From father to son: the violent reality of farming in Shakaskraal and Tongaat

AFTER surviving seven bullets in an attack that killed his father, Rishen Naicker continues to farm in Tongaat despite relentless land invasions, violent crime and economic hardship.

- MONISHKA GOVENDER

RISHEN Naicker and his wife, Arisha, who also dedicated her life to their farm.

(Supplied)

His story reveals the harsh reality faced by small-scale farmers caught between their love for the land and the struggle to survive.

For Naicker, 47, a generational vegetable and sugar cane farmer in Tongaat and Shakaskraal, the land has become both a livelihood and battleground.

He said years of land invasions, crop destruction, violent crimes and mounting economic pressure had pushed his family and many other small-scale farmers to the brink of collapse.

He said 20 years ago he watched as his father, Kosie Naicker, was gunned down on their farm.

“The criminals came in army clothes, like proper assassins. They came to kill my father,” he said.

Naicker was 25 years old at the time. He ran outside after hearing his mother scream. He was shot seven times while trying to reach her.

“They only stopped shooting when I fell. I survived. My father did not.”

He said this incident changed his family permanently.

“How do we ever forgive the brutality of this incident that took my father’s life?” he asked.

Naicker said although they owned property in more remote areas, he refused to relocate his wife and three children to isolated farmland.

“It is too remote. The schools are far.

“And we have been through too much. It is not worth my family’s life.”

He said despite the tragedy he continued farming and tried to stay afloat despite theft, failed policing, extreme weather and collapsing market margins.

“In Shakaskraal, parts of our sugar cane plantation were destroyed by land invaders with an excavator. None of the Indians stay on the farms any more. It is so dangerous. This has been going on for two or three years. Unfortunately, we do not even get help from the police,” he said.