The masters of our own destruction?

After the numerous COVID-19related bans and restrictions on the sale of alcohol, I am once again forced to take stock of what is left to save. I am in no way minimising the impact this has had on other industries or the South African economy, but to me it seems that the South African wine sector has borne the brunt of the economic impact of this pandemic and the restrictions that followed in an attempt to curb the spread of the virus.

Why did the government implement such broad, ham-fisted measures, causing irreparable damage to SMEs, which the same government loudly professes to be the lifeblood of the economy come election time?

Does the government not care about us? And if not, why not? Could we be the masters of our own destruction in some shape or form?

South African wine production has traditionally been driven by exports and is quite resilient to changes in domestic GDP. It has been shown that there is an incongruous relationship between the performance of the South African wine industry and South Africa’s real GDP per capita. Simply put, a lot of the money does not siphon back into the wider domestic economy. Are we seen as the rich sibling, gallivanting abroad while our brothers and sisters suffer in South Africa? To answer this question, we need to go back in time.

A RETROSPECTIVE

The alcohol industry didn’t escape the oppressive and racist laws implemented throughout South Africa’s troubled history. The implementation of the 1928 Liquor Act made it illegal for non-white citizens to consume so-called European alcohol, including spirits, clear beer and wine.

The 1962 amendment to the Act allowed persons of colour to consume these alcoholic beverages. This decision was a purely economic one, as the government of the day saw the black community as a large, untapped pool of tax money that could be gained through alcohol tax.

One of the most important caveats in this amendment was that people of colour could now be consumers, but not producers or sellers, of wine or liquor. These communities were outsiders to the industry, forming no cultural connection to wine or the industry as a whole, seeing it as part of the white European culture.

Enter the infamous ‘ dop system’, also known as the tot system. In this set-up, farmworkers would receive payment in the form of money, with a daily measure of cheap wine as a fringe benefit.

This practice increased and exacerbated alcoholism among the workers, which resulted in the widespread social damage among communities we still see today. Although officially prohibited in 1960, the ban was rarely enforced, and there were still reports of this practice taking place in the late 1990s.

THE GREAT DIVIDE

South Africa is widely criticised for income inequality. The wine industry is no exception to this, as it is the most capital-intensive agricultural industry, with vast amounts of money needed to build and maintain the infrastructure required to farm wine grapes and produce wine. Thus, by promoting wine as a luxury item and largely using expensive cellars to show off the wine’s exclusivity, we aren’t doing ourselves and our industry any favours.

Wine farming is very labour-intensive and uses large numbers of low-skilled workers. The sharp increase in labour costs in the past decade has seen the casualisation of large workforces on wine farms and the extensive use of labour brokers (we might see the latter as a necessary evil, but again we aren’t doing ourselves any favours, as labour brokers are seen in a very negative light).

POLITICS AND REGULATION

There are also contributing factors to government’s seeming lack of understanding for our struggle, which our industry has little to no control over.

We are geographically limited; wine grapes can only be grown in a small area of South Africa. This has the unfortunate effect of limiting the areas that its economic expansion can influence. Unfortunately for the industry, it is situated in a province that is not controlled by the powers that be, and as such will have minimal negative effect on their standing should the local economy be adversely affected by legislation.

Because of the amount of tax coming from the sale of alcohol, it is one of the most regulated industries in the country. You cannot produce, move, adjust, distribute, sell or export alcohol without informing the regulatory agency.

This iron fist is probably the reason why government restricted or banned the sale of alcohol during these trying times. It is an easier way of enforcing social control, much more so than deploying underresourced and overstretched police.

Another reason given for the bans and restrictions was to provide some relief for overburdened emergency rooms and congested hospitals during the pandemic. There is no use in denying that people who are under the influence of alcohol are more likely to cause or be involved in medical emergencies.

In short, is it wrong to think our industry doesn’t matter to government? Not entirely. Damage to our industry doesn’t cause damage to government on a political level. Let’s be honest, they don’t have the capacity to enforce measures that protect all people and all industries. With our history, we made ourselves easy targets.

I don’t want to end by giving readers the impression that I’m on a witchhunt of my own industry, but we need to acknowledge our faults, learn from history and continue to fight to change policy and public perception of our industry so we can grow.

Petri de Beer, winemaker, via email

‘WE NEED TO LEARN FROM OUR HISTORY SO WE CAN GROW OUR INDUSTRY’

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