- The Western Cape minister of agriculture has rejected a racially-based Covid-19 support advert aimed at farmers and agri-businesses.
- The advert was placed by the Cape Agency for Sustainable Integrated Development in Rural Areas.
- It is the public entity which will administer the Covid-19 relief.
The Western Cape Government has rejected racially-based Covid-19 support to farmers and agri-businesses, the provincial minister of agriculture said on Thursday.
This comes after the family farmer organisation SAAI issued a statement on Wednesday to say it is "shocked over and condemns the blatant racial discrimination in the Western Cape Provincial Government's Covid-19 disaster assistance which will only be allocated to black farmers".
The disaster assistance will be administrated by the Cape Agency for Sustainable Integrated Development in Rural Areas (CASIDRA), a Western Cape public entity. CASIDRA recently published an advert that used race as qualifying criteria for Covid-19 government support. SAAI has indicated that it plans a campaign to enforce non-racial principles on all levels of the civil service.
According to Meyer, the Western Cape Department of Agriculture does not support the advert. Therefore, he has instructed CASIDRA to withdraw the advertisement and apologise to farmers and the agricultural sector in the Western Cape.
In his view, it became clear during the pandemic that farmers and farm workers play a critical role in food security and humanitarian relief efforts and that agriculture is leading the economic recovery of South Africa.
"Farmers and the agricultural sector need policy certainty and government support free from any racial classification. The Western Cape Department of Agriculture rejects the use of racially-based criteria. The Western Cape Department of Agriculture believes that government's assistance to farmers should be needs-based and not race-based," said Meyer.
"We should respect the contribution of all farmers in South Africa, irrespective of race. Covid-19 support should help all farmers, because all farmers are critical for food security in South Africa."
According to SAAI, the government's Covid-19 regulations paralysed the wine industry for 20 weeks, plunged hundreds of family farms into a financial crisis and left even more farm workers without a job and income. SAAI's members are family farmers of all sizes and races, it says.
"Disasters such as Covid-19, droughts and fires don't discriminate on the grounds of heritage or skin colour," it states.