Address by Limpopo Premier Mr Cassel Mathale during the Limpopo Farm Workers Summit, Bela Bela, Waterberg District

Thank you Programme Director
Members of the Executive Council here present
Executive mayor and mayors
Councilors and other community leaders
The HoD of the Department of Agriculture and other government officials
Representatives  of COSATU
Representatives  of TAU SA, AGRI-LIMPOPO,  NAFU, NKUZI and all other structures represented here
The Human Rights Commission, NPA, SAPS Traditional leaders
Distinguished guests
Most importantly the farm workers

Good morning!

We are gathered here for an important meeting organised by our government in line with our resolve to improve the living conditions the farm workers. It is an outmost honour to be speaking with the farm workers in a summit of this nature

This summit is taking place under the theme: “Towards a better life for vulnerable workers” which clearly articulates in summary the objective of this meeting. It also serve as a solid base for discussions to develop from, on what must be done to protect farm workers in the province and there are no better words to describe the importance of this summit.

The issue of farm workers and how badly they are being treated has been public knowledge for many decades.  Farm workers were one of the poorly treated workers in the country during apartheid.  They were beaten, tortured, killed and subjected to all forms of human degradation and also regarded as properties  of farm owners, with no rights. Since the dawn  of democracy,  we have moved  many steps  in passing  laws, which  protect  the rights  of workers  including  farm workers. The most important development we can refer to is the Bill of Rights that is entrenched in the Constitution.

Farm workers have the right to be treated with dignity and mostly, they have the right to form and join trade unions and participate in the activities and programmes  of the unions. Farm workers must enjoy the benefits of being remunerated in accordance with the minimum wage requirements set by the law. They should also enjoy the protection of the labour laws of the country in the same way as their counterparts  in other sectors are protected.

The tendency of employing  foreign citizens  in order to avoid some of the provisions  of the law is prohibited  by the law. Foreigners,  regardless  of whether illegally present in the country, they too enjoy the protection of the Constitution.

Organised labour as the vanguard of the workers should ensure that the rights of the farm workers are not violated. Trade unions and political parties should afford farm workers an opportunity  to participate  in politics and trade unions through recruitment drives that must take place in the farms.

Programme Director

We must be honest that these rights exist on paper in many occasions and not in practice. The rights of farm workers are continuously  violated  by the farm owners. We have seen farm workers  being beaten or killed for no apparent  reason.

Their children killed allegedly for being mistaken to dogs or baboons. In certain instances, their children were refused the right to access education.  The reality is that farm workers continue  to endure some of the worst racial discriminations humanity has long condemned.

In the same tone that we are condemning the killing of farm workers, we are also condemning  the killing of farm owners. We are appealing to all parties to work together.

It is a known fact that, the government  is always at loggerheads  with the farm owners on how they treat farm workers. Pressed by our resolve that education is a fundamental tool for human development and future prosperity of all, we have fought very hard to ensure that children from farming communities are allowed to access education.

Yes, there are some farm owners who are still trapped in the politics of the past, but a significant number of them have opened up to new realities that every child has the right to education.  As the ANC led government, we will never rest until all children have access to basic quality education. This declaration  is boldly written in the manifesto of the ruling party and is one of the centre programmes of our government.

It is through education that a child of a farm worker can become an engineer, an educator, an architect, a chartered accountant,  a computer  specialist  or belong to any other profession  in life. We have long rejected any suggestion  that said to us that the destination of children of farm workers is in the farms as farm workers. This we rejected in the strongest terms ever.

It is a crime to hire children under the age of 18 as our Constitution  provides that children under 18 have a right to be protected  from  work  that  is  exploitative,  hazardous,  inappropriate   for  their  age,  detrimental  to  their  schooling,  or detrimental to their social, physical, mental, spiritual, or moral development.

This crime is not only punishable by domestic law, but it is also regarded as a crime by international law. Any person who employs children should be exposed  and reported to relevant authorities,  in particular  the Department  of Labour or the South African Police Service; this includes non-governmental organisations that take care of children.

Programme Director

The farm workers in whose name we are meeting here are making a mark in their field where production does not come cheap. Actually, plain hard-work must be employed before there could be any final product that you and I enjoy at home. The fact that the farm workers are working in harsh weather conditions, with a hope that natural disasters will not reverse their hard labour, qualifies them to be one of the exceptional  drivers in our labour force in particular, and the society in general.

You must know that we appreciate the role that you are playing in our lives. We get energy from agricultural products. The food we eat everyday comes from farming. Without you, the entire humanity will be engulfed by famine. Without you, our destruction and demise as human beings will come long before the actual time.

For many years now, our province has been the largest supplier of food to the country and most of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) countries. You must know that this is on account of your hard labour.

We have introduced various initiatives which are aimed at making farmer workers to become farm owners.

We are pursuing the course of transferring the land to their rightful owners, against all odds. A reasonable number of farm workers have benefited from this process. But it is worth indicating that this process is not free from challenges. The land redistribution  programme  has been marked  by a number  of difficulties,  central to them being the failure of the willing seller, willing buyer approach. The process of introducing a new approach in this regard has commenced and we trust that this will accelerate the process of indigenising the land.

The land given to farm workers as commercial agricultural land must be used as such. We have availed programmes that are aimed at capacitating  communities  that have successfully  claimed their land to continue with the farming business. The most important aspect that must be considered is that farming needs hard work, dedication and love for it.

In the event we reduce food production, then our food security will be threatened and negatively affected. This will result in people starving owing to the shortage of food supply. And also food will be expensive and will only be accessed by the haves, whilst subjecting the have not to starving.

As farm workers you should be trained to be farm owners. And to convert the skills that you have already acquired  in farming  as farm  workers  cannot  be a overwhelming  exercise.  The basic  lesson  that must be learned  by any person venturing  into farming is that farm planning  and management  skills are crucial. The essential role of management  is to take decisions because it is clear that if there were no decisions to be made, there would be no need for managers. So, any successful farm owner would be expected to take decisions, especially on what to produce, how to produce and how much to produce,

The collapse of many farms that have been given back to our people can be attributed to the lack of planning and failure of management of the farms. And this was not done deliberately, but our people honestly did not possess the competency and expertise to manage the allocated farms. The government has identified this problem and necessary interventions are being employed  to ensure that the affected communities  are assisted. But it is important to indicate that in order for the interventions  to function; communities  must also show commitment  to farming and resolve their internal differences  in a manner that allows government interventions to work.

Programme Director

Part of our rural development  plan, is to ensure that we transform each and every piece of land available for commercial farming into a productive land in order to maximise food production that is informed by the demand from our people. The land reform  programme  has the potential  to address  the situation  of the rural poor directly. It also has the capacity  to profoundly  restructure  the  agrarian  economy  of  the  country  and  the  province  by  changing  the  existing  patterns  of inequality in rural areas.

Our land surface is considered  to be high potential  agricultural  land and therefore  it is not justified  to import food from other countries,  whilst we have the land rich enough  to produce most, if not all the food items we need. We might be having the challenge of water shortage, but our land is ideal for farming.

Programme Director

Majority of our people working  in the farms are women  and since the dawn of democracy,  we have travelled  a visible distance in empowering women to participate in agriculture as farm owners. Some of the women have also succeeded in forming cooperatives  that are performing  exceptionally  well in farming. In October 2006, national government   launched Women  in  Agriculture  and  Rural  Development  (WARD).  Furthermore,  we  unveiled  the  Limpopo  Chapter  under  the flagship of Limpopo Women in Agriculture and Rural Development structure (LIWARD), which has resulted in the proper development of women in agriculture.

This structure is serving as the vanguard of women in agriculture  and it is guided by its own Constitution.  It also has a development and transformation strategy. The jurisdiction of this structure covers the provincial and district level. Through this formation, the challenges  facing the women in farming are easily addressed and the voice of the women is properly coordinated and strengthened.

Programme Director

We are repeating our call that farm workers and farm owners must work together and understand  that they are united in one purpose of making a contribution  to the cause of building Limpopo as the food basket of the country and the SADC region. Farm owners need farm workers and farm workers need farm owners.

Working together, we can do more!

Thank you!

Source: Limpopo Department of Agriculture