White male beyond the pale

Changes needed in Western Cape agriculture RAY SMUTS
More than a decade of democracy has come and gone and the South African fruit industry still seems to be predominantly ‘pale male’. There have been a number of black empowerment initiatives buying into agriculture, most notably last year’s R104 million investment by three BEE companies for a 26% stake in Capespan’s subsidiary, Fresh Produce Terminals. Black farmers have also occupied land through land restitution, land redistribution and willing buyer-willing seller initiatives. But many of these initiatives, backed by state-funded institutions - like the LRAD scheme - have simply not reaped the anticipated rewards. Stuart Symington, CEO of the Fresh Produce Exporters’ Forum, points out that whilst 87% of local market agencies on the fresh produce markets are white owned companies, probably 75% or more of fruit consumed in South Africa is by black people. There is somewhat of a market distortion here with white people selling the fruit and black people paying for the fruit, and this needs to be rectified. “We should be aiming to see a more demographic representation in our industry personnel amongst our producer and exporter associations, service provision companies and export houses.” To this end, the FPEF has launched a black empowerment programme called “Top of the Class” (TOC) to teach mostly black people all the aspects of the fruit industry and the export trade chain. TOC programmes are in their third year now, and will be running in 5 provinces accommodating 20 to 25 students per class. “If just 5% of these TOC candidates - including candidates from other industry training initiatives - can then earn their stripes into the ranks of the trade chain over the next few years, it should make a sustainable difference to the demographics of our industry. We need these people to deservingly take senior positions in our industry as well.” Turning to commercial black farming, which has only become a reality within the last decade or so, Symington says he is given to understand that the number of successful stories is small and static. He feels the reasons for the relatively few successful black farmers to date are many. However, the most important reason in his opinion is that farms have been transferred (from white people to black people) without the appropriate transference of the necessary skills that go with farming. “A high work ethic is needed in farming, including a solid understanding of the financial and management aspects of the business – not to mention the technical expertise required in growing crops like fruit. Not surprisingly, there have been a lot of failures on farms that have been labelled BEE initiatives’, says Symington. Symington recalls the plight of a black citrus farmer in the Limpopo province recently in which 30 000 cartons of his citrus fruits were rejected by a UK supermarket for not being EurepGAP compliant (a sectoral standard set for the European market). The marketing side of the business is incredibly tough now, and with prevailing supermarket power, it is a real challenge for anyone to sell his fruit profitably into this segment of the European market. South Africa’s fruit industry consists of about 3 500 deciduous producers, 1 500 citrus producers and about 800 sub-tropical producers.