Picture: The female farmers continue to be ill-treated/Generic
By OBAKENG MAJE
The residents of the ZF Mgcawu District Municipality welcomed the Preservation and Development of Agricultural Land (PDAL) Bill and expressed hope that it will address their challenges on agricultural land.
However, the residents also highlighted a few issues which they considered as shortcomings of the Bill. The Portfolio Committee on Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development held the public hearing in Upington, Northern Cape on Sunday.
According to some residents, the Bill should seek to consider ways of managing the agricultural land in a sustainable way. They indicated that the Bill is silent on methodology of the use of the land for food production.
One of the residents, Antoinette Erasmus said: “The commercial farmers in South Africa are using high level pesticides, but there is no provision in the Bill to deal with their effects in the agro-ecosystems to ensure that these pesticides do not negatively affect the agricultural land.
“The pesticides also contribute towards climate change and global warming, which is basically happening in the country. The Bill is also silent on matters affecting small-scale farmers. Many of the small-scale farmers use the commonage land, in particular the livestock farmers.”
Erasmus indicated that the Bill does not address the interests of the small-scale farmers because municipalities in the district are currently patronising them in the area.
Another farmer, Magdalene Odendaal shared the same sentiments. Odendaal further said small-scale farmers are always allocated commonage land, where they cannot produce quality and marketable livestock. She added that there are a number of issues that affect them in the area including land ownership, lack of funding, stock theft and ill-treatment of female farmers.
“I am part of an agricultural cooperative, which owns approximately 2000 hectares of land, and informed the committee that their challenge is that only 75% of women farmers received their title deeds, while the remaining 25% of them are still waiting.
“There is an unfairness of the system towards us. I have been farming for the past 12 years and recently, I lost my husband who was leasing an agricultural land for our farming activity. Our contract which was under the name of my husband expired and I am unable to renew it or to apply for a new one in order to continue farming,” said Odendaal.
She said this matter is very difficult for her and does not think that officials are fully aware of the challenges that women farmers are facing. Odendaal said female farmers are forced to share communal bathrooms with men.
“We have no privacy and believe that the system is very unfair towards women. The committee does not have knowledge of what women are really dealing with on farms,” she said.
Meanwhile, the Chairperson of the committee, Nkosi Zwelivelile Mandela said: “We are conducting these public hearings to ensure that all your views are reflected in the final Bill. Public participation is very important in the development and processing of legislation to ensure that laws that parliament passes are progressive and responsive to the needs of every citizen and do not infringe on their rights.
“The committee held its last leg of the public hearings at Pixley kaSeme District at Prieska Omega Hall, in Prieska.”
The Guardian 