While visiting farms just outside Pietermaritzburg, Daily Maverick discovered that farm dwellers and labour tenants are living under conditions that they say violate their rights and ability to sustain themselves and their families.
Thandi Gumede, which is not her real name as her father still works on the farm in uMshwathi just outside of Pietermaritzburg, KwaZulu-Natal, says she has had multiple run-ins with the farmer who runs the farm they live on. She says he brought in security personnel to break her chicken coop and has put limits on the size of her garden.
Gumede says the farmer told her she cannot run a business on his land and has limited these activities to sustenance levels only, preventing them from earning income. The farmer also stipulated how big the chicken coop could be – it couldn’t be big enough to fit a bed. Gumede lives in a two-roomed house with more than 10 people, including her parents, siblings and grandchildren.
She says this is done to make people who do not work on the farm leave, despite being generational land tenants. “The farmer always tells us, I will not make everyone go; you will leave by yourself,”
Bheki Zulu, also not his real name, is a labour tenant who lives on a sugar cane farm in uMshwathi. An activist for farm dwellers in uMgungundlovu, he says he just wants to have the freedom to have a large number of livestock, a bigger garden and also to be able to extend his family home so his family of more than 12 can live comfortably.
Zulu is one of the few who insisted on adding two more rooms to the standard two-roomed structures allocated to the 64 families living on the farm. Other families on the farm live in two- to three-roomed structures; on average there are 15 people in each family, with three generations, female and male, all sleeping in the two rooms.
What does the Labour Tenants Act say?
Lawyer Rob McCarthy says that according to the Labour Tenants Act, a labour tenant is a second-generation person who provides labour on a farm in consideration for the right to live on that farm and use a portion of it.
Section 1 of the Land Reform (Labour Tenants) Act gives the following definition of a labour tenant:
“(a) A person who is residing or has the right to reside on a farm.
“(b) A person who has or has had the right to use cropping or grazing land on the farm, referred to in (a), or another farm of the owner, and in consideration of such right provides or has provided labour to the owner or lessee.
“(c) A person whose parent or grandparent reside or resides on a farm and had the use of cropping or grazing land on such farm or another of the owner, and in consideration of such right provided or provides labour to the owner or lessee of such or such other farm. This includes a person who has been appointed a successor to a labour tenant in accordance with the provisions of Section 3, (4) and (5), but excluding a farm worker.”
Yet tenants such as Zulu told Daily Maverick that they have limited rights, alleging that the farmer controls the water supply, electricity and sanitation among other things. All 64 families pay R300 directly to the farmer, who they say refuses to allow prepaid meters to be installed, and switches the water on and off at his discretion.
What rights does a landowner have regarding tenants?
McCarthy explains that the landowner has the right:
- “To oppose the applications on the grounds that the applicants do not qualify as tenants in terms of the Act;
- To impose reasonable rules that allow for the efficient running of the farm and help to ensure security;
- To apply to court to have bona fide tenants relocated to an alternative site on the farm, provided the land currently occupied by the tenants needs to be used;
- To apply for eviction if tenants commit material breaches of the rules or law.”
In May 2024, farm dwellers in uMgungundlovu District Municipality reportedly raised serious concerns about how their human rights were being violated, allegedly by farm owners, who have destroyed their houses, confiscated and killed their livestock, failed to pay salaries and even forced one family to dig up the grave of their child and remove the remains.
Hundreds of farm dwellers from farms under the uMngeni, uMshwathi and Mpofana municipalities shared these concerns with a contingent of senior officials from the KwaZulu-Natal government. The officials included MEC for Economic Development Siboniso Duma, Minister of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development Minister Thoko Didiza, MEC for Agriculture and Rural Development Super Zuma and Mayor of Msunduzi Municipality Mzimkhulu Thebolla, who held an imbizo at Yarrow Farm outside Howick.
“Everybody knows the long history of land issues; our families lived here for more than a 100 years., We were displaced from area to area and when we had settled we were told this too is now a farm. We were then made into workers. I was a victim when I was in Form 3,what is now Grade 7, I was asked to go and work in the farm for six months in 1974, it was called (isithupha) in isiZulu. When it was time for me to go back to school I was already behind and could not go back because I would be called back for another six months, so I went to find work in Pietermaritzburg. Before that in 1966, I witnessed my dad getting kicked by apartheid police and [we] were kicked out of the farm we lived in,” Zulu said.
An extensive survey of farm dwellers by a land rights advocacy NGO Association for Rural Advancement (Afra) found: “Most farm workers have access to water, although the sources and quality vary. Land owner discretion is evident in reports of selective cut-offs to people who no longer work on the farm, for example. Sanitation access is more diverse, with a range of experiences from open defecation to self-dug pit latrines and, in some cases, ventilated improved pit latrines (VIPs).”
Afra’s report was in preparation for a court case, which they won. As a result, some communities now have access to toilets. After the 2019 judgment on access to sanitation for farm dwellers, Afra strategy manager Siya Sithole said that uMgungundlovu District Municipality had recently announced at their Integrated Development Plan Stakeholder Representative Forum that they had built 1,224 VIP toilets in response to the judgment.
Afra works intensively with communities in and around the uMgungundlovu District Municipality, offering support and advice.
Sithole explained to Daily Maverick that lawful occupier of land is protected under the Extension of Security of Tenure Act (ESTA) and a labour tenant is protected under the Labour Tenants Act.
“They [Labour tenants] can therefore not be arbitrarily evicted from the land that they lawfully occupy. A landowner seeking to evict an occupier or labour tenant must follow the prescripts of these laws which require the matter to be heard by a competent court. Occupiers and labour tenants also have the right to legal representation to oppose their eviction cases. Legal Aid South Africa (Lasa) has recently taken over the mandate to provide free legal support to farm dwellers from the Department of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development (DALRRD),” Sithole said.
Asked how Afra advises land tenants to find amicable solutions, Sithole said: “The Amendment of ESTA, which came into operation on 1 April 2024, prescribes that all land rights disputes be referred to alternative dispute resolution processes such as mediation and arbitration before being referred for litigation.
“Afra refers such cases to Lasa and the Interim Land Rights Management Committees for advice, mediation and resolution. Those labour tenants that have lodged land acquisition claims have the right to have those claims processed whilst living on their ‘ancestral’ land. Occupiers who have not lodged claims may also approach the DALRRD to put their hand up to benefit from the DALRRD’s land redistribution programme,” Sithole said.
Which authorities can land tenants report concerns to?
“Occupiers and labour tenants facing a right violation or litigation can approach Lasa. Labour tenant claimants can approach the Office of the Special Master of Labour Tenants and the DALRRD. Labour tenants and occupiers who are victims of a crime must approach the SAPS. Labour tenants and occupiers facing a human rights violation can approach the South African Human Rights Commission,” Sithole explained
Daily Maverick sent questions to the KZN DALRRD on the outcome of the meeting with farm dwellers in May; however we are yet to receive a response. DM
This is Part One of a series of farm violence stories.