Social transformation, land reform, black empowerment: the concept goes by a multitude of names in South Africa but it essentially boils down to one key objective - putting a more representative share of ownership and control in the hands of the indigenous population.
The aim has been prominent on the country’s political agenda since the dawn of democracy broke some 12 years ago, but the specific industry sectors have been left to work out ways of effecting such change pretty much on their own and progress has therefore been somewhat fragmented.
The horticultural industry has been targeted more than once by lobbyists accusing its members of failing to operate fairly, in line with the codes of social responsibility. However, as well as highlighting the said lobbyists’ inability to name names, most industry insiders feel positive about their part in the cause, even if advances are not being made as fast as everyone would wish.
Alastair Moodie, chairman of fruit production and exporting company, The Melsetter Group, says the general stability of the industry’s labourforce is a testament to its treatment of workers. “Clearly there are some areas where people might not have advanced as far as they should have but generally speaking South Africa’s agriculture is leading in terms of employment training and I don’t believe we need to be anything other than proud of the way we are attracting and keeping people in the industry,” he says.
The issue of worker housing conditions has been high up the agenda for a long time, but so far no real consensus on the ideal set-up has been reached. Moodie says The Melsetter Group made the decision 10 years ago to promote home ownership and now 50 per cent of the company’s workers live in housing plots a short bus ride away. Staff can acquire loans, using retirement funds as collateral, in order to get housing or improve the starter homes that may be offered to them by the government, he explains.
According to Robert Zulch, farm manager at top-fruit and vegetable farm, Wakkerstroom, the government is not in favour of workers living on farms, believing they are being forced to stay without adequate job or housing security and that it is harder for trade unions to root out incidents of injustice, since workers are silenced through living in perpetual fear. Zulch, however, believes this is a gross misrepresentation and continues to provide on-site housing for his staff-workers, who he says readily refute the advances of labour unions, which have tried to approach them on a number of occasions.
Despite being in favour of sustaining social responsibility, Zulch claims it may not necessarily be in his workers’ interests to overly disrupt the status quo. “There is a danger of ethical trading being to restrictive,” he says. “I don’t want to have to treat my workers as a uniform group, I want every worker to feel like an individual, and create a suitable course of work for themselves.” He adds that there may be a danger in assuming all workers, regardless of colour, would want to be land-owners, even if the opportunity was handed to them on a plate.
Criticism of the government’s handling of the issue to date has sprung up from all sides. One line of scepticism is that the business of land reform serves only to privilege an elite few, while the vast majority of the country’s native blacks go un-noticed. Another, is that many of the farms being bought by the government for transformation purposes are being passed over to consultants, who do not necessarily have prior knowledge of the role of farm management. Meanwhile, the government’s order for managers to ensure all citizens are legally identified is making slow progress as applications are inconveniently lost in the bowels of beaurocracy.
Wiedse Kruger of avocado export company Afrupro Exporters (Pty) Ltd says while land reform is largely the business of growers, he believes it will be incumbent upon companies such as his to rectify the current situation. “There is a lot of debate about whether this has been the correct strategy,” he says. “I think consultants will have to make partnerships with other farms to develop marketing and exporting skills. The challenge for exporters will be to get involved and instruct them on how to produce quality fruit to a standard that can be exported.”
Kruger is also quick to highlight some forgotten victims in the bid to redistribute land. “There have been quite a few job losses among the people working for the present owners,” he says. “When the farm is bought out they suddenly have to move off the land and give up their jobs. There is no legislation protecting them and little compensation.”
The industry, perhaps quicker than the government, it seems, has come round to the fact that training is the order of the day and many companies have embarked on initiatives to empower their workers with skills as well as finances.
At Katopé Subtropical RSA, training has been pushed up the agenda via its commitment to Fairtrade - undoubtedly the most internationally renowned initiative for reform. At one of the company’s Fairtrade-accredited farms, Springfield, the community has just decided to use its R48,000 (£3,780) dividend to build a training centre on the farm. “They are using that money to put a deposit down for the centre, which will enable them to build the basic structure and then as more money comes in they will add desks and more equipment,” says Jaco Marais, managing director at Katopé Subtropical. “The centre will provide somewhere for farm-related training but workers will also be able to use it for their own purposes.”
Skills transference is a fundamental element of Crispy Coolers (Pty) Ltd and Crispy Farming (Pty) Ltd - the two multi-faceted transformation projects initiated by one of South Africa’s leading fruit producer/marketer/exporter, the Du Toit Group. According to the company’s business plan, the objective of the projects is to endow previously disadvantaged people with the ability to “transform” all aspects of their social condition, by offering them access to the facilities. It states: “[This empowerment] includes the transfer of skills, knowledge, life skills and other physical resources as well as the utilisation of opportunities that will enable the person to improve his/her own standard of living on a gradual and continuous basis. This project aims to give every individual involved in the organisation the opportunity to satisfy his/her economic, social and psychological needs.”
According to Mac Mackenzie, project manager at the Du Toit Group, the process of transformation commenced properly in 2002, after some six years of discussion, with the construction of a cold-store facility, Crispy Coolers. The initiative was undertaken between the South African government, the Du Toit Group and 932 of its workers. “The original plan was to start with a farming project but there was a need for cold storage in this area,” Mackenzie explains. “Before we were transporting apples out of the area to cold stores and then bringing them back to our packhouses.”
On completion, the total cost of the project was R25.6 million (£2.1m). The 932 workers - collectively named the Crispy Coolers Workers Trust (CCWT) - all pledged R5,000 (£404), which together with R20,000 (£1,616) grants contributed per person by the Department of Land Affairs, afforded them a 90 per cent stake in the shareholding, with the Du Toit Group making up the remaining 10 per cent.
However, the Trust was not prepared to manage the venture single-handedly, and so a progressive system was established. “The Du Toit Group mentors the whole process because there is a significant lack of skills among the trust,” says Mackenzie. “As such, the trust has leased the cold storage out to Du Toit for five years, with a seven-per cent acceleration clause so they are guaranteed an income.”
With phase one of the initiative in place, Du Toit started on a second - acquiring farm land on behalf of CCWT. The company managed to purchase four fruit farms, which had recently gone into liquidation and, with additional R20,000 grants from the State, 478 workers gained 60 per cent ownership of the fledgling business.
As with Crispy Coolers, an intermediary set-up was needed: in this case the trust contracts the management of the farm out to Du Toit, again for five years. “We made an undertaking that during that period we will identify and nurture some of the workers into positions of management,” says Mackenzie.
While the situation is working well for all concerned at the moment, Mackenzie is quick to emphasise that the whole notion of empowerment is to render the workers able to manage the businesses independently and as they expand, there may be a need to build additional packing facilities purely for Crispy Farming. But, in order to cope with the expansion, Du Toit has been advised to simplify the two projects, with their different numbers and share percentages, into one overall business, perhaps to be called ‘Crispy’, Mackenzie suggests.
Avocado producing and exporting company, H L Halls & Son entered a similar arrangement with 4,000 of its workers and their relations, in 2003, when a neighbouring community issued them with a land claim. “When the Mduli clan approached us with a claim we agreed on the basis that they join with our 4,000 employees so the 5,000 people assembled to form the Matsefani Trust,” says Halls’ exports director, Robbie Taylor. However, three years down the line, the trust now has more to consider than fruit farming, Taylor explains: “The big issue for them now is the World Cup 2010. Nelspruit is one of the host cities and there are plans to build a R600m stadium on the Matsefani land, which they are of course very excited about.”
Transformation may be a fairly newly-coined phrase but sub-tropical fruit production/export/development company Westfalia has been practising the essence of the concept since it came to being as part of the Hans Merensky Foundation, established in 1973. Indeed, social and environmental development is at the core of the foundation’s raison d’être, encompassing everything it is involved in from organic composting to R&D. Its mission statement reads: “to promote and assist in the development of the resources of the republic of South Africa and neighbouring territories, particularly such natural resources as soil, water, minerals, flora and fauna and to promote the health and welfare of the inhabitants; more specifically by research, experiment and demonstration through the correlation and application of scientific knowledge.”
The most recent sign of the company’s commitment to social improvement is a crèche and education facility which was opened at its principal site in the northern town of Tzaneen on May 26 of this year by Waitrose and the Fairtrade Foundation. As well as offering care and education to 40 of the workers’ children it also provides basic adult learning and training programmes, such as literacy, for the workers themselves.
With all of these schemes in place, it seems unfair for the horticultural sector to be accused of under-performing in this area of responsibility and yet most agree there is still much to be achieved. According to Afrupro’s Kruger, the South African government is still a long way off realising its aim to reform 30 per cent of the country’s land by 2014, and he remains sceptical about how well things will turn out, emphasising the importance of preventing a replication of the quandary in which Zimbabwe has found itself. “It can be done, but whether it can be done successfully is the challenge.”
One producer, who wished to remain anonymous, regarded the process as cyclical, suggesting the country’s focus will return from a ‘social’ bias to a ‘commercial’ one, before long, once a sense of balance has been achieved and the ‘empowered’ black workers demonstrate they too are primarily driven by financial gain.
Taylor believes in the concept of social responsibility but he remains philosophical about the possibility of visible progress. “There is a lot of mistrust; it is a unique process which hasn’t happened anywhere else in the world,” he surmises. “There is a lot of frustration about the length of time it is taking but it will sort itself out as long as both sides retain the current sense of fair play.”
No comments yet