Farmers warn of wage hike backlash

The new R21.69/hour national minimum wage for farmworkers, which will come into effect on 1 March, has been met with concern by major organised agriculture bodies in SA.

TAU SA’s president Henry Geldenhuys said in a statement the department of labour and employment had “pushed through” the 16% increase despite various stakeholders in the agriculture sector having submitted motivations for why the new rate for farmworkers should not be equal to the minimum wage for all other business sectors”.

“None of the role players wants workers to earn an unreasonable remuneration or to lose their jobs,” said Geldenhuys.

“We only want government to realise that farmers cannot afford the wage increases.

“We received feedback from a wide range of farmers and other role players in the [agriculture] value chain [to] indicate that they will be forced to make amendments to accommodate these changes.

“Unfortunately, most of them have decided to close all labour-intensive divisions, like growing vegetables, to switch to more mechanised ways of producing food.”

TAU would be declaring a dispute with Labour Minister Thembelani Nxesi regarding the “irrational” increase and Nxesi would be asked to place the increase on hold until the dispute was settled.

Farmer’s Weekly reported recently that Agri SA’s executive director, Christo van der Rheede, said the immediate increase in wages for farmworkers would be unsustainable for the agricultural sector.

Van der Rheede said the new minimum wage for farmworkers would increase South Africa’s average agricultural wage bill to above 30% of production costs.

This increase would, in turn, be passed on to consumers, making food unaffordable for the people that the new minimum wage was ostensibly trying to assist.

Thandokwakhe Sibiya, strategic support executive at the South African Farmers’ Development Association, described the increase as “quite steep” and said it would “definitely hurt farmers”, especially those at small-scale level.

“This is likely going to force farmers to be creative in terms of how they allocate and utilise labour resources, which includes reducing hours worked and stretching [the] reduced workforce to cover more work.

“Sadly, it might also compromise the application of inputs in the [sugar] cane crop, which will result in reduced yield and revenue. Government will need to consider support measures for farmers that are vulnerable,” he said. –