New guidelines to safely transport farmworkers

Following a spate of road traffic accidents in recent months in which farmworkers were injured, some fatally, the Sustainability Initiative of South Africa (SIZA) has published a set of comprehensive guidelines that South Africa’s agriculture sector can implement to help prevent such incidents in the future.

SIZA, an independent business that developed, promoted, audited and certified best practices for ethical and environmental standards among South African agribusinesses, recently had various industry and legal experts reassess its existing guidelines for the safe transportation of farmworkers to ensure that these were up-to-date and relevant.

Retha Louw, SIZA’s CEO, told Farmer’s Weekly that the farmworker transportation guidelines and other standards promoted and certified by the business not only enhanced the ethics and overall sustainability of participating South African agribusinesses, but were also increasingly required by national and international buyers of the country’s agricultural products.

SIZA’s audit manager, Werner van Dyk, said the Guide to the Law and Best Practice in Transporting Farmworkers in the South African Agricultural Industry explained the applicable and wide-ranging South African legislation in layperson’s terms so that all agricultural employers could understand what was required of them.

“Farmers must effectively manage their risks. They must do a lot of continual training [to improve the skills of] their drivers, especially those transporting workers, even though these drivers already have the appropriate licences and previous experience,” Louw said.

Funded by Tesco, a UK-headquartered multinational supermarket retailer, the farmworker transport guidelines also provided checklists that agribusiness managers could use to maximise the safety of any employees the business was transporting for whatever purpose.

In late January, South Africa’s Minister of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development, Thoko Didiza, called on the country’s agricultural value chain to “have an urgent and honest discussion” about the employment conditions of farmworkers. “Farmworkers are an integral part of a successful agriculture sector, and therefore their safety and better working conditions should be prioritised,” she said.

In its January 2021 newsletter, Agri SA shared the farmworker transport guidelines with its members.

Also commenting on the recent road traffic accidents involving farmworkers, TAU SA’s assistant general manager, Chris van Zyl, said agribusinesses providing transport for their workers, or for workers’ children, needed to “adhere to regulations” for the safe transport of these people. This included ensuring that the carrying capacities of vehicles were not exceeded. – Lloyd Phillips

• Visit siza.co.za/documentlibrary/social-library-legislation/ to download the farmworker transport guidelines and other documents.