The AgriSA announcement came as global and local scrutiny of farm attacks reached new highs following a seminar and protest action in Washington DC that commemorated the deaths of more than 3 000 South African farmers. AgriSA pointedly did not support that commemoration and published media critical of it.

In a statement published on Wednesday, the union said it would instead be partnering with the Institute for Security Studies (ISS) to address divergent data and analysis of farm attacks in order to produce “reliable information” and improve relations with the state.

South Africa’s analysis of farm killings data is indeed divergent – one camp denies the seriousness of the problem and says that what attacks take place are just routine robberies and that farmers are at no greater risk than anyone else, while the other camp says farmers face a unique degree of risk and that this arises from political underpinnings.

The trouble is that the ISS produces the data that the state relies on to deny the seriousness of the problem. Take, for example, these extracts from a recent ISS report, which states that there is “no evidence of orchestrated campaigns against white farmers” and that farm killings represent just “0.2% of all murders”.

That is very misleading. The record is clear that there was an orchestrated historical campaign to attack farmers and that after 1994 the party that drove that campaign, the African National Congress, shut down the specialised units that investigated such crimes, closed the commandos that protected rural areas, sabotaged the police reservist system that was due to replace them, while producing the most vile propaganda that farmers abused their workers, refused to pay minimum wages, refused to share their land, and that farmers would have to be dispossessed for South Africa to be stable.

The purpose of propaganda of that nature is stigmatisation, and stigmatisation is the oldest revolutionary tactic to shape a climate of opinion in which the targeted group becomes more likely to be attacked. An “orchestrated campaign against farmers” does not therefore require evidence that an attacker was sent by a politician to murder a farmer or that a political slogan was left at the crime scene; it requires only that an environment was created in which those attacks became more likely. And on this, the evidence is so overwhelming that it can only be dismissed by intentional evasion.

As for the 0.2% figure, the data produced by this newspaper, using the most conservative metrics, has shown that, on a per-household basis, farmers are considerably more likely to be attacked than the balance of the population and that such attacks are considerably more likely to end in murder. But AgriSA has itself come to adopt the 0.2% figure in its critique of activists seeking to draw attention to the crisis of farm attacks.

In its statement, AgriSA stressed the independence of the ISS. But that is only partly true. The business model of the ISS is to draw vast grants from foreign governments, mostly in Europe, and left-wing global foundations, in order to finance projects it conducts in cooperation with African actors and governments. The incentive is therefore very much to stay onside with Africa’s governments and that of South Africa in particular.

One such project relates to civilian gun control and has seen the ISS become a strong ally of South Africa’s government in efforts at civilian disarmament – a direct threat to the safety of isolated farming communities. It has even partnered with Gun Free South Africa, which advocates for complete civilian disarmament.

Why would an agricultural union do this?

Before answering that, understand that there is precedent for AgriSA siding with the state against the interests of South Africa’s farmers.

In 2019, for example, Gabriel Crouse, an analyst at the Institute of Race Relations, exposed that senior figures in the AgriSA leadership had contemplated negotiating with the government for small family farmers to be expropriated in exchange for protecting mega-corporate farmers. The ensuing scandal and public pressure forced AgriSA to back off on that idea.

During the recent foot and mouth disease (FMD) crisis, AgriSA distanced itself from legal action brought by the Southern African Agri Initiative, Sakeliga, and Free State Agriculture to force the government into allowing the private sourcing of vaccines. At the time many of the again mega-corporate agriculture actors already had priority access to vaccines. Despite AgriSA backing the government, that action succeeded and paved the way for the axing of the agriculture minister, John Steenhuisen, which in turn led to the revision of government policy to allow private sourcing, something that has saved the livelihoods of thousands of farmers.

Why, then, would an agricultural union keep siding with the state on major policy issues and against the interests of farmers?

The reason is that there is a difference between being an agricultural union and being a farmers’ union. The members of AgriSA include large corporations, banks, massive industrial-scale mega-corporate agricultural producers, and then smaller operators that society would typically think of as “farmers”. The interests of the former three groups and the fourth group do not easily align, and indeed the interests are often in opposition. The large corporate actors try to lend and supply farmers at the highest possible price while procuring from them at the lowest possible price. And if a small farmer goes under, that does not really matter, as a large mega-corporate actor can simply take them over. Think of it as Walmart versus the corner grocery store.

The former three groups have significant funds, influence, and political connections that dwarf those of the farmers themselves, and are therefore able to set the agenda and priorities of the union, which often, as is the case for large corporations anywhere, have the particular focus on allying as closely as possible with the state.

But the farmers have one powerful asset that they must learn to use. They have the numbers in their affiliate unions to sway the balance of power within the union, which has turned too far in favour of mega-corporate interests and needs to be reset more in favour of farmers themselves.