Shared Interest News

Dear Friends of Shared Interest,

During the coming months, while continuing to guarantee micro-finance and low-cost housing initiatives, Shared Interest and its partner, Thembani, are turning increasing attention to a black farmers seeking our guarantees. Their projects are important not only to our work but to the success of South Africa’s transition to economic democracy. Although agriculture only constitutes 3.8% of South Africa’s gross domestic product, it utilizes most of the country’s land, and engages the labor power of 20 million of the country’s most impoverished people. The government hopes to meet its 2008 deadline for completing land restitution. Gauteng Province has fewer than 100 remaining claims, while the most challenged province, KwaZulu-Natal, has 1,700.

Some communities are setting dramatic precedents for success. In Richtersveld, for example, 4,000 members are preparing for the settlement of their eight year-old claim (which acknowledges that their ancestral land was taken from them during apartheid and mined for its very plentiful diamonds).

For most emerging farmers, land restitution — although a tremendous achievement — is only the first step. The next challenge is to survive on the new holdings and develop land-based livelihoods. Many government programs have fallen short of creating an enabling environment for small-scale production. In Limpopo Province, for example, 60 percent of black farmers living on land returned to them through land restitution are reported to have failed. In some cases, the government has even begun to lease the land back to white farmers. In this context, it is critically important to provide new black farmers with the technical, managerial and financial support to succeed.

Sincerely,

Donna Katzin
Executive Director, Shared Interest

P.S. The following article from our Fall Newsletter, about a new trout farming cooperative set up by a group of farm laborers, shows one example of the kind of project we are already supporting. The full In Focus newsletter, along with earlier Shared Interest newsletters and annual reports, is available on our website at http://www.sharedinterest.org/publications.html.

Trout Farming: Hands On!

In Franschhoek, in the Western Cape, where there are virtually no black farmers, Andreis uld Westhuizen, Marthinus Fortuin and Jonathan Julies are raising trout. For years, they have worked as farm laborers on the same white-owned wine farm that still employs them, and pays them salaries between R350 and R500 a week. But now, despite the fact that they possess no land, they own and operate their business as members of the commercially successful Hands-On Fishing Cooperative. Unable yet to afford land of their own, they use the water in their employer’s irrigation reservoir. In exchange, he receives the fish droppings (which he uses for organic fertilizer) and 25% of the proceeds after the fish are sold to Three Streams, one of the largest trout supply companies in South Africa.

Trained by the Departments of Aquaculture and Science and Technology of the University of Stellenbosch, the three and their colleagues manage a highly sophisticated system to feed the trout from the time they are tiny “fingerlings” until they are full-grown and harvested. They mix and weigh the special blend of nutrients (calculated according to the age and biomass of the fish), and then, three times a day, pull themselves out on their platform to the middle of the reservoirs to deliver the mix to the underwater cages of trout. “We must feed the fish twice a day,” explained Andreis. “If we are working, our families help us. And the behavior of our wives has changed. They never raised fish before, but now, even on a Saturday, they feed the fish before they go shopping.”

The computerized feeding technology is sometimes combined with a more low-tech hands-on approach. “Our greatest risk is the cormorants,” noted Andreis. “Sometimes the birds get through our protective nets.” Jonathan elaborated, “we have to make a lot of noise, and honk our tractor horns if we are driving.” “Other times we use blow guns to scare them away,” added Marthinus.

Although the project began with initial finance from government and local white farmers, it needs more capital to grow to become self-sufficient. A recently approved Shared Interest guarantee on Thembani’s behalf will secure a loan from ABSA Bank to expand the cooperative’s production capacity and scale. “In three years,” Andreis stated proudly, “our project will support itself.”