Focus On Food, Not Politics!

Inclusivity, sustainability, optimal food production, and accessing the global market should be the goals of all farmers in South Africa. This is the message from Henk Vermeulen, outgoing CEO of Free State Agriculture, who has been in organised agriculture for 29 years.

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The face of agriculture has changed drastically in my time. I started working in agriculture in 1988 on the Rural Foundation Community Development initiative on farms in the Free State’s Reitz district.

Back then, agriculture was very well supported by a government that was friendly towards the sector. The industry was driven by marketing councils and statutory levies, and was strictly regulated.

The sector was strong, and supported rural economies; this ensured vibrant rural towns with flourishing businesses, schools and churches.

All in all, about 1,2 million farmworkers and their families were accommodated on South Africa’s farms. Farm schools, clinics and nursery schools had been established on many farms, and most farms had their own soccer teams.

Thousands of workers were trained at facilities, such as the Boskop Training Centre near Potchefstroom, and the construction of farmworkers’ quarters was subsidised by the state.

Things have changed a lot since then, for better and for worse. Government wanted to transform the sector, and commercial agriculture was left with very little state support.

Wanting transformation was not the mistake. What was wrong was to implement transformation at the cost of commercial agriculture, which over decades had underpinned rural economies and development.