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Woensdag, 2 September 2026 | Tel: 021 910 6500 | e-pos: nuus@tygerburger.co.za | Website: www.tygerburger.co.za
INFRASTRUCTURE STRIPPED AND PRODUCE ILLEGALLY HARVESTED BY BAKKIELOADS
Farmers under siege LAUREN O’CONNOR-MAY AND BRENDEN RUITER armers in the Philippi Horticultural Area (PHA) feel they are under siege. Theft on farms — from carrots to cables — is causing severe financial losses, and several of the smaller farms in the province’s bread basket have already been forced to close. Security is also costing farmers not only a small fortune but the loss of their guards’ lives. The farmers say the problem affects more than just the immediate area because they supply markets all over the country. The continued losses cause not only a rise in prices in the short term but may cause more farmers to leave, which could upend the city’s fresh produce economy in the long term.
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NOT HUNGER THEFT Gunther Rix, AfriForum’s head of security for the PHA, said theft was a regular occurrence. Part of the problem, he said, was the difficulty in laying charges. “When they lay a charge at the Philippi police, it is always difficult to open the case because they must prove it’s their crop,” he said. Rix, who is also the chairperson of AfriForum’s Farm Guard, said an influx of jobless people had changed the nature of
theft in the area. “When I was younger, we used to joke that you plant extra for the person that comes to take something for the house,” he said. “In the last 10 to 15 years it turned into a business for people to steal your produce to sell it.” “They are taking away your economic viability,” he said. “Every evening’s theft adds up to lots of money.”
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stealing because they’re hungry,” he said.
Illegally occupied derelict houses on the public farmland drives a lot of of the thefts on the farms.
SMALLHOLDINGS CLOSE AFTER STRING OF DEBILITATING THEFTS Gunther Engelke, who farms flowers in Schaapkraal and is chair of the Philippi Farmers Association, said the thieves were harvesting.
COUNTING THE COST Engelke estimated that on a single farm, a minimum of R1 000 worth of produce was stolen every night, amounting to R30 000 a month. “The flowers they stole, it just takes three or four arms full and they’ve stolen R2 000 worth of flowers,” he said. Rix said pumps and cables were broken, causing hundreds of thousands of rands worth of damage. “You can’t employ enough security to look after your product and your infrastructure to make it viable,” he said. Engelke said he had ripped up all the electricity on his farm that he had used in his tunnels for lighting and irrigation because the theft was so bad. “You can’t think into the future,” he said. “You’ve got to think in survival mode.”
“They come with a bakkie, they put teams in. They’ve got 8 to 10 people harvesting a bakkie load.” Johan Terblanche, who has been farming in Schaapkraal for more than 60 years, said the surge in theft over the last 10 years had become debilitating, with single thefts at boreholes and water pumps sometimes costing more than R100 000. “That’s not someone that’s
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A FAILING JUSTICE SYSTEM Rix said farmers struggled to get cases through the justice system. “The court will say the suspect stole R500 worth of produce, but what they don’t know is that it’s not the first time,” he said. TO PAGE 3
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