Farms are lifeblood being spilt by careless politicising

ACITY is a hungry beast. Long before most of us are awake each morning hundreds of heavy lorries roll in from the farms carrying food for the city people. They deliver tons of vegetables, millions of chickens, thousands of sheep and cattle, pigs, milk, eggs, wheat flour, mielie-meal, apples, cheese, canola oil, biltong, chips and butter.

And it all comes from farms. This might come as a surprise to some city kids, who may think it all comes from the supermarket, neatly wrapped in styrofoam punnets.

A century ago an American congressman made a very profound statement, which is as true today as it was back then.

William Jennings Bryan said: “Burn down your cities and leave our farms. And your cities will spring up again as if by magic. But destroy our farms and the grass will grow in the streets of every city in the country.”

That’s worth thinking about.

POLITICIANS DOING THEIR BEST TO TURN FARM WORKERS AGAINST THEIR EMPLOYERS

Right now I believe politicians are doing their best to turn farm workers against their employers. They don’t particularly care if the farms survive. I know they claim it’s all in the interests of “justice and equality” but it’s strange that it only happens in the Western Cape. (Wouldn’t it be wonderful if politicians turned their energies to making some of the other provinces more governable!)

I heard one union leader claiming on radio the other day that grape farmers couldn’t threaten them with mechanisation, because table grapes needed to be harvested by hand.

What has happened in other branches of agriculture could well happen here. When farmers find it impossible to farm with one product they turn to another, less troublesome, less labour-intensive one.

I grew up on a farm where there were once 10 families of workers. Today there are three.

When I was a lad we used to make our own butter and cream. We also enjoyed home-baked bread. Today the farm owner buys these at the supermarket in town because it’s less hassle. Nobody has to be employed to operate the cream separator or make the butter or clean the dairy. Nobody has to be paid to knead the bread. The supermarket does all that. The farmer used to bring in cows to be milked every morning. Now they farm beef cattle and use long-life milk from the town. (The staff used to get milk free. Now they have to buy it.)

Nobody’s been fired in the process, but ways have been found to manage with fewer staff, simply because there’s too much red tape and regulation and political agitation to make it worth while. When staff retire or leave, they’re not replaced.

This has happened in all branches of farming.

The result is that more and more people arrive in the cities looking for work every month.

A city is a hungry beast. And it gets hungrier with every new intake of jobless people.

Maybe the politicians should think about this.

Last Laugh

An accountant and his wife both suffered from occasional bouts of insomnia. One night she suggested they try a technique she’d read about, to encourage relaxation.

They were to lie with eyes closed and describe the most peaceful scene imaginable.

She started: “We’re in a beautiful, oceanside bungalow on a tropical island. A gentle breeze is coming through the French doors to our private ocean path. We can hear seagulls far away.”

Her husband’s quiet voice interrupted. “How much is this holiday costing us?”