While the African Farmers’ Association of South Africa (Afasa) insists that the exodus of a group of people from the organisation is “just a misunderstanding”, at least six farmer groups are forging ahead with plans to launch a “new home” for black farmers.
This, after the South African Farmers’ Development Association (Safda) on Tuesday said it had resigned from Afasa along with the African Game Ranchers Association, African Poultry Producers (APP), the Deciduous Fruit Development Chamber, National Emerging Red Producers’ Organisation, and the South African Grain Farmers’ Association (Sagra).
They announced their resignation during a media briefing moments after Afasa’s annual congress at the Durban ICC. All parties were present at the congress with Safda also being a sponsor of the event which celebrated Afasa’s ten-year anniversary.
The congress, says Mthembu, was not the time and place to change Afasa’s constitution – one of the burning points which led to the mass resignation of the commodity groups. He claims a proposed amendment to the constitution was not discussed before attempts to propose it on the congress floor.
“We had sponsors and leaders of various government departments attending to address critical issues. For us, to suspend those things to deal with the constitution was quite unfair towards members who had travelled long distances to get answers on burning issues that affect them on their farms,” explains Mthembu.
He adds that representatives of the organisations who quit Afasa were invited to a workshop on Friday, 14 October – three days before Afasa’s annual general meeting commenced. The purpose was to get buy-in from commodity members and provincial leaders about a proposed constitutional amendment. However, commodity groups could not honour the appointment.
Controversial constitutional amendment
A motion to shake up Afasa’s current membership structure requires greater consideration, says Mthembu.
“We are talking about changing the major character of the constitution, which means that no one will be a member in their personal capacity and that they must affiliate with a commodity organisation.
“The people that were there [at the Afasa congress] were not commodity members. It was only commodity leaders. The delegates that attended were all individual members from nine different provinces.”
A bitter dispute ensued between Afasa, Safda and five other commodity organisations after the matter was also not on Sunday’s agenda at the annual general meeting. Mthembu says unhappy parties insisted that a resolution around a constitutional amendment were to be reached. When this did not happen, it spilled over to congress on Monday and also led to an interruption of the proceedings as Safda insisted on airing its frustration.
In an effort to address concerns, Mthembu claims that Afasa appointed an emergency task team on Tuesday evening to resolve the matter. At this point, Safda and others allegedly refused to participate and forged ahead with plans to resign from Afasa.
“Changing the constitution needs a consultation process,” insists Mthembu. “The [proposed] constitutional [amendment] must [first] go to the [various] provinces, then district, and then local.”
He remains hopeful that the air will be cleared soon. “I think it’s something that is resolvable and I’m positive that it is just a misunderstanding,” he says.
Other matters of concern
On Tuesday, however, Safda chief executive Dr Siyabonga Madlala reiterated that it was better to walk away from Afasa. While the proposed constitutional amendment did influence their decision to quit, different commodity organisations have since raised a number of concerns about Afasa’s “manner of doing business.”
Tebogo Mongoato from Sagra said the annual general meeting “was run in a style that is foreign to the culture of Afasa.” Kobedi Pilane from APP added, “We are being misrepresented by people [Afasa] who do not have an understanding, knowledge, and expertise of the commodities.”
Madlala announced the birth of the Black Agricultural Commodities Federation, a “new home” for South Africa’s black farmers. He said, “We will be formulating our memorandum of cooperation and we are hitting the ground running. The backlog of development and transformation is pushing us. We are already looking at setting up offices. There’s no time to waste.”
ALSO READ: Afasa reels after mass exodus of black farmers
Corrections were made to this article:
- The original article created the impression that Safda was the main sponsor of the conference and they were not according to Afasa leadership.
- The article also incorrectly created the impression that commodty groups had officially resigned as Afasa members.
