Farmers living in fear: Leon

2003-06-07 12:48

Klerksdorp - Democratic Alliance leader Tony Leon called on Saturday for the removal of what he called "roadblocks" caused by government policy that were inhibiting the growth of agriculture in South Africa.

Addressing the DA's North West provincial congress at Klerksdorp, Leon said: "Farmers are afraid that they are going to be forced to make the heaviest sacrifices to conform to government policy."

Leon said: "Farmers are living in fear that the government will take away their land. The ANC (African National Congress) calls for a 'willing buyer willing seller' approach to land reform, but farmers have reason to believe that the ANC is trying to tax them off the land, or lower the value of land in order to acquire it more cheaply."

The expropriation of land for land reform purposes was unnecessary since there already existed state-owned land as well as commercial land for sale which could be used to put a coherent land reform policy into action, Leon said.

Referring to the security fears of farmers Leon said 1 426 people had been murdered on farms and smallholdings in South Africa since 1994.

"That's more farmers than were killed in the Mau Mau revolt and the Rhodesian civil war put together. More people have been on farms in South Africa than have been killed by suicide bombings in the Middle East," he said.

Quoting unemployment statistics in agriculture Leon said: "In the past year, agricultural unemployment has fallen by 22.8 percent. Nearly 250 000 farm workers have lost their jobs because of the government's restrictive wage policy," he said in a reference to the new minimum wage for farmworkers.

"The DA's solution is to get rid of the ANC government's centralised, rigid approach and to adopt a more flexible and sensible approach to farm wages. To guarantee job security for farmworkers, the laws must allow for partly paying workers with food, housing, water, and grazing and cultivation rights when farm workers consent to it," he said.

- SAPA