Durban - FARMERS in KwaZulu-Natal will no longer sit back in silence while their colleagues are robbed and killed on their properties.
On Saturday, farmers took part in a motorcade demonstration organised by Peters Tractors, from upper Tongaat to Ballito, to show that farmers and farm workers’ lives matter.
They want the government to step in and protect them.
According to the latest crime statistics, from April last year to March this year, 49 people were killed on farms and 46 were attacked.
The Transvaal Agricultural Union of South Africa, a commercial farming organisation, recorded 54 farm murders and 410 farm attacks in the past year.
Following last month’s farm attack in Normandien, near Newcastle, where a couple were shot and killed, Police Minister Bheki Cele said farm attacks and killings would not be classified as national priority crimes.
He said farm attacks were usually categorised under aggravated robbery on a farm or dwelling. Cele said serious crimes were grouped under contact crimes that included murder, attempted murder, sexual offences and assault with intent to do grievous bodily harm. Farm attacks would then be placed in the serious category.
Cele said the police had implemented a rural safety strategy to tackle crimes on farms and rural communities. This strategy will see police being equipped with adequate vehicles, helicopters and horses to combat crime.
But farmers, who were part of Saturday’s motorcade demonstration, want more done.
Ravin Lekha, who is also a medical doctor, said: “We need to bring awareness of atrocities committed against the breadbasket of our country. These heinous crimes have had devastating consequences on our food producers. I don’t blame the police. They are pawns. It is the decision-makers who are to blame.”
He said the government needed to invest in farm security.
Lekha owns a small-scale commercial farm on the north coast. He grows sugar cane, macadamia nuts and bananas.
He said his 71-year-old dad, Preath, and brother moved off the family homestead three years ago.
“We just don’t feel safe anymore.”
Lekha said his son was in Grade 12 and that he initially wanted him to take over the farming business but had second thoughts.
“I have 700 hectares of land but, in view of the farm attacks, I have convinced him to take another career away from agriculture.”
Willie Naicker, the chairperson for the Umdloti Farmers Association, said the failure to protect farmers and resources would result in potentially life-threatening food shortages.
“It is disheartening that farm attacks are not being prioritised since the country is experiencing a serious shortage of locally grown food products. This is further exasperated by the effects of Covid-19 and global warming.
“One must realise that the spin-off from a farm attack also adversely affects the livelihoods of farm staff and their families, as well as other sectors of the economy that rely on adequate and sustainable farming practices and products.”
A small-scale farmer in Tongaat, who did not want to be named, said: “Rural safety means food security for the nation.
“The government needs to prioritise these farm attacks. With what is happening around us, we always feel we need to watch our backs and it should not be this way. We have resorted to electric fencing, hi-tech cameras and security. It makes us feel like we are prisoners in our own homes.”
He said that during the lockdown, when most industries were shut, farmers continued to work to ensure food production.
“Without us, there would be no food. We should at least be given the respect we deserve. All we ask for is protection.”
Another farmer, who declined to be named, said he struggled to sleep as he feared he would be killed at night.
A few years ago, nine armed men entered his bedroom.
“I reached for my gun and shot two of them. One died and I paralysed another. The rest fled in fear. Now I feel that I can be murdered or attacked at any time. One never knows.”
Apart from installing electric fencing and CCTV cameras, he has hired security and also patrols his property at night.
According to the Southern African Agri Initiative (Saai), trespassers torched a farm outside Tzaneen last month. They cut the fence, broke the taps of the irrigation dam and stole property.
“The trespassers have been harassing the farmer for years on end, while the SAPS refuses to open a case,” said the organisation.
Saai said farms in the North West and Elandsfontein, Johannesburg, were the victims of land invasions.
It said AfriForum intervened and removed 500 land occupiers from small farms in Elandsfontein after the police allegedly refused to enforce a court order.
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