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Disasters like COVID-19, droughts and fires do not discriminate on the basis of heredity or skin color, SAAI says.
- The Western Cape agriculture minister has rejected a racially-based Covid-19 support ad targeting farmers and agribusinesses.
- The announcement was placed by the Cape Agency for Integrated Sustainable Development in Rural Areas.
- It is the public entity that will administer the Covid-19 relief.
The Western Cape government has rejected Covid-19’s racial support for farmers and agribusinesses, the provincial agriculture minister said Thursday.
This comes after family farmers organization SAAI issued a statement on Wednesday to say it is “shocked and condemns the blatant racial discrimination in the Western Cape provincial government’s Covid-19 disaster assistance that will only be allocated to farmers. blacks. “
Disaster assistance will be administered by the Cape Agency for Integrated Sustainable Development in Rural Areas (CASIDRA), a public entity in the Western Cape. CASIDRA recently posted an ad that used race as a qualifying criterion for government support of Covid-19. SAAI has indicated that it plans a campaign to enforce non-racial principles at all levels of the civil service.
According to Meyer, the Western Cape Department of Agriculture does not endorse the announcement. Therefore, you have instructed CASIDRA to remove the advertisement and apologize to the farmers and agricultural sector in the Western Cape.
In his view, during the pandemic it became clear that farmers and agricultural workers play a critical role in food security and humanitarian relief efforts and that agriculture is leading South Africa’s economic recovery.
“Farmers and the agricultural sector need political security and government support without any racial classification. The Western Cape Department of Agriculture rejects the use of criteria based on race. The Western Cape Department of Agriculture believes that government assistance to farmers it should be based on needs and not based on breed, “Meyer said.
“We must respect the contribution of all farmers in South Africa, regardless of their race. Covid-19 support should help all farmers, because all farmers are critical to food security in South Africa.”
According to SAAI, the government’s Covid-19 regulations crippled the wine industry for 20 weeks, plunged hundreds of family farms into a financial crisis, and left more farm workers without jobs and income. SAAI members are family farmers of all sizes and races, he says.
“Disasters like Covid-19, droughts and fires do not discriminate on the basis of heredity or skin color,” he says.
