Under apartheid WHITE FARMERS WERE ONE OF the mainstays of the apartheid ruling bloc. They received substantial state support and protection over many decades. Farmers were organised into cooperatives with monopoly control over specific commodities. They supplied to...
farmers
CLIMATE CHANGE AS CLASS WAR
Bruce Baigrie interviewed the author, Matt Huber Amandla!: Your recent book is titled Climate Change as Class War: Building Socialism on a Warming Planet. Can you explain what you mean by that? Why is class so important here? MATT HUBER: The title is very explicitly...
“Sinkholes, Starvation and Suffering”: the Legacy of Coal Mining in South Africa? | by David Van Wyk
Even as South Africa marks the two-year anniversary of the Marikana massacre – which marked a decisive turning point for the country's platinum mining sector – extensive new research indicates that the coal mining industry poses a wide range of serious challenges of...
Farmworker Housing | by Benjamin Fogel
The housing crisis is not merely confined to the cities and towns of South Africa; it is at the heart of political struggles in rural areas as well. Farmworkers not only face the same types of issues as those who dwell in urban areas, but also face some that are...
People’s Assembly Land, Race and Nation Conference declaration
People’s Assembly Land, Race and Nation Conference 22 June 2013 Declaration Preamble Nearly twenty years after the end of apartheid, the 1913 Natives’ Land Act continues to haunt the South African countryside. The land question, which was so central to the struggle...
David and Goliath
The story of farm workers and farm bosses in the Breede River Valley| by Mercia Andrews On Wednesday 6 March 2013 in Ashton, 180 km from Cape Town, people started gathering for a meeting early in the morning. Outside the library, one could observe the expensive...
Centenary of the 1913 Land Act | By Colin Bundy
Why consider the history of a hundred-year old law? Surely the Marikana massacre and farm-workers' strikes are more urgent? In fact, there are direct links between the Natives' Land Act of 1913 and current struggles. The Land Act and its consequences still shape rural...
Industrial agriculture vs. food sovereignty | by Stephen Greenberg
Large-scale commercial agriculture produces an estimated 90% or more of marketed food in South Africa. Two-thirds to three-quarters of food is purchased from supermarkets, even by the poor, and corporate agribusinesses dominate supply chains from inputs to retailing....
Farm strikes: Radical changes needed.
Farm workers began the centennial year of the 1913 Land Act with a continuation of the most militant industrial action in the sector in decades. On January 9th, various Western Cape farming towns were turned into warzones as protestors demanding an increase to a...






