Agtergeblewenes is the Afrikaans word for previously disadvantaged people. The word means “those left behind”. In engaging with farmworker communities that is the word that resonates most.

It makes one ponder on how, since the advent of our democracy, and in spite of the myriad laws passed to advance farmworkers’ rights, the fate of this community remains so dire?

Our country’s colonisation started with the establishment of what was euphemistically called by the Dutch a “refreshment station”. What this effectively meant was an agricultural plantation staffed by slave labour, from a wide range of origins, alongside enslaved indigenous South Africans. We often forget that South Africa’s verdant farmlands were built on the sweat, blood and tears of our ancestors.

As commercial agriculture’s significant contribution to our GDP is acknowledged, it’s worth reminding us of this painful history. The majority of those who make the success of this sector possible have lived in a constant state of exploitation. For example, the notorious “dop system” was birthed in this sector, leading to a lasting legacy of widespread alcoholism and foetal alcohol syndrome. Today, the Western Cape still has the highest global rate of foetal alcohol syndrome.

The apartheid state did all in its power to protect farm owners through a series of protectionist measures such as tariffs, subsidies, state-subsided co-operatives, free land and a constant supply of cheap (unregulated) labour.

Furthermore, commercial agriculture never accounted for its oppressive legacy before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Thus, there has been no sense of historical shame, nor urgency, on the part of farmers to correct this historical injustice.

It is against this history that the ANC-led government drove a series of progressive legislative changes aimed at advancing the rights of farmworkers, including:

• The Extension of Security of Tenure Act of 1997 (“Esta”), which was a specific protective response to the arbitrary and rampant evictions of farm-dweller families. Until the promulgation of Esta in November 1997, farm tenants had no protection regulating their rights of residence on farms.

• The inclusion of farmworkers into the Labour Relations Act, bolstered by the Sectoral Determination provisions, likewise set out to disrupt the tenuous labour conditions in the sector. Through this mechanism, the state for the first time regulated the minimum wages for the sector, making it illegal to pay workers below this wage level. Since its introduction, minimum wages for farmworkers have increased from R650 in 2003 to the current R3,169 per month. It is worth noting that when this minimum wage was introduced in 2003, the Department of Labour found that fewer than 20% of farmworkers were earning the minimum wage.

These progressive legislative changes were introduced alongside South Africa’s return to world markets after years of apartheid isolation. This entailed a dismantling of all the historical apartheid protections as required by the World Trade Organisation.

This, in turn, exerted pressure on farmers to try to recover some of the “subsidies lost” through this liberalisation process. Sadly, it is farmworkers and dwellers who have paid the highest price for this. This process of liberalisation and farmer backlash against new pro-farmworker laws resulted in the following broad trends:

• Evictions from farms – at least a million workers were evicted from farms in the first post-apartheid decade as farmers struck pre-emptively to evade the new laws before they took effect;

• Casualisation of farm workers – in yet another strategy to circumvent the new labour rights accorded under the LRA;

• Feminisation – in justification of contracting workers under more tenuous contract terms, most jobs in the sector have been feminised with lower wages; and,

• Labour brokerage: a proliferation of contracting farm labour through labour brokerage as a strategy by farmers to evade their legal obligations as employees.

With the benefit of hindsight, it is clear that the required institutional infrastructure to effect these legislative protections were not put in place. And while some rights violations have been averted, today, by and large, this community remains exploited.

The Western Cape is home to the highest concentration of farmworkers in our country. Politically this province is significant in terms of setting the standard for the well-being of farmworker communities. The ideologies of those who rule provincially and locally are key to ensuring the realisation of farmworkers’ rights. Laws are a means to an end and not an end in themselves: Rather, what is equally important is the political will of those who rule provincially and locally in the Western Cape, i.e. the Democratic Alliance (DA), to operationalise our suite of laws created to protect farmworkers in both letter and spirit.

This means that while some aspects of the lives of this community are governed by national laws, the majority of the day-to-day delivery is located at the provincial and local government level. The DA’s stated allegiance to protect the historical privileges of the farming constituency has meant that there has been little appetite (and practically, resources) for advancing the rights of farmworkers.

The DA states its unashamed bias in favour of protecting and perpetuating the historical privilege of farmers. It was, therefore, no surprise when in response to the historical 2012 De Doorns farmworkers’ uprising, Premier Helen Zille insulted farmworkers by proclaiming the uprising as the work of a “third force”, so illustrating her and the DA’s complete blindness and lack of empathy for the realities of farmworkers. It was the daily humiliation of workers and their families that was the real driving force behind these protests.

Regrettably, the DA did not learn from the De Doorns uprising. In an illustration of its blindness, the DA has continued to create a disjuncture between white commercial farm owners’ interests against farmworkers’ interests. So much for the DA’s commitment to social cohesion and the necessary task of unifying the agricultural sector for shared prosperity.

At the second inquiry into farmworker rights by the SA Human Rights Commission in 2018, it was concluded that while “most farm evictions are illegal, not a single farmer had ever been convicted of an illegal eviction in South Africa”. The DA did nothing to stop evictions.

As I write, there is another evictions crisis looming in the Western Cape and we should not be surprised if we experience another farmworker uprising. To avoid this ticking time bomb, the ANC will be required to rebuild the trust deficit between farm owners and workers. As a first step, farm owners will, however, need to move away from an ahistorical racial denialism and sense of entitlement.

Given the DA government’s failures, the incoming ANC government will have to intervene. As the New Dawn takes shape under President Cyril Ramaphosa, permit me to make the clarion call to both farm owners and farmworkers to join us on this journey by creating a new social compact in the agricultural sector, where all can benefit from shared value, prosperity and dignity. DM

Shaun Byneveldt is South Africa’s former Ambassador to Syria, 2009 – 2018. He was Speaker of the Western Cape Provincial Parliament, 2004-2009. He also served as an ANC MPL in the Provincial Parliament, where he chaired the Standing Committee on Agriculture, Economic Development, Tourism & Community Safety, 2002-2004. He writes in his personal capacity.