Lockdown triggers rural crime

FARM ATTACKS: BUSINESS CLOSURES, POOR ECONOMY, HIGH COVID-19 INFECTIONS TO BLAME

Livestock thefts during Level 3 are about 15% above the average.

The escalation of property-related crimes on farms this year has largely been driven by the mounting negative socioeconomic effects of the country’s Covid-19 national lockdown.

The leaders of various organised agriculture bodies generally share the perception that in the highly restrictive early days of the lockdown, there was a noticeable decline in reports of rural crime.

However, as the lockdown became less restrictive in the second half of the year, business closures, job losses, the weakened economy and widespread Covid-19 infections within the police and army all helped create conditions ripe for a dramatic escalation of both opportunistic and subsistence crimes.

Dr Jane Buys, safety risk analyst with Free State Agriculture, says that by mid-August, well over 1 000 economic crimes had been committed on farms in the province during the lockdown.

In addition to maize theft and arson, Buys has recorded reports of the theft of livestock and crops; house break-ins and robberies; vehicle thefts; the theft of farm tools, implements and infrastructure; illegal hunting; and malicious damage to property.

AgriSA has cautioned the tense farming community to “act responsibly” and not take the law into its own hands.

Aggrey Mahanjana, group managing director of the National Emergent Red Meat Producers’ Organisation, has appealed for the “return of a skop en donner (kicking and beating) attitude by the police and [for] no mercy from the justice system” for stock thieves and other perpetrators of crimes on farms.

Mahanjana added that the theft of sheep tops the list of reported stock theft incidents.

“Stock thieves took advantage of the lockdown, but the biggest culprits are the women and men who sell the meat of stolen animals on urban sidewalks,” he said.

According to Willie Clack, chair of the National Livestock Theft Prevention Forum and vice-chair of the Red Meat Producers’ Organisation, livestock theft during Level 5 of the national lockdown was about 80% lower than over the same period in recent years. As movement restrictions eased, it increased to the point that during Level 3, it was at an “unprecedented” level: about 15% above the average.

Francois Oberholzer, operations manager of Forestry South Africa, said that members of his organisation have reported the theft of standing timber in commercial plantations, ranging from the stealing of a few poles by individuals for domestic use to clear-felling of entire tree compartments by organised syndicates. According to Thandokwakhe Sibiya, strategic support executive of the South African Farmers’ Development Association, reports from the association’s members indicate that they have collectively lost about 1 800ha of standing sugar cane during the lockdown period to date.