Suth Africa’s agricultural leaders will have to find more constructive methods to address conflict with land and agriculture minister Lulama Xingwana, said Mohammad Karaan, chairperson of the National Agricultural Marketing Council. H e said the current approach of confronting the minister on everything she says is creating a stalemate, which is damaging to the industry as a whole.
“Industry leaders have to make peace with the fact that the minister has to represent the poor and the masses in the country. They also have to acknowledge that government has played a significant role in the creation of current agricultural welfare,” Karaan told delegates at a recent Swartland Small Grain Development Group meeting in Mooreesburg, Western Cape. “Hence instead of creating more animosity, industry leaders should acknowledge complaints and try and find constructive ways to address these.” But Bennie van Zyl, general manager of TAU SA, said the minister was not open for constructive suggestions from the commercial agricultural sector. “The minister is adamant in practising transformation in a way that will suit her political agenda. This approach at the moment is not economically sustainable in the industry or conducive for food security,” he said. “The agricultural industry wants to practise empowerment, but want to do it in a way that is sustainable in the long term so we can create riches instead of impoverish new entrants in the industry,” Van Zyl said. He added that public accusations made by the minister about farmers abusing their workers is damaging to the entire industry, and that leaders had no choice but to condemn these accusations in public. – Glenneis Erasmus
