The Congress of the People (Cope) leader Mosiuoa Lekota has urged the government to develop a new strategy to protect the remaining commercial farmers.
Lekota was speaking during a protest march organised by a group calling itself Toekoms Vonk meaning “Future Spark” to the Union Buildings. He says the country is faced with the possibility of not being able to feed its population if the number of commercial farmers continues to drop due to what he called senseless farm killings.
Lekota says he voluntarily joined and supported the farm killings protest action to protect the food security.
“I felt it was very important that we should support this call for greater security for the remaining farmers; So that our country continues to produce its own food and not to import food from Europe and other parts of the world.
“We inherited a South Africa that had some 158 000 commercial farmers. Since then to now that figure has dropped down – At the moment South Africa has got about 32 000 commercial farmers, which means the production of food has gone down. That we are importing more and more food which is becoming extremely expensive for our poor communities,” says Lekota.
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