Black commercial farmers in Limpopo have raised concerns over what they perceive as racial discrimination affecting their access to export markets. These farmers claim that despite adhering to market standards, their produce is not given the same consideration as that of their white counterparts.
Themba Ngwenya, a citrus farmer from Musina, highlighted the necessity of belonging to specific farmers' associations to facilitate exports, a process he finds hindered by bureaucratic obstacles. "It's sad because we are using the same production inputs, costing per hectare, fertilizers, and water but as black farmers, we face challenges to market access, you need someone with the proper brand to be able to take your fruit to the proper destination and export is the biggest challenges. Regarding the pricing, it is bad even though we are all using the same resources to produce the very same crop. Our challenge comes when we must get the actual returns which as the same as the other producers, so we had to get like 4000 whereas other people are getting 6000 per ton."
Ndivhuwo Ndou, a Bonsmara cattle farmer near Louis Trichardt, expressed similar frustrations regarding market segregation, which limits access for black farmers to certain markets and auctions, often resulting in lower sales prices or outright rejection. "One of the biggest challenges that we face is market segregation whereby you'll find that there are certain markets for few people and few breeders. When we try and penetrate them it's very difficult, they will want you to be part of a society, then when you become part of the society, you have to maintain that, the cost of doing that it's so exhibiting that it's so hard for black people to get into that market and maintain it."
Conversely, Bennie van Zyl of the Transvaal Agricultural Union attributes the rejection of produce to failure in meeting necessary standards, stating, "The market forces are quite interesting, it works very discriminately against those that do not produce. So if you produce not enough or the quality is not in place then the market forces at the end of the day will make decisions to throw you up from the market."
Source: SABC