Don’t push us, Govt warns white farmers

GOVERNMENT says that white commercial farmers are abusing the protection they receive when farmworkers and unionists are restrained from carrying out threats to invade their farms.

Deputy Minister of Lands, Resettlement and Rehabilitation, Isak Katali, has accused “many” white farmers of failing to help Government resolve the land reform issue, and says the “writing is on the wall” for those who hide behind Government protection. In a statement sent to The Namibian, Katali says some white commercial farmers are promoting the notion that nothing good can come from black-owned farms and that many farms bought from them by Government are “in bad shape”.”The public is made to believe that, when a white farmer sells the farm, everything is white and after selling the farm everything becomes black.White and black in this case are associated with good and bad respectively,” Katali states.If every white-owned farm had been productive, he argues, there would have been no need to lease those farms to others.Many white farmers lease their land to speculators who keep the animals they buy at auction on the land before reselling them.”There are or were farms [before they were sold to the Government] with no single livestock of the owner but only those who were leasing,” he claims.He adds that features such as fences, boreholes, drinking troughs and dams on many farms are in bad shape but people are made to believe that things will deteriorate the very minute a black takes over.Katali pointedly exempted white commercial farmers who produce for the good of Namibia from his scathing attack.In a statement sent to The Namibian, Katali says some white commercial farmers are promoting the notion that nothing good can come from black-owned farms and that many farms bought from them by Government are “in bad shape”. “The public is made to believe that, when a white farmer sells the farm, everything is white and after selling the farm everything becomes black. White and black in this case are associated with good and bad respectively,” Katali states. If every white-owned farm had been productive, he argues, there would have been no need to lease those farms to others. Many white farmers lease their land to speculators who keep the animals they buy at auction on the land before reselling them. “There are or were farms [before they were sold to the Government] with no single livestock of the owner but only those who were leasing,” he claims. He adds that features such as fences, boreholes, drinking troughs and dams on many farms are in bad shape but people are made to believe that things will deteriorate the very minute a black takes over. Katali pointedly exempted white commercial farmers who produce for the good of Namibia from his scathing attack.