial war in Africa, the Words against the British. The
14:11
Speaker 2: first one was in eighteen eighty and the second one
14:13
Speaker 2: in eighteen eighty nine to nineteen oh two and gold
14:20
Speaker 2: was found and diamonds were discovered and cities developed around that.
14:27
Speaker 2: Many people were brought in from the deep rural areas
14:29
Speaker 2: to work in those mines and urbanizations started to happen,
14:37
Speaker 2: and then came a part eight. Aparthate actually was a
14:44
Speaker 2: scheme by which it was decided that each tribal entity
14:48
Speaker 2: will live and stay on their own land. So you
14:54
Speaker 2: had these homelands where tribal entities could do their own thing,
15:00
Speaker 2: and to live or work outside those areas you needed
15:06
Speaker 2: kind of a permit. There was also in those times
15:12
Speaker 2: a lot of money invested in developing those homelands to
15:17
Speaker 2: develop industry but also agriculture, and some of our most
15:21
Speaker 2: successful commercial black farmers actually come from that era where
15:28
Speaker 2: they had for generations been farming as families. Hence the
15:34
Speaker 2: successful farmers in the Northwest Province, in the Eastern Cape,
15:38
Speaker 2: in Quasulu Natal in the northern and eastern parts of
15:43
Speaker 2: Lempopo today. And then came democracy in nineteen ninety four,
15:50
Speaker 2: and by that time around fourteen percent of the total
15:55
Speaker 2: land area in South Africa was these homelands and another
16:03
Speaker 2: more or less twenty five percent towards government owned land
16:07
Speaker 2: such as the enormous parks we have the Kruger National Park,
16:12
Speaker 2: the Kalari Hemn's Book Park, and also belonged to mines,
16:19
Speaker 2: churches and these and around seventy seventy five percent of
16:28
Speaker 2: or seventy five thousand hectares, that is, we have one
16:32
Speaker 2: hundred and twenty two million nectars in South Africa, of
16:36
Speaker 2: which about seventy five million nectars was in the hands
16:40
Speaker 2: of white farmers. Now, remember half of our country is
16:44
Speaker 2: a semi semi desert, is very dry, the Karoo, the
16:50
Speaker 2: Kalahari up to the Swartland and there you can only
16:56
Speaker 2: farm extensively with sheep. Here and there you would find
17:02
Speaker 2: some indigenous cattle and so. But our high potential soils
17:08
Speaker 2: is morally seven percent of our total area, and that
17:14
Speaker 2: is in the east. That's also where we had these homelands.
17:19
Speaker 2: Means to say today for example, but still nearly half
17:27
Speaker 2: of all the land is in the hands of whites.
17:31
Speaker 2: You are comparing a hector of semi desert now with
17:37
Speaker 2: a hector of high potential land, and that's unfair. Where
17:41
Speaker 2: I farm in Sanine, you can have a bigger turnover
17:46
Speaker 2: on ten hectares of land than what you can with
17:51
Speaker 2: one thousand hectarves in the Karoo. One hector does not
17:56
Speaker 2: equal one hectar when you compare east and west. So
18:01
Speaker 2: most of the land reform happened in the high potential lands.
18:05
Speaker 2: And unfortunately we did not have much success with land reform.
18:11
Speaker 2: If I say we did not have success, maybe it
18:15
Speaker 2: is because we used the wrong measurement. We measured actors.
18:21
Speaker 2: Every year in parliament, our government would report that we
18:25
Speaker 2: have now moved this number of hectors from white hands
18:30
Speaker 2: to black hands, instead of measuring the number of profitable
18:35
Speaker 2: black farmers they've put on that land. And now I
18:40
Speaker 2: must also say to you, I want to see the
18:42
Speaker 2: white farmers. You can make a success out of the
18:45
Speaker 2: conditions in which we expect beneficiaries of land reform to
18:50
Speaker 2: make a success. Because these guys do not get ownership
18:54
Speaker 2: of the property. They become tenants on government owned land.
18:59
Speaker 2: And if you do not have a title deed, you
19:02
Speaker 2: don't have collateral. You cannot go to a bank to
19:06
Speaker 2: get a loan for production purposes. They are all dependent
19:11
Speaker 2: on a government department to give them grants with which
19:15
Speaker 2: they need to buy seed, fertilizer, mechanization, diesel, pay the
19:22
Speaker 2: electricity and their wages. And the bank the government is
19:26
Speaker 2: not a good bank. Some of our members inside whom
19:30
Speaker 2: we assisted to apply for these grants in twenty nineteen,
19:35
Speaker 2: only got theirs in February this year, So what were
19:40
Speaker 2: they supposed to do In the meantime, they are delivered
19:45
Speaker 2: to failure. And this is also why, in government's own account,
19:48
Speaker 2: ninety percent of these projects have failed. It's actually a
19:53
Speaker 2: system that is failing us, but unfortunately we are picking
19:58
Speaker 2: up the bill for it. It all causes a lot
20:02
Speaker 2: of tension and it creates two new classes are farmers.
20:09
Speaker 2: White farmers who own their own land and who are
20:12
Speaker 2: under pressure, and they are successful. They are some of
20:15
Speaker 2: the most competitive farmers in the world. And black farmers
20:18
Speaker 2: who never own their own land. They are doomed to
20:22
Speaker 2: be tenants forever and it's impossible for them to become competitive,
20:30
Speaker 2: and there is even tension between them. I think the
20:34
Speaker 2: first and most important criteria for the establishment of new
20:40
Speaker 2: entrants into our profession is that you need to select
20:45
Speaker 2: people who choose to be farmers who want to farm.
20:51
Speaker 2: I can tell you in our organization in side where
20:54
Speaker 2: we work with all the universities, the student organizations are
20:58
Speaker 2: all part of our structure, and we pay a lot
21:01
Speaker 2: of attention and spend a lot of effort to schools,
21:09
Speaker 2: especially in the rural areas. Our ambition is not to
21:13
Speaker 2: lure more youngsters into this profession. Our ambition is to
21:18
Speaker 2: recruit the brightest young minds into this profession because agriculture
21:24
Speaker 2: has become a very complex profession. You need to be
21:29
Speaker 2: good at everything human resources management, financial planning and management.
21:35
Speaker 2: You need to be an agronomist. You need to understand
21:39
Speaker 2: chemistry and ends to be competitive to be able to
21:46
Speaker 2: produce the preferred product on global markets, on shelves and shops.
21:52
Speaker 2: You need to compete with the best out of farmers
21:56
Speaker 2: in the world and ends. We spend so much of
21:59
Speaker 2: our i'm an effort to try to recruit the brightest
22:03
Speaker 2: young minds to choose agriculture as a career. Any other
22:08
Speaker 2: approach will be disastrous and we will only see it
22:13
Speaker 2: in ten or twenty years from now.
22:18
Speaker 1: And then available that you didn't include, which, of course
22:21
Speaker 1: now is the worldwide talking point is the danger of
22:25
Speaker 1: being a farmer?
22:28
Speaker 2: Yes. Unfortunately, the safety on farms is the biggest issue
22:39
Speaker 2: which youngsters consider when they choose not to be farmers,
22:43
Speaker 2: or which young farmers consider when they choose to move
22:49
Speaker 2: away from their farms and live in towns. We have
22:55
Speaker 2: this phenomenon in South Africa farm murders, farm attacks, and
23:01
Speaker 2: it happens literally every week. On our reach. We have
23:07
Speaker 2: seen around seventy farm murders per year in the last
23:12
Speaker 2: twenty five years. Of course, some years we have more
23:15
Speaker 2: than that and some years we have less than that,
23:18
Speaker 2: but on average it's one in five days and a
23:20
Speaker 2: farm attack more or less one every second day. Now
23:26
Speaker 2: there are two arguments about this for us as farmers,
23:32
Speaker 2: every farmer spend a lot of money to save god
23:36
Speaker 2: the farm and the area. We have our own farm
23:39
Speaker 2: watches because we live and work far from towns and
23:43
Speaker 2: police stations. So in our organization we manage one hundred
23:47
Speaker 2: and eighty eight farm watches. We patrol our area. We
23:51
Speaker 2: are able to close it off. We train them to
23:55
Speaker 2: use drones and satellite technology. Of course, to respond to
24:02
Speaker 2: a farm attack is very important, but more important is
24:06
Speaker 2: to prevent it. So we also have some intelligence tools
24:12
Speaker 2: which we use. And I believe that managing this trend
24:19
Speaker 2: downwards over the last two three years is probably because
24:23
Speaker 2: of that Now some people would say would argue, like
24:27
Speaker 2: our government does, that this is merely an extension of
24:32
Speaker 2: a general problem we have with runaway murder statistics and
24:37
Speaker 2: crime statistics. As farmers, we don't believe that. We maintain
24:45
Speaker 2: that farm attacks far murders is in a special category,
24:49
Speaker 2: not that we are that special, but we say farm
24:53
Speaker 2: attacks are different because although if you measure it by numbers,
25:00
Speaker 2: there are certain sectors of society who fall victim to
25:04
Speaker 2: murders more often and in greater numbers than farmers, such
25:09
Speaker 2: as the gangsters in the cave flats, the gang wars,
25:15
Speaker 2: or in violence against women and children. If you measure
25:20
Speaker 2: it per one thousand of that category of the population,
25:28
Speaker 2: ours is still higher. There's a bigger chance for a
25:32
Speaker 2: farmer to die in a farm attack than in any
25:36
Speaker 2: other category of people in South Africa. But more than that,
25:42
Speaker 2: there are three things which set us a part. There's
25:49
Speaker 2: no one who calls for murder on women and children.
25:55
Speaker 2: There's no one who incite people to murders, or communities
26:03
Speaker 2: which are played by gangsters on the cape flats like
26:08
Speaker 2: you have the scene of killer farmer killer, politicians faightening
26:15
Speaker 2: to murder us saying we will murder their men, their wives,
26:20
Speaker 2: and their children, and their cats and their dogs if
26:22
Speaker 2: they don't give their land back to us, like we
26:28
Speaker 2: have seen with one of the parliamentarians in South Africa,
26:32
Speaker 2: Judus Malemma and Andylian Kama. So no one calls for it,
26:39
Speaker 2: and then when it happens, it is not accompanied by
26:44
Speaker 2: this brutal torture, often happening all night long. They don't
26:51
Speaker 2: droll holes through the kneecaps of an old age lady
26:56
Speaker 2: before they murder her. This torture is absolutely gruesome. There's
27:04
Speaker 2: nothing like that elsewhere. And then afterwards you do not
27:10
Speaker 2: have this applause on social media, either on Facebook or
27:15
Speaker 2: X hundreds of Tutarati saying there should be more of this.
27:21
Speaker 2: They've deserved it because they don't belong in Africa. They
27:25
Speaker 2: should go back to Europe. That you don't find in
27:31
Speaker 2: the other murders. But there is another argument here, Jeremy,
27:35
Speaker 2: which I think up to now has not received any attention,
27:41
Speaker 2: even after the debates in the White House where our
27:47
Speaker 2: government also tried to persuade the Trump administration that far
27:54
Speaker 2: murders isn't anything special. We have a problem with crime
27:58
Speaker 2: and murder. Why why do we have such a massive
28:02
Speaker 2: problem with criminality and with killings in South Africa? Why
28:09
Speaker 2: why can't our police get handles on this theme? And
28:15
Speaker 2: I believe it's because there are no consequences. I believe
28:20
Speaker 2: because criminals get away with it all the time. That's
28:23
Speaker 2: why I believe it is because the police is not
28:27
Speaker 2: a shadow of what it used to be before we
28:31
Speaker 2: saw cater deployment. And not only were the most senior
28:35
Speaker 2: positions in the police given to politically well connected people
28:40
Speaker 2: instead of professional policemen who came through the ranks. Also
28:47
Speaker 2: lower down and it went down up to grassroots level
28:51
Speaker 2: police station level. People were appointed not for their expertise
28:59
Speaker 2: but for their political connections, and of course that drove
29:04
Speaker 2: out those who were not politically connected. And hence today
29:09
Speaker 2: we have better capacity in the private sector, in the
29:12
Speaker 2: private security sector than we have in the police. But
29:16
Speaker 2: the same happened in the national prosecuting authority, in the
29:20
Speaker 2: courts elsewhere in the legal value chain. This is why
29:26
Speaker 2: we have such a low number of successful arrests followed
29:31
Speaker 2: by successful prosecution, following by successful judgments against the criminals.
29:40
Speaker 2: That's why I think it's also because you know, fish
29:44
Speaker 2: rotten rots from the head. You cannot have these mega
29:52
Speaker 2: criminals having looted billions from state coffers. And we all
29:59
Speaker 2: know how it happened, and we all know why it
30:03
Speaker 2: happened or who it were, because we had this on
30:09
Speaker 2: dre commission, and that's on the commission spelled out exactly
30:14
Speaker 2: what happened. Yet and years later there was not one
30:19
Speaker 2: prosecution in terms of that. Now, how do we hope
30:24
Speaker 2: to fight petty crime and from that to start fighting
30:28
Speaker 2: more serious crime. If the most serious crimes get off
30:33
Speaker 2: scot free simply because there's no consequences, there is not
30:37
Speaker 2: the political will to act against it. Our problem is
30:42
Speaker 2: much deeper, and it starts at the policy level, and
30:46
Speaker 2: it starts with the political will.
30:50
Speaker 1: Speaking of political will, there was an internal protection system
30:56
Speaker 1: many years ago called the commandos, which the ANC disbanded.
30:59
Speaker 2: Is that yes, between two thousand and three and two
31:04
Speaker 2: sat thousand and six, all these commanders were disbanded. The
31:08
Speaker 2: benefit of the commanders was it is a soul society
31:12
Speaker 2: who took part, and it was from our heritage of
31:18
Speaker 2: the Border War, where we had these commandos in every
31:22
Speaker 2: rural district. So farmers were part of these commandos, and
31:27
Speaker 2: instead of just opening it up and involving more farm
31:31
Speaker 2: workers and involving communities, other communities than the farmers, they
31:37
Speaker 2: simply closed it down. But closing that down really also
31:43
Speaker 2: brought about this situation where we had a total shutdown
31:47
Speaker 2: of safety and security capacity. Now look at this from
31:52
Speaker 2: the angle of a farmer. Typically, they would be an
31:58
Speaker 2: incident where somebody attacked a farmyard and the first line
32:08
Speaker 2: of defence is the farmer and his family themselves. Next,
32:12
Speaker 2: they would call on the radio and the neighbors would
32:16
Speaker 2: rush to help them. From there, the farm watch would
32:21
Speaker 2: be mobilized and the police would be contacted. They are
32:27
Speaker 2: mostly the last to come onto the scene. And now
32:31
Speaker 2: you have some shooting on a farmyard. But it is
32:37
Speaker 2: between private citizens. If we had a commander, or when
32:43
Speaker 2: we had a commander, you were put in service in
32:48
Speaker 2: such an incident, even with the police reserves, which were
32:52
Speaker 2: supposed to replace the commanders. That was the promise to us.
32:57
Speaker 2: We are closing down the commanders, but we are spanning
33:00
Speaker 2: the police reserves. If this would happen and you would
33:06
Speaker 2: be put in service, you would act like someone in uniform.
33:11
Speaker 2: You would be protected by the state. You act as
33:15
Speaker 2: an agent of the state, and the disbandment of the commanders,
33:20
Speaker 2: and then following that, the failure to get this police
33:25
Speaker 2: reserve system going means that it is private citizen against
33:30
Speaker 2: private citizen. And only last week we had a case
33:35
Speaker 2: where a farmer woke up one night heard something in
33:41
Speaker 2: his kitchen and when he got there, there was someone there.
33:47
Speaker 2: Remember this is in the middle of the night. There's
33:49
Speaker 2: someone in your house who just broke in and he
33:52
Speaker 2: shot him. The perpetrator died. The farmer is in jail.
34:00
Speaker 2: He is now being charged with murder.
34:03
Speaker 1: Sure, and.
34:05
Speaker 2: Even if you would be able to lock him and
34:08
Speaker 2: his family in the bedrooms and waited for the farm
34:14
Speaker 2: watch when the farm watch got there, until their lives
34:20
Speaker 2: are threatened, until the perpetrator shoots, there's no way you
34:26
Speaker 2: can defend yourself, both in the situation and in a
34:31
Speaker 2: court of law. So this is why it is important
34:34
Speaker 2: for us to have a system, whether it is the
34:38
Speaker 2: reinstatement of the commander system, whether it is the expansion
34:42
Speaker 2: of the police or reserves, but we need a system
34:45
Speaker 2: where you are being put in service, where you can
34:48
Speaker 2: act as an agent of the state.
34:53
Speaker 1: Just for clarity, THEO when Trump was talking about the
34:58
Speaker 1: farm attacks. He was speaking specifically about white farmers. Do
35:04
Speaker 1: black farm workers, of which they are numerous, also so
35:08
Speaker 1: comb to these farm attacks?
35:11
Speaker 2: Oh yes, oh yes, there are many of them. You
35:15
Speaker 2: know at NAMPU at our biggest agricultural exhibition, these this monument,
35:21
Speaker 2: and all the victims' names are on there. So it's
35:24
Speaker 2: not only white farmers, it's also black farmers. One of
35:30
Speaker 2: the most gruesome scenes I've seen was the killing of
35:37
Speaker 2: an Indian farmer. She was pregnant at the time and
35:43
Speaker 2: she was not just killed, she was slaughtered in case
35:45
Speaker 2: it n three about three four years ago. And then
35:49
Speaker 2: of course there are the guests are farmers and farm
35:53
Speaker 2: managers and farm workers who are also killed, but the
35:57
Speaker 2: vast majority are white farmers.
36:02
Speaker 1: Do you think there's an agenda against it? I mean,
36:05
Speaker 1: I'm referring to Trump now, he refers to it as
36:08
Speaker 1: a white genocide. It's a very emotive term. But is
36:11
Speaker 1: there a targeted attack against white Africana farmers do you think?
36:19
Speaker 2: Well? I think one would be very native to say
36:25
Speaker 2: that is not, because why would people sing killer farmer killer.
36:31
Speaker 1: Yeah, And just to be clere, just to be clear,
36:34
Speaker 1: just to be clear that that song has been protected
36:37
Speaker 1: by the government and the highest court in the land.
36:40
Speaker 1: And you and it's not sung by a handful of
36:43
Speaker 1: people either, It's sung by a large percentage of the country.
36:48
Speaker 1: And it's and it's very specific. Kill the boor is
36:51
Speaker 1: a white farmer.
36:52
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is this is one of the saddest parts
36:58
Speaker 2: of our recent history that the courts would not condemn
37:02
Speaker 2: this song as hate speech. And then even the highest court,
37:06
Speaker 2: the Constitutional Court, they did not hear us. They decided
37:11
Speaker 2: to close the doors of justice to us before they
37:14
Speaker 2: heard our case. So we have now depleted all our
37:20
Speaker 2: local remedies and we must now take this to the
37:23
Speaker 2: international stage and seek justice elsewhere in the world to
37:29
Speaker 2: have this song being declared hate speech. But you know,
37:36
Speaker 2: around three thousand, one hundred, three thousand, two hundred farmers
37:41
Speaker 2: have been killed over the last thirty years. And as
37:45
Speaker 2: I said, it's not only white farmers, given that we
37:50
Speaker 2: only have about trety two thousand for commercial farmers in
37:56
Speaker 2: that middle bracket. The fact is that we all know
38:01
Speaker 2: someone who have been murdered on a farm, and there
38:08
Speaker 2: are way too many families who are felt it because
38:16
Speaker 2: one of their own have been killed. So for us,
38:21
Speaker 2: of course it's emotional and of course we feel under threat.
38:27
Speaker 2: Whether this is a genocide or not will depend on
38:29
Speaker 2: how you define a genocide. My organization side is also
38:33
Speaker 2: the biggest voice of Zimbabwe and farmers, and we are
38:37
Speaker 2: wrestling with the Zimbabwean government for compensation on land reform.
38:43
Speaker 2: But it's not only with the white farmers who lost
38:46
Speaker 2: their land since two thousand. It's also the Mattabili farmers
38:50
Speaker 2: who lost their land in the middle nineteen eighties. They
38:54
Speaker 2: were four six hundred and forty of them whose land
38:59
Speaker 2: was taken and their cattle. Now, that was a genocide.
39:04
Speaker 2: The Guguri Yundi, that was a genocide where about twenty
39:09
Speaker 2: more than twenty thousand people were slaughtered by the North
39:12
Speaker 2: Korean Fith Brigade. We have seen what the massacre is,
39:18
Speaker 2: what the genocide is. In Rwanda, more than a million
39:22
Speaker 2: people were killed. The Americans and specifically the Trump administration
39:30
Speaker 2: and many NGOs with whom we have close contacts lately,
39:35
Speaker 2: they say, no, genocide is not only the killing, it's
39:38
Speaker 2: his whole process. It is the run up to the
39:42
Speaker 2: slaughtering of people too. It is the classification of people.
39:47
Speaker 2: It is name calling, it is typically songs like kill
39:51
Speaker 2: the farmer, kill the bo that leads to that, and
39:54
Speaker 2: you don't need to wait for the blood to flow
39:57
Speaker 2: down the streets before you call it out. And in
40:01
Speaker 2: our liaison with the second Trump administration, this is the
40:09
Speaker 2: argument too. It should not happen. Your country should not
40:14
Speaker 2: allow this kind of hate speech, and because of that,
40:18
Speaker 2: we will turn on the pressure on them. So as farmers,
40:23
Speaker 2: we feel there's absolutely no justification for singing songs like that.
40:30
Speaker 2: There's also no justification for politicians in the MK party
40:35
Speaker 2: who say let's go and kill the farmers and kill
40:38
Speaker 2: their wives, and kill their children, and even kill their
40:40
Speaker 2: cats and dogs, and not being arrested, not being tried
40:44
Speaker 2: for it, and not serving jail time for it. There's
40:47
Speaker 2: no excuse for that. And this is why the pressure
40:52
Speaker 2: on the South African government, especially from the Trump administration,
40:56
Speaker 2: is welcomed by us. Certainly, in no modern civilized society
41:02
Speaker 2: can this be deemed to be normal and acceptable.
41:07
Speaker 1: What is the severity of some of these attacks.
41:14
Speaker 2: Well, the as I said, the torture is gruesome. When
41:23
Speaker 2: I was president of the Limpopo Farmers Organization, a provincial
41:29
Speaker 2: farmer structure, Agrie Lympopo. I did not miss the opportunity
41:35
Speaker 2: to go to these scenes to visit the families. But
41:40
Speaker 2: it's something that never leaves you, Jeremy. Let me tell
41:43
Speaker 2: you that smell of the blood on the floors and
41:47
Speaker 2: the walls, things that lay around broken, you can see
41:54
Speaker 2: there has been a struggle and then the way of killing,
41:58
Speaker 2: the torturing, burning them with irons and stuff. It never
42:07
Speaker 2: leaves you. You cannot unsee it afterwards. Ever. I now
42:15
Speaker 2: think of this incident with Brendan Horner, the young farm
42:20
Speaker 2: manager who was killed three years ago in the Eastern
42:24
Speaker 2: Free State pol room. And you might remember the big
42:30
Speaker 2: farmer gatherings in Senecal where the EFA have also turned up,
42:36
Speaker 2: and they had the audacity to stand in front of
42:39
Speaker 2: the courtroom and and sing killer, farmer, killer right there
42:46
Speaker 2: in the street too. And remember those perpetrators have never
42:51
Speaker 2: been found. There was no consequences up to today. And
42:57
Speaker 2: the farmers and the police do not trust each other. Yeah.
43:01
Speaker 2: The farmers believe that it's got everything to do with
43:05
Speaker 2: the with stock theft and that the police are part
43:13
Speaker 2: of these stock theft syndicates. Hence they demanded that the
43:21
Speaker 2: management of the police be changed. The command system should
43:25
Speaker 2: be changed in that area. Now that's very close to
43:28
Speaker 2: La City, and it is so that the hot spot
43:31
Speaker 2: of stock theft is on that lacuity border, simply because
43:37
Speaker 2: it's so easy to take livestock across that border, and
43:41
Speaker 2: then you can no longer track or or trace the perpetrators.
43:49
Speaker 2: There is not a farmer I know who does not
43:54
Speaker 2: have a contingency plan, who has not practice this. I
44:04
Speaker 2: mean I had exercises with their families to say, should
44:08
Speaker 2: something happen, this is how we will act. Know exactly
44:13
Speaker 2: where the arms and ammunition is, know exactly what to
44:17
Speaker 2: lock where and where to go, how to make sure
44:22
Speaker 2: that the women and the children are safe, getting to
44:25
Speaker 2: the radio, having panic buttons all over. And then you
44:30
Speaker 2: have your first, your second, your third, and your fourth
44:34
Speaker 2: domain where first you safeguard the bedrooms, then the house,
44:41
Speaker 2: then the yard, then the farm, and then from there
44:45
Speaker 2: it goes to the community structures. The farm watches, safeguard
44:52
Speaker 2: the road, the value, closing it down, making sure that
44:57
Speaker 2: the rest would be safe too, And that is daily life.
45:03
Speaker 2: Farmers are not part of that kind of structure. They
45:09
Speaker 2: are very vulnerable.
45:13
Speaker 1: The government also stopped collecting data on this, didn't it?
45:21
Speaker 2: Yes, we've been wrestling the government on farm attack data
45:29
Speaker 2: for the last few years. I remember the first meeting
45:34
Speaker 2: I attended as a representative of a district agricultural union
45:38
Speaker 2: was in two thousand and three when we had this
45:42
Speaker 2: meeting with a local police commander and we quarreled about
45:47
Speaker 2: the data. What does a farm attack and what does not?
45:51
Speaker 2: What qualifies and whatnot? Is a farm attack one only
45:57
Speaker 2: if you have a mass number, if you have reported
46:02
Speaker 2: it to the police station and then got a registration
46:07
Speaker 2: number for it. Because me myself, I have very very
46:12
Speaker 2: often gone to a police station to report a crime
46:16
Speaker 2: and then you never get this number because they need
46:19
Speaker 2: to report that there is a down swing on crime
46:24
Speaker 2: and their bonuses depend on that. So the more numbers
46:27
Speaker 2: they give out, the less the chances that they would
46:33
Speaker 2: get regnition for having managed the crime statistics down. Is
46:41
Speaker 2: an attack on a peri urban plot of eightectus or
46:48
Speaker 2: twelve vectors? Is that the farm attack? We say, yes,
46:52
Speaker 2: it is. Much of our vegetables around cities are grown
46:58
Speaker 2: in these very urban areas. The smaller farms, the small holdings.
47:05
Speaker 2: Is an attack on a communal farmer. A farm attack
47:10
Speaker 2: we say it is. We count them all on our statistics,
47:17
Speaker 2: and then twice a year we sit with the police
47:20
Speaker 2: and we compare notes, and then they might be information
47:25
Speaker 2: which we did not have priva to. Sometimes they convince
47:31
Speaker 2: us that a certain incident was not a farm attack,
47:34
Speaker 2: but more often we convince them that the data is
47:39
Speaker 2: incomplete and that they have missed a few of these incidents.
47:46
Speaker 1: Do you think do you think that a lot of
47:48
Speaker 1: this is random, because that's what the media would say,
47:52
Speaker 1: or would you say that the minority of these attacks
47:54
Speaker 1: are random?
47:58
Speaker 2: It's well planned. Don't just walk past the farm then
48:06
Speaker 2: kilometers from the next farm and then decide, well, let's
48:09
Speaker 2: quickly attack this farm. No, it's well planned, well executed.
48:12
Speaker 2: Very often you can afterwards fine places where the perpetrators
48:19
Speaker 2: have stayed for a while, watching the farm yard, seeing
48:24
Speaker 2: what the routines are. When will will people be leaving
48:31
Speaker 2: the farm and when will the farmer get back? So
48:34
Speaker 2: often it happens when you get back from church on
48:37
Speaker 2: a Sunday morning, either the farm gate or the gate
48:41
Speaker 2: of the farm yard, and you know the the equipment
48:49
Speaker 2: used to jam, for example, any signals of radios or
48:56
Speaker 2: or of mobile phones, the arms used very often we
49:06
Speaker 2: as as as as organized farmers. We show to the
49:11
Speaker 2: police that they must be either serving or ex military
49:18
Speaker 2: personnel be involved. Here, look how many arms are lost
49:29
Speaker 2: weapons are lost by the police. It's like thousands. And
49:36
Speaker 2: where do they go? They find their way into the
49:40
Speaker 2: hands of inter alia farm attackers. Where would anybody get
49:47
Speaker 2: automatic rifles from or this signal jamming equipment, where would
49:53
Speaker 2: they get it from.
50:00
Speaker 1: Why do you think white farmers are so hated?
50:07
Speaker 2: Well, I'm not sure that they are really so hated.
50:13
Speaker 2: There is political power behind mobilizing certain sectors of society,
50:24
Speaker 2: and I think by mobilizing the uneducated and the poorest
50:34
Speaker 2: in deep rural areas, saying, while you are poor in
50:41
Speaker 2: these areas, there are other people who also live in
50:44
Speaker 2: these areas who are wealthy. Like the farmers. They drive cars,
50:49
Speaker 2: they give jobs, they own land. It's because you don't
50:54
Speaker 2: own land, and we will take the land from them
50:56
Speaker 2: and give it to you. And this is why you
51:00
Speaker 2: will see that the voter base of these radical political
51:08
Speaker 2: parties it's always the deep rural areas. The moment you
51:14
Speaker 2: have a middle class, the moment you see a class
51:19
Speaker 2: of people who now have to pay a house, a car,
51:24
Speaker 2: school fees. At the end of every month, they no
51:27
Speaker 2: longer vote for those parties, and they're not excited about
51:35
Speaker 2: taking people's stuff without paying them. They choose against expropriation
51:41
Speaker 2: without compensation, so they need to feel on that eid.
51:47
Speaker 2: But we do not see it in our farmers meetings,
51:52
Speaker 2: and we don't see it in other public spaces. We
51:58
Speaker 2: don't see it in the workplace, we don't see it
52:01
Speaker 2: on the market. We only see it really at these
52:07
Speaker 2: political rallies. And of course then and when the attacks happened.
52:14
Speaker 2: I can remind you of this guy who in court
52:20
Speaker 2: when he was asked, but why so brutally torture your
52:25
Speaker 2: victims before killing them? He said, because of Killer Farmer,
52:32
Speaker 2: Killer Bury. I was taught to eight them. You know,
52:38
Speaker 2: there are these incidences where absolutely nothing is stone in,
52:46
Speaker 2: But then there are also those where they spend the
52:51
Speaker 2: whole night to steal just about everything they can load
52:55
Speaker 2: onto attract a truck or a bucky and all the
52:59
Speaker 2: farmers vehicles what bothers us are Actually those were nothing
53:06
Speaker 2: is stolen at all, So it was just a farm
53:09
Speaker 2: attack for the sake of a farm attack, and that
53:13
Speaker 2: is proved to us that there's something more than just
53:17
Speaker 2: an extension of a general problem with crime we have.
53:23
Speaker 1: Sometimes they're right on the wall with the blood of
53:26
Speaker 1: the dead farmers, the right.
53:29
Speaker 2: Killer, farmer killer. Yeah, I've seen some scenes like that. Sea.
53:41
Speaker 1: Why do you think the media is so dismissive of this.
53:51
Speaker 2: Well, it's especially the English media who for many years
53:57
Speaker 2: never reported on farm attack. The world did not believe
54:02
Speaker 2: that we have this phenomenon because the English media did
54:06
Speaker 2: not report it, and Afrikaans media is not read elsewhere
54:11
Speaker 2: in the world. If there is one institution who really
54:18
Speaker 2: failed us when it comes to farm attacks, it is
54:23
Speaker 2: mainstream media, especially the English media. And I had it
54:29
Speaker 2: for a few opportunities at conferences, sitting on panels where
54:34
Speaker 2: I confronted them with this. But you know, they say
54:38
Speaker 2: it competes with other news. It is a surprise when
54:43
Speaker 2: in case eight n a very popular couple is brutally
54:48
Speaker 2: murdered and all of a sudden, thousands and thousands of
54:53
Speaker 2: farmers pitch up and they put crosses all along the
54:56
Speaker 2: road and they drive down that road to the farm,
55:01
Speaker 2: or when it happens in Cape Town outside of Stellebosh,
55:06
Speaker 2: and then people ask where does it come from now,
55:09
Speaker 2: but it's because it's been an issue. The world just
55:13
Speaker 2: did not know about it. Yeah, this is why. One
55:18
Speaker 2: of the things for which we are forever grateful for
55:21
Speaker 2: the second Trump administration is is revealing of mainstream media
55:29
Speaker 2: for what it is, not news reporters, but narrative creators.
55:36
Speaker 2: And I think farmers fell victim to this false narrative
55:42
Speaker 2: creating by mainstream media in South Africa.
55:46
Speaker 1: Now, as a South African, I also know the answer
55:49
Speaker 1: to this question, but I have a failing international audience
55:52
Speaker 1: THEO and the question that often gets thrown at me
55:55
Speaker 1: is so why do you stay because I was.
56:00
Speaker 2: Made of this soil? Yeah, yeah, I'm not a Euro African.
56:08
Speaker 2: I'm a Afro African. My family has been here since
56:11
Speaker 2: sixteen seventy six. And if the last straw burns down
56:21
Speaker 2: in this country, I hope to be there to try
56:24
Speaker 2: to put out the fire. I'm not going anywhere. I'm
56:28
Speaker 2: going to put up a fight to normalize this country again.
56:32
Speaker 2: And a vast majority of farmers will tell you exactly that.
56:39
Speaker 2: You know, farmers have deep roots because we make our
56:44
Speaker 2: living from the soils. And it's not just deep roots here,
56:49
Speaker 2: it's in a particular place, because you're not a farmer
56:53
Speaker 2: in general. Who happens to find pineapples? Who to farm avocados?
56:59
Speaker 2: If you want a farmer, god who, So you go
57:01
Speaker 2: to the Limpopo and Pumlanga Loofelt. You want to form pineapples,
57:06
Speaker 2: you go to the Hunts Valley or the north coast
57:10
Speaker 2: of Ksekin. You're a farmer from a particular area, farming
57:14
Speaker 2: a particular commodity. That's who you are. You cannot be
57:19
Speaker 2: that elsewhere. So we have deep roots. We are very
57:24
Speaker 2: flat rocks. We are not moved that easily. And that
57:29
Speaker 2: is why our aspiration is to get this country normalized
57:34
Speaker 2: again and to get it competitive again, to build our
57:38
Speaker 2: economy again. And we love the people of this country.
57:43
Speaker 2: Contrary to what the media tried to portray us, we
57:47
Speaker 2: live in harmony with the communities around us and we've
57:53
Speaker 2: done it for the last three hundred and sixty years.
57:58
Speaker 2: If it was true that there's this conflict, the racial conflict,
58:02
Speaker 2: we would have seen it all over. It would not
58:06
Speaker 2: be small gangs. It would have spilled over into the streets.
58:13
Speaker 2: You you would have seen it in the workplace. You
58:16
Speaker 2: would have seen it on the market floor. You had
58:19
Speaker 2: seen it in the small towns and it's not there.
58:23
Speaker 2: There is political power in fueling on that narrative, and
58:29
Speaker 2: it is masterly done by these racist activists. And remember
58:36
Speaker 2: we have them on both sides. Unfortunately, you will find
58:40
Speaker 2: racism amongst whites two where they are even some farmers,
58:44
Speaker 2: but that is a very very small minority. Like when
58:49
Speaker 2: it came to the vote, these radical groups if they've
58:53
Speaker 2: got less than ten of the vote, and look where
58:57
Speaker 2: they got it from. And they build out their public
59:04
Speaker 2: image because there are no consequences for them to fuel
59:08
Speaker 2: it on. They look like they are above the law
59:12
Speaker 2: because no one would touch them. That's the real danger.
59:16
Speaker 2: If we don't need new laws to manage this, we
59:21
Speaker 2: must just apply the law equally. There must be equality
59:26
Speaker 2: before the law. Then I think this can be manageable.
59:31
Speaker 2: We have even seen it. Then, when one of these
59:35
Speaker 2: political parties decided to march on a very big farm,
59:43
Speaker 2: a few farmers, not that farm, a few nearby farmers.
59:48
Speaker 2: They have put up a little kiosk on the road
59:51
Speaker 2: to this big farm saying that you're going for a
59:56
Speaker 2: T shirt and a meal. Look what we can offer you.
1:00:00
Speaker 2: You get to T shirts and a lot of meat
1:00:03
Speaker 2: yet and the buses did not get to that far.
1:00:08
Speaker 2: So yeah, the very very often you have rent the crowd.
1:00:13
Speaker 2: Even this video clips which was played in the White
1:00:18
Speaker 2: House with the ninety thousand supporters of a political party,
1:00:25
Speaker 2: you know how many of them was paid to get there.
1:00:30
Speaker 2: And you heard it in the aftermath when some of
1:00:33
Speaker 2: the party officials were fired because they could not get
1:00:38
Speaker 2: enough people to fill a bus even if they had
1:00:41
Speaker 2: the money to pay them. So no, I'm concerned about
1:00:49
Speaker 2: the image that there's a kind of a brewing racial
1:00:52
Speaker 2: war in South Africa. It is not.
1:00:57
Speaker 1: And just adding to that, the relationship between the farmers
1:01:01
Speaker 1: and the farm workers is generally good.
1:01:05
Speaker 2: You know. Just like farmers come for generations, farm workers
1:01:09
Speaker 2: very often also come for generations. You live in the
1:01:13
Speaker 2: same yard, you know each other very well, the children
1:01:21
Speaker 2: go to school together. If my wife is sick today,
1:01:26
Speaker 2: all the workers know it. And if their wives are
1:01:29
Speaker 2: sick today, I will know it because it's my problem too.
1:01:34
Speaker 2: We make our living from the same soils. That's why
1:01:38
Speaker 2: very often they are murdered too. They are very often
1:01:41
Speaker 2: also in the first or second line of defense when
1:01:44
Speaker 2: there's a farm attack that farm workers that they are
1:01:51
Speaker 2: paid less than workers in cities. That is so, that
1:01:55
Speaker 2: is so all over the world. You will find that
1:01:58
Speaker 2: their minimum wage is lower than, for example, in a factory.
1:02:04
Speaker 2: But then they also live off the farm. They live there,
1:02:10
Speaker 2: they have their food right there from the farm, and
1:02:14
Speaker 2: the expendable income is off a higher because what they
1:02:21
Speaker 2: need is right there on the farm. And it's an
1:02:25
Speaker 2: open labor market. If people are not treated well, nothing
1:02:32
Speaker 2: stops them to pack their bags and go to the
1:02:34
Speaker 2: next farm. And let me tell you, as a farmer
1:02:37
Speaker 2: and an employer myself, the competition is on for good
1:02:42
Speaker 2: farm workers. I am sick and tired of training young
1:02:48
Speaker 2: farm workers. And just when they master sorry the skills
1:02:54
Speaker 2: to drive this new machine or to graft the trees,
1:02:59
Speaker 2: another farmer would pay them a little more and save
1:03:03
Speaker 2: on all the expenses of doing the training. There's a
1:03:05
Speaker 2: big competition for good farm workers. And you know, the
1:03:12
Speaker 2: technology on farms lately is of such that you no
1:03:16
Speaker 2: longer just go onto the street and recruit somebody to
1:03:19
Speaker 2: work on your farm. You need highly skilled people these days,
1:03:25
Speaker 2: young people who are strong enough and smart enough to
1:03:28
Speaker 2: master their technology. You don't spend ten million rand on
1:03:33
Speaker 2: a piece of equipment and then underpay the operactor who
1:03:38
Speaker 2: can cause a lot of damage. So this idea that
1:03:48
Speaker 2: racial tension is being fueled because of poor relations between
1:03:53
Speaker 2: farmers and farm workers, that they are incidents. It is
1:03:57
Speaker 2: so that we suffer from those incidents, because that is
1:04:03
Speaker 2: what you will read on the front pages of newspapers.
1:04:07
Speaker 2: That is so, but it is absolutely isolated and very
1:04:14
Speaker 2: few and far apart.
1:04:17
Speaker 1: Do you have any closing thoughts?
1:04:22
Speaker 2: Yes, the there are two ways in which the problem
1:04:27
Speaker 2: we have discussed can be solved from the top download
1:04:32
Speaker 2: from the bottom up. And this week that's passed. I
1:04:39
Speaker 2: have spent quite some time with black farmers in the
1:04:45
Speaker 2: in my province, in the Lempopo province, discussing similar issues,
1:04:51
Speaker 2: discussing their frustration with government with inefficiencies and that kind
1:04:56
Speaker 2: of stuff. I came back and I thought, by myself,
1:05:01
Speaker 2: you know, I'm the wrong person to convey this message
1:05:04
Speaker 2: to government. Actually we need strong black farmers leaders who
1:05:11
Speaker 2: can do it. But they won't because they fear intimidation.
1:05:15
Speaker 2: They fear that they will be dropped to the back
1:05:17
Speaker 2: of the line. We in tractors and fertilizer will be
1:05:20
Speaker 2: dished out by government again and they want me to
1:05:26
Speaker 2: do it. I'm not vulnerable to that because I'm not
1:05:29
Speaker 2: eligible for seed and fertilizers or mechanization. And we are
1:05:35
Speaker 2: doing everything we can from bottom up. Our problem here
1:05:39
Speaker 2: is the top down part. Our problem is the political will.
1:05:43
Speaker 2: What we expect from our government and specifically from President
1:05:47
Speaker 2: Ramapausa is to say no more seeing killer farmer kill
1:05:50
Speaker 2: the boy. That's nonsense. I distanced myself from it. We
1:05:54
Speaker 2: need him to say that, We need him to take
1:05:57
Speaker 2: the lead. We need him to say that whenever this
1:06:02
Speaker 2: kind of thing happens, they will meet the full force
1:06:07
Speaker 2: of the law. And then we need recognition that we
1:06:13
Speaker 2: have a problem. Without that, we will not solve it.
1:06:17
Speaker 2: Only when they recognize that there's a problem with rural safety,
1:06:21
Speaker 2: then they can act, set up committees, set up multi
1:06:25
Speaker 2: departmental structures to coordinate both between state capacity and private
1:06:32
Speaker 2: capacity to see how we can solve it. And then
1:06:36
Speaker 2: we need to rethink the potential of agriculture to create wealth.
1:06:43
Speaker 2: The way we are going about it, highly politicized land issues,
1:06:50
Speaker 2: very suspicious selection of the beneficiaries of land reform. It's
1:06:57
Speaker 2: not going to help us. It will not create that
1:06:59
Speaker 2: Plans of profitable black farmers.
1:07:03
Speaker 1: How can I follow you and your work.
1:07:09
Speaker 2: I'm on the wrong side of sixty, so i do
1:07:14
Speaker 2: not have the fingers for small buttons, which I need
1:07:20
Speaker 2: in the modern age. But I'm on Twitter to the
1:07:24
Speaker 2: yacher on X. I enjoy its very much because it's
1:07:30
Speaker 2: short and condensed. I'm on Facebook under my own page,
1:07:40
Speaker 2: and I've created another page because one is limited by
1:07:47
Speaker 2: the number of followers. And then my organization side. We
1:07:53
Speaker 2: have a YouTube channel, and we found that it is
1:07:59
Speaker 2: much easier to communicate with the younger generation of farmers
1:08:08
Speaker 2: through short video clips then by writing them emails or letters.
1:08:13
Speaker 2: And it is an open YouTube channel and just go
1:08:17
Speaker 2: to si dot org.
1:08:22
Speaker 1: Theodre Yoh God, bless you. Thank you for joining me
1:08:24
Speaker 1: in the Strangers.
1:08:26
Speaker 2: Thank you Jeremy for inviting me again and for allowing
1:08:29
Speaker 2: me to share your platform. Thank you for what you
1:08:32
Speaker 2: are doing for us, the farmers