A VERY THIN BLUE LINE
Thirty per cent of South Africa 's food is produced on only 1,5% of the cultivated land in South Africa . This 1.5% is irrigated. Only 11% of South Africa 's land surface is used for crop cultivation, and of this, only 3% can be defined as high potential land.
This is indeed a fragile basis upon which 55 million people depend for their daily bread.
The history of TAU SA and its 115-year role throughout South Africa 's years of wars, droughts, political upheavals, a population explosion, dramatic changes in governments and the concomitant violence were highlighted during the recent TAU SA Annual Congress by TAU president Louis Meintjes.
While South Africa has undeniably been a land of turmoil over the past 350 years, the change in government in 1994 saw a cataclysmic metamorphosis from a first world to an emerging third world governmental mindset, where land and its use is defined ideologically instead of economically.
Some facts and figures set out in the president's address bear scrutiny. The focus is on food security and how this can be secured despite a government whose policies are inimical to this goal. There are 1,337,400 units of agricultural production in South Africa, made up of 22 400 commercial units with a turnover of more than R300 000 per year, 24 000 small commercial units with a turnover of less than R300 000 per year, 35 000 communal area emerging farmers with turnovers of less than R300 000 per year, and 1 256 000 subsistence farmers.
This means that only 6% of farmers in South Africa produce 95% of the country's food for 55 million people! While agriculture's contribution to GDP was 2,9% in 2009, the total contribution towards GDP including industries dependent on agriculture is in the order of 23%. Also to be considered is the role of the commercial farmer in sustaining small towns throughout South Africa . The line is thus very thin between hunger and food security in our country.
THE OBSTACLES IN AGRICULTURE
The tenuous basis upon which we depend for our daily sustenance teeters between the government's capricious approach to land reform and official and non-official pronouncements on land expropriation, and farmers' rights to secure, long-term tenure on their land. Added to this are the remorseless murders and attacks on farmers and their workers - from 1990 there were 1586 murders and 2817 attacks. In the first nine months of 2012, 34 farmers were murdered and there were 89 attacks on farm workers.
According to Mr. Meintjes, the single biggest threat staring SA in the face is that available clean water and productive agricultural land are now being degraded by the mining industry because of injudicious and uncontrolled mining practices. There is in addition no control over water pollution. Sewage flows freely in our rivers and dams, yet farmers are expected to produce safe and wholesome food.
AGRICULTURAL EMPLOYMENT
South African farmers are not martyrs. If the profit element is removed from their enterprises, they will quit. Agriculture used to be such that it mopped up huge numbers of unemployables, but not anymore. As a percentage of total employment in South Africa , agricultural jobs decreased from 9,6% in March 2001 to 4,6% in June 2012, yet overall food production has increased. This means farmers, like farmers all over the world, can mechanize, and they will do so if government continues to burden farmers with social welfare responsibilities which should be carried by the authorities.
Economist Mike Schussler told the Congress that other countries support their farmers much more than SA does. For example, we give motor vehicle manufacturers about R17 billion in subsidies and tariff support but only about R1 billion to agriculture. Motor manufacturers employ only 34 000 directly and 150 000 overall in vehicle manufacturing, while agriculture employs more than 650 000 people.
CULTURAL DEFICIENCIES AND GOVERNMENT POLICIES
These appear to be two sides of the same coin. Excerpts from a study completed by the Forum for Food Security in Southern Africa entitled Food Security Crisis in Southern Africa -The Political Background to Policy Failure were highlighted by the president at the Congress.
"The traditions or values inherited from their ancestors in the study countries - Lesotho , Malawi , Mozambique , Zambia and Zimbabwe - have influenced food policies, and their outcomes are as follow:
* The political interests of ruling elites ... systematically conflict with the principle of maximizing the welfare of citizens. Agricultural policies have been formulated as a means of guaranteeing political support, particularly in the run-up to elections. This favours large, symbolic gestures, the distribution of largesse and promises of favours, but not in general promises to resolve the structural problems with better policies.
* Policies are pursued that allocate economic resources inefficiently. State intervention in supply of agricultural inputs, pricing and food distribution persists for political reasons.
* Intermittently but on an occasionally massive scale, state resources are diverted unofficially for personal gain, through corruption and nepotism. Even in the face of massive threats to the food security of the population, such occurrences are not subject to effective domestic accountability."
Anyone who said "it will be different in South Africa " when promoting the advance to power of the ANC was wrong - why would it be different in South Africa ? The citizenry should be grateful that food production is still in the hands of commercial farmers, and not under government control. A Zimbabwe scenario would soon emerge, and it is incumbent upon us - and the government - to recall where Zimbabwe was, and where it is now.
ZIMBABWE
Dr. Mick Gammon wrote the following in the magazine The Rhosarian (October 2009): "The first white hunters, traders and missionaries who in the 19thcentury came to the region which was to become Rhodesia and subsequently Zimbabwe, found a land devoid of infrastructure. The wheel was not yet in use. Early travellers recorded travelling often for days without seeing any human habitation. Commercial farming started in the 1890's on what was for the most part virgin land. There were no roads or railways, there was no electricity or telephone, there were no fences, boreholes, pumps, windmills, dams, or irrigation schemes; there were no cattle dips, barns or other farm buildings.
These first commercial farmers had to discover how to contend with predators that killed their livestock plus other animals that consumed their crops and how to control diseases, pests and parasites of livestock and crops that were foreign to them. From this starting point, agriculture developed faster than it had anywhere else in the world.
The United Nations Food and Agriculture Year Book of 1975 ranked the then Rhodesia second in the world in terms of yields of maize, wheat, soya beans and ground nuts, and third for cotton. In the combined ranking for all these crops, Rhodesia ranked first in the world.
Rhodesia's Virginia tobacco was rated the best in the world in yield and quality, while maize entries in world championships were consistently placed in the first three slots. The world's largest single citrus producer was developed early in the country's history.
Rhodesia was the world's second largest exporter of flue-cured tobacco. This together with exports of maize, soya beans, cotton, sugar, coffee, tea, fruit, vegetables, flowers and beef made agriculture the major source of foreign currency. Agriculture contributed more to the gross domestic product than any other industry. It was the largest employer of labor, providing employment for about a third of the total labor force."
The story of the effect these farmers had on the social welfare of their labor and beyond is nothing less than inspiring. But the cultural deficiencies of those who wanted power at all costs, so clearly outlined in the Forum for Food Security mentioned above, destroyed the breadbasket of Africa . These same "cultural deficiencies" are evident in South Africa 's ruling elite, and if food security in South Africa is to be preserved, agricultural production must remain in the hands of SA's commercial farmers. There is no other way to preserve food security. No other way!
This article first appeared in the International Bulletin of TAU SA.
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