by Ernst Roets
QUANTIFYING THE ECONOMIC IMPACT OF FARM ATTACKS
Quantifying the economic impact of farm attacks has proved to be extremely difficult, largely due to the fact that there are so many variables that should be considered. Several attempts at quantifying the economic impact of farm attacks have, however, been made.
Depending on the commodity, when a farm has been taken out of production it can take up to eight years before it reaches full production again, warns Bennie van Zyl, general manager of TAU SA.28 Dianne Kohler Barnard, Shadow Minister of Police for the Democratic Alliance (DA), adds that on average, a farmer feeds about 2 000 people in South Africa.29
Using 2009 as a base reference, the South African Chamber of Commerce and Industry (SACCI) estimated that every farm murder costs the South African economy approximately R2 million ($160 000) if we are to assume a permanent loss of the farming unit as a result of the attack. In their statement, SACCI says: ‘Using the nominal GDP figure of R2,4 trillion ($0,192 trillion), a 3,2% contribution of agriculture to GDP and on an estimate of 39 982 farms in South Africa, the cost of a murder/attack on a farm, to the economy, was R1 932 869 ($154 630) per annum.’30
The SACCI estimate is, however, open to criticism, since farm murders do not necessarily result in the permanent loss of the farming unit. What remains a fact is that every time a South African farmer is murdered, the South African economy loses a highly-skilled, creditworthy individual who had the capacity to create wealth and to contribute productively in a variety of ways. The main channel through which farm murders impact the economy is by reducing the number of skilled people generally, and the number of skilled farmers in particular. This gives rise to a greater skills shortage, meaning farmers and farm managers can demand even higher incomes, raising the cost of food production higher than it would otherwise be.
SOCIO-ECONOMIC STABILITY
Fewer skilled farmers also accelerates the trend of conglomeration and mechanisation in farming. Although this trend can mitigate the impact on food output, it changes the complexion of rural areas, reduces the vibrancy of rural communities, and may even lead to permanent economic decline in small country-district towns. This would cause a faster decline in farming employment than otherwise would have occurred, and can also lead to reduced economic prospects generally in rural areas and small towns. It should be obvious that a knock-on impact of this is greater rates of urbanisation, putting pressure on already highly strained urban infrastructure, townships and job markets. One effect of greater urbanisation is to increase the supply of available urban labour. This either depresses urban wage rates or, under a minimum wage law, perpetuates mass urban unemployment, incubating social frustration and the many social ills that accompany mass urban poverty. An additional consequence is a greater demand for urban and peri-urban land by impoverished communities, leading to greater political discontent and fermentation of land invasions and policies that would further undermine property rights.
Rural areas and country-district towns are kept alive by their farming communities. Farmers are usually the only producers in rural areas who sell goods to the cities and even overseas. In this way, they bring buying power into rural areas that would not otherwise exist, and this helps support rural economies and communities.
Farmers therefore represent the economic lifeblood of rural societies. If farms fall into disuse or are transformed into large conglomerated commercial operations, the dynamism and economic vibrancy of small towns will be negatively affected. Other businesses that support farmers and their families will go out of business. Some small towns in South Africa have already fallen into terminal economic depression and decline as the face of farming has changed. Some of this trend is inevitable, but if the triple challenge is not addressed, it will accelerate and could impact certain areas far faster and more intensely than would naturally occur. This is potentially highly destabilising for rural societies. Those too old or too poor to move to urban areas are at risk of becoming a permanent rural underclass, totally dependent on state welfare handouts and doomed to wretched poverty. This terrible rural decay can already be felt in many far-flung parts of South Africa that most city folk never get to see.
It is ironic then, that the government pays so little attention to farm attacks and murders or dismisses them merely as ordinary crime. These phenomena threaten to further impoverish the very people the government claims to stand up for – poor black people. To add insult to injury, the killing or driving to emigration of highly skilled people worsens the problem of wealth and income inequality by placing a salary premium on skilled people and worsening unemployment. Once again, for a government that claims to hate income inequality, ignoring farm attacks and murders will achieve the exact opposite of what it desires.
FARM MURDERS AND EMIGRATION
The economic impact of farm murders might be compared to the economic impact of skilled emigration, suggests Lamberti.
An estimated 126 000 self-declared emigrants left South Africa from 1990 to 2003, of whom close to 86 000 emigrated between 1996 and 2003.31 A more recent population estimate however states that roughly 500 000 white people had left South Africa in total between 1996 and 2008.32
According to InterNations (a network of expats with local communities worldwide), about 62% of South African expats have stated personal safety and crime as a major consideration for leaving the country (the world average for this measure is 32%).33 70% of South African expats are generally satisfied with leaving the country.34 50% of South African expats are employees or managers (the world average is 47%).35
Heinrich Bohlman from the Department of Economics at the University of Pretoria estimated that if the number of skilled managers and professionals declined by 6% due to emigration, GDP would be about 3% less over an eight-year period than the no-emigration baseline scenario. ‘After the initial increase in real wages due to the sudden reduction in labour, real wages start to drop as the impact of lower productivity is felt… In general, these results show that skilled emigration has a predominantly negative effect on a macroeconomic level,’ says Bohlman.36
He concludes:
The resulting loss in competitiveness severely curtails export oriented industries, with declining rates of return hurting the investment sector. With a relatively smaller population compared to the baseline scenario, GDP per capita does not decline as much, but households are still left worse off.
Skilled emigration, especially where permanent, is therefore shown to reduce economic growth and welfare over the long term. Such emigration represents a loss of investment in human capital, which most developing countries such as South Africa can ill afford… It is therefore essential that authorities create a suitable environment and policies that manage and protect their human capital investments.37
Skilled peoples’ higher incomes indicate that they contribute most to national output and GDP, both individually or through creating and running successful companies. If we consider the top two tax brackets in South Africa as representing the population of skilled workers, then we could say that skilled workers earn at least R700 000 ($56 000) per year or more. Economically speaking, people must produce at least as much value as their incomes. If these people are lost and not replaced by foreign skilled immigrants, we lose their productive contribution and consequently their consumption spending contribution too. Some of that productive value might be replaced by existing skilled workers at the expense of their extra time and effort or by improving technology and mechanisation, but this does not stop the fact that losing productive people causes overall economic potential to decline by their individual productive potential. Skilled emigrants also tend to leave with their children, meaning future generations of productive people are lost as well.
Losing skilled entrepreneurs and business owners arguably makes for an even greater loss than just their personal income potential. They provide jobs and value for many other people beyond themselves, including suppliers and customers.
The same c
ould be said about the loss of human capital as a result of farm murders. Farmers tend to be highly-productive individuals and also business owners whose farming operations employ staff, buy from suppliers, and sell to customers. Farmers may be murdered before they have children and so their murder also deprives the country of future skilled citizens. Or perhaps the murder causes spouses and children or extended family to emigrate for fear or lack of economic options domestically.
FOOD AND FARMERS
Omri van Zyl, CEO of Agri SA, said that farmers currently produce enough food and that much of it is exported, but that this could change if farm murders were not stopped.38
Rising food prices are already a reality in South Africa. Since 2008, food prices have risen by about 13% more than overall prices.39 This is, however, not far out of sync with what is happening elsewhere in the world.40
An important point in this regard is that the National Intelligence Agency (NIA) was commissioned by the South African government to investigate the Arab Spring to see what lessons South Africa could learn from the riots that resulted in revolutionary regime changes in several countries. The NIA reported that the key common factor that triggered the Arab Spring was rising food prices.41
We should therefore give credit to South Africa’s farmers and the farming community, who have managed to keep up with global output trends, despite operating under severe pressure with regard to macro challenges, threats that their property rights would be violated (more on this in Chapter 13) and violent crime. This is evidence to the notion that they are indeed some of the best farmers in the world. It could be argued that agricultural output would be even greater if macro challenges were managed more effectively, if property rights were protected and – of the greatest importance to this book – if farm attacks were to stop.
It is clear that the farming community has a critical role to play in the well-being of South Africa – not only because this is a fact, but also because the South African government has particularly indicated that the farming community needs to fulfil an important role in the boosting of the economy as a means to alleviate poverty and reduce inequality, not to mention food production and food security. All of this would, however, remain a pipe dream if the realities that South Africa’s farmers are confronted with are not changed as a matter of urgency. The important role that farmers have to play in the future of South Africa dictates that any government that is serious about the above-mentioned goals would certainly prioritise the attacks on the farming community at large, but on commercial farmers in particular.
The fact that the South African government is not prepared to regard these attacks as a matter of national priority (as will be pointed out in Chapter 17), despite evidence that these attacks result in an increase in inequality – the prevetion of which the South Arican government states as their first priority – raises serious questions about what the true priorities of the South African government are.
Whatever motivates the South African government to deprioritise its reaction to these attacks seem to carry more weight than what the ANC publicly claims to be their first priority: reducing inequality.
‘As they pulled me into the lounge, I managed to look at the clock on my way there. It was 02:10 in the morning.’ Robert did not know that what was about to happen would carry on for almost four hours and that he would only see another person after the sun had risen.
CHAPTER 6
Remoteness: Unique circumstances
Regardless of all the already-mentioned factors, from a practical perspective the most important motivation for the prioritisation of farm murders is simply the fact that farmers live in unique circumstances. Farms are isolated, usually far from the nearest towns or cities, and are often accessible only by gravel roads. Many farmers do not use landline telephones any more, and on many farms the cellphone signal is inadequate. Other than that, copper theft is a major problem that also has an impact on the ability of farmers to communicate, especially during night time, when they suddenly discover that the cables have been stolen.
Intervention by members of the local South African Police Service (SAPS) and even by concerned neighbours cannot take place within a matter of minutes. The circumstances of farmers certainly cannot be compared to those of citizens living in urban areas.
‘I don’t think the public knows that the attackers often spend hours on the scenes of farm murders,’ says Eileen de Jager from Crime Scene Clean-up. ‘Remember, it’s normally in a remote area with nobody around to hear the victims scream and plead.’ There are reported cases of farm attacks and tortures being executed over time frames extending up to five or even nine hours, says Roland de Vries, a retired Major General of the South African National Defence Force (SANDF), who recently became involved in the battle against farm attacks.1
‘We see how they even prepared food and ate during the torture. We see how they took their time with the torture,’ says De Jager. ‘To burn somebody with a heated dropper – an iron pole normally used in the farm’s fencing – takes time. To sharpen a broomstick before you push it up a woman’s vagina, takes time.’2
The remoteness of many of South Africa’s farms also implies that they are situated far from police stations, and even reaction time from the SAPS might take several hours. On top of that, the South African Institution of Civil Engineering (SAICE) found in 2018 that between 88% and 98% of South Africa’s dirt roads can be described as either ‘bad’ or ‘very bad’.3
Richard Stofberg (74) was ambushed on his farm near Rustenburg in the North West on 27 March 2017. After returning from shopping, he was attacked upon his arrival at the farmhouse by two men, presumed to be teenagers. He was repeatedly beaten in the face with the backside of an axe, threatened with a revolver and tied to the bed with electric cables and wires. The attackers then left him there and fled the scene. Stofberg was tied up so tightly that he was unable to free himself. He soon realised that he would have to wait there in the hope of someone coming to his aid. Eventually, he spent four nights being tied up before help finally arrived. ‘I was lying in my own urine and my throat was dry and sore, I struggled to shout for help,’ he said.4
This fact, namely that farms are situated in remote areas, is also recognised in the Rural Safety Strategy of the SAPS when it declares that:
Farmers, farm workers and residents within rural communities are considered soft targets by criminals. This is due to the remoteness of farms, high market value of properties, large distances between farms and villages and the inaccessibility to the police as well as basic infrastructure, such as roads, to support service delivery.
Rural police stations are often isolated and responsible to police vast areas. The extent and high levels of poverty and unemployment within rural communities create a particular challenge to policing. Communities are less willing to participate in partnerships with the police. Inadequate response to the needs of rural communities and resource constraints hamper the rendering of effective policing in many rural areas.5
Testifying at the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) in 2014, Bernadette Hall spoke of the murder of her husband David (49) when they were attacked on their farm near Fochville. The SAPS investigation into their case could only be described as a matter of extreme negligence (see Chapter 19).6 One of the issues that turned out to be problematic in the investigation of the murder of David Hall was that his farm was on the border between Gauteng and North West. This was said to imply that two different police stations had jurisdiction over different parts of the farm. Consequently, each of the two police stations was reluctant to investigate the matter as they both argued that the matter should rather be dealt with by the other station. The result was that justice was not served and that the attackers were never convicted.
This can be attributed to the fact that the uniqueness of farm attacks is not acknowledged. Consequently, it is left to local police stations to deal with a national crisis that would best be dealt with as a matter of national priority.
The first question they asked Robert was ‘Where is the money?’ ‘The godfather was asking the questions, while the other two were tying me up with binding twine – the stuff that you use to bind bales of hay. As they were tying me up, I said “Whoever gave you the information that there was money in this house, gave you the wrong information”. The man shot back: “No they didn’t!”’
CHAPTER 7
A closer look
Having discussed the frequency and the brutality of these attacks, as well as the unique role that farmers play in society at large, and the fact that farmers live in unique circumstances, a variety of other questions arise with regard to the manifestation of these attacks. Various issues must be considered including the areas that are most vulnerable to attacks; the frequency with which various crimes such as murder, rape and assault occur during these attacks; the months and weeks in which, and the time of day at which these attacks happen the most; typical traits of the attackers and victims; the modus operandi of the attackers; a variety of questions regarding the characteristics of these attacks; and the psychological impact on the victims. In this chapter, I will focus on these questions.
PROVINCIAL BREAKDOWN
Treurgrond, the second edition and translation of the book Land of Sorrow, details a total of 3 319 farm attacks on both farms and smallholdings, stretching over a period of 23 years from 1990 to 2012. A division of these attacks per province is illustrated in Figure 9.