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The first news story that Farmer’s Weekly shares this week is the news that the Agri Securitas Trust Fund recently agreed to make R1.9 million available for rural safety projects. The fund emphasised that farming community safety was historically related to food security in South Africa, and the vulnerability of the country’s farming and rural community’s crime was a problem not only for farmers, but for the nation as a whole.

According to Cobus van Zyl, the chairperson of the trust fund, the donation was intended by Agri Securitas to further support farming communities and would be allocated to farmer associations in the North West, Free State, Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal and in Mpumalanga.

LEES OOK: Rouwatertarief-konsultasies moet impak op voedsel in ag neem

Farmer’s Weekly also sheds some light on stakeholders’ concerns over the impact of the rural water pricing strategy on South African farmers.

Ryan explains that the proposed new pricing strategy would have six categories of water uses, which is up from the original four categories, to better represent water use groups and thus allow for more clearly targeted charges, according to the Department of Water and Sanitation.

The categories include Agriculture, Municipalities, Industry and Mining, and Hydropower.

Janse Rabie, the Head of Natural Resources at Agri SA, says it is unclear whether the government had performed any fiscal assessment with respect to the proposed revised pricing strategy. This is important as the pricing strategy has the potential to significantly affect the agriculture sector and food security.

The strategy also proposes the removal of municipal maximum annual increases. This might indicate the government’s intention to significantly increase the maintenance operational component of infrastructure charges in relation to raw water.

The cap is currently set at 50% and hiking prices above this could result in tremendous price shocks.

Members of the public have until 3 November 2022 to comment on the draft changes.

Furthermore, another news story in this week’s edition takes a look at the South African Police Service’s (SAPS) effectiveness in crimes. Its public credibility has come under scrutiny at TLU’s recent Annual General Meeting (AGM) held in Pretoria.

The senior criminal justice lecturer at the University of South Africa (UNISA) and chairperson of the National Stock Theft Prevention Forum, Willie Clack, says South Africa is the only country in the world that showed no clear correlation between instances of violent crime and those of economic crimes, such as theft of property and livestock.

He explained that over the long term, economic crime had declined, while violent crime had been rising by about 2% per annum.

Clack further said that ongoing research into the matter indicated that South African farmers generally does not feel safe.

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