Farmer's Weekly (South Africa)
INCREASING CRIME threatens rural livelihoods in South Africa
Increased crime levels in rural areas pose a serious threat to the agriculture sector, with estimated losses running into billions of rands.
According to Francois Rossouw, CEO of the Southern African Agri Initiative (SAAI), there had been a marked increase in theft from farms, including crops and livestock.
“Some farmers are facing devastating losses and even bankruptcy because of consistent crop theft over a period of weeks.
“These nightly thefts are adding up to serious damage, [and] the perpetrators are also becoming more violent.”
Rossouw said the fact that the community safety structures had been prevented from operating during the Levels
4 and 5 lockdown periods to contain the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic had a very serious impact and was one of the main reasons behind the increase in crime. “These structures are crucial in keeping rural areas safe, and they act as a deterrent for criminal activity.”
He said it was thus fortunate that these structures were allowed to resume their activities during Level 3 of the lockdown.
He said farm attacks had also started to pick up when Level 4 regulations were announced, and had increased drastically since Level 3 was introduced.
“It is interesting to note, [however], that except for a few cases recently, the [number of] attacks [involving torture had] decreased.”
Tommie Esterhuyse, chairperson of Agri SA’s Centre of Excellence: Rural Safety concurred, saying: “The high crime levels, especially farm attacks, have further escalated over the past weeks after relaxation of the lockdown measures.
“Criminality affects not only farmers, but also farmworkers and the rural community, which can only be regarded as an economic and emotional attack on agriculture.
“The total losses suffered because of agriculture-related crime [per year] is approximately R7,72 billion, of which stock theft losses, according to the National Stock Theft Forum, amount to approximately R1,4 billion per year,” said Esterhuyse.
John Steenhuisen, interim leader of the DA, said in a recent media briefing that the party’s safety and security cluster in its Parliamentary caucus would call on Minister of Police Bheki Cele to appear before the Portfolio Committee on Police.
He would be asked to put forward a clear plan on what the South African Police Service intended to do about violence and crime in rural areas. – Pieter Dempsey
the first and second quarters of the year. “The livestock sector, which was negatively affected due to the closure of the hospitality sector, saw an expected decline in confidence. In the case of summer grain-related businesses, lower income from storage and handling was, in part, a key factor underpinning the decline in confidence.
“The challenges in terms of grain quality lowered the volume of tradeable grain on the market, especially for old-season white maize. Moreover, the late grain deliveries for the new season, which started later than normal because of delayed summer rain, also impacted the sentiment.”
The uncertainty about the policy direction for land reform was also weighing heavily on confidence levels. Sihlobo said land reform would remain of interest after the current crisis, and any path government took would have an impact on the level of investment in the sector, and thereafter on long-term growth prospects.
Confidence with regard to general agricultural conditions fell 25 points from the first quarter to 53, which was above the neutral 50-points mark.
“This shows that while the pandemic has had a broad economic impact, the agriculture sector has not been as hard hit as other sectors of the economy. This is due to the continued operations of the sector and the fact that the pandemic arrived when summer crops were already in season and caused minimal disruption in production conditions.”
With the economies of several countries set for sharp contractions because of the pandemic, Sihlobo said the challenge South Africa’s agriculture sector would likely face was a potential decline in demand locally, as well as from several traditional export markets, and thus by extension, lower agricultural commodity prices. This, in turn, would weigh on farmers and agribusinesses’ finances and possibly sentiment.