Farmer's Weekly (South Africa)
Stock and game theft has far-reaching effects for many farmers in South Africa
Farmers have lost faith in law enforcement and are not reporting all crimes, writes Annelie Coleman.
The latest crime figures recently released by the South African Police Service (SAPS) shows a disturbing increase in agriculture-related crime rates. The report, covering the period between July and September this year, revealed several concerning trends in crimes against farmers and agricultural communities across the country, according to a statement by TLU SA.
SAPS revealed that 68 murders occurred on agriculture land, farms, estates or smallholdings from July to September. These statistics aligned with the figures reported by TLU SA.
The province with the highest agriculture murder rate was the Western Cape, with 24 cases reported. According to the SAPS, cattle theft fell 5,5%, but it still rose concerns for farmers, with 6935 cases reported during the second quarter of the 2023/24 financial year.
However, these figures may present a distorted picture. Many people have lost confidence in the police’s ability to solve cases and, hence, do not report them to authorities.
“The SAPS is just as much a victim as farmers when it comes to lost income due to livestock theft. The lengthy legal process that takes years and further depletes your money and expenses, and cases that don’t even make it to the courts, make us reluctant to report anything worth less than R10 000,” said Jaco Schoeman, chairperson of the property rights committee at TLU SA.
It would be in the SAPS’s best interest to prioritise all crimes but particularly livestock theft, he added.
Stud Bonsmara breeder Cornay Botma from Bothaville told Farmer’s Weekly that stock theft by means of traps and snares was getting out of hand in the Free State. This crime did not only affect small game, but big plains game such as water buck and cattle as well.
“During the past few months, we lost numerous game species and livestock to poachers’ traps and snares.
“This includes small game such as duiker, waterbuck and kudu. In many instances, the poachers do not follow up on the snares and leave the animals to die an agonising death,” he said.
“I have lost stud beef calves to snares and am currently fighting to save the life of one of my stud cows that was gravely injured in a snare. On my neighbour’s farm we found two horse carcasses rotting in a snare. All the grey rhebock on my land have been wiped out. I do not even report these cases. The sad part is in our area the SAPS do not have the capacity or the capability to help curb these kinds of crimes,” said Botma, who also acts as Free State Agriculture’s safety representative in the district.
Pieter Gouws, a livestock producer from Mareetsane in North West, said that the situation with stock theft in the district had become untenable and made it very difficult, if not impossible, to continue with his farming business.
“Hardly a week goes by that I do not lose animals to stock thieves. This has had a dire impact on my business. Two days a week are regularly set aside to look for lost cattle and to check fences for the theft of fence poles and the actual wire.
“I also have to check all the camps for trespassers who illegally use my land for grazing. The animals are caught by snares and slaughtered for meat,” said Gouws.
CATTLE THEFT WENT DOWN 5,5% BUT IS STILL CONCERNING, WITH 6 935 CASES REPORTED
“What gets to me the most is the utter ruthlessness and cruelty the poor animals are treated with. In a recent case, one of my cows was caught in a snare but managed to escape. The suspects then chopped off her heel tendons and left the animal in that helpless condition before they fled. And this is not an isolated case,” he added.
He has lodged about 30 complaints of stock theft over the last three years but not a single case has been resolved. According to Gouws, it sometimes takes members of the SAPS a week to come out to the scene of the crime for investigations.
Farmer’s Weekly’s efforts to get comment on the matter from the SAPS were unsuccessful.