With the escalating rise in farm murders and attacks, agricultural organisations have closed the ranks and found better ways of safeguarding their livelihoods and bolstering rural safety.
A total of 29 farmer associations and provincial affiliations are in high spirits after Agri SA announced that R1.9 million would be distributed to them. The funds are meant to help fund rural safety projects around South Africa.
Investing in farmer protection
Chairperson of the Agri Securitas Trust Fund Cobus van Zyl said they have joined forces with the farming communities through local farmer associations to ensure safer environments for farmers and farmworkers.
“The safety of rural communities is one of the central pillars of creating prosperous rural economies. Safer communities are the only way to maintain sustainable food systems, advance food security, and build a prosperous South Africa,” Van Zyl said.
According to Agri SA, people and communities have expressed their dissatisfaction with what they believe to be the lack of action from the government in addressing farm attacks and rural crime.
Chief executive officer of Agri SA Christo van der Rheede said it was important for all stakeholders to join hands and protect the farmers and farmworkers.
“The trust fund will be offering additional cash for rural safety programmes to tackle and eradicate crime, the largest challenge these communities face, and restore safety to rural regions by paying attention to the requirements of the local farming communities.
“The majority of farmer associations’ requests for assistance were made to build or expand camera systems. These are the most efficient means of both preventing crimes and finding culprits, according to local communities,” he said.
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Improving safety in rural communities
Van der Rheede said it was high time stakeholders join hands and fight off crime in their communities with the key focus on ensuring that food security in the country is not threatened.
“Agri SA is grateful to the trust fund for making these contributions to farmer associations, and for the donations of corporate institutions and other private sector donors.
“We urge South Africans to continue to contribute to the trust to fill this vital gap. It is these donations that secure our farming communities and enable them to produce food for the people of our country,” Van der Rheede said.
He said as things stand, Agri SA believes the political will to handle rural safety more successfully through the rural safety strategy has deteriorated. But the stakes are too high to simply change course.
“Beyond the farming community’s growing private investment in security measures, including the assistance the trust fund offers, we can only hope that [police] minister [Bheki] Cele will soon demonstrate a sense of urgency in announcing the results of the previous year’s rural safety summit, which is necessary to protect South Africa’s communities that produce food,” he said.
- A correction was made to the original article, which stated the amount as R1.9 billion.
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