Most South Africans who live in towns and cities have never spent a night on a remote farm. They see the drought or the floods on the news, nod sympathetically, and move on. But do they have any idea what farmers and their families actually live with every single day?It is not just the weather.It is waking up at 3 a.m. because the dogs are barking and not knowing if it is a jackal… or five men with AK-47s who have come to torture you for the safe key that doesn’t even exist.It is teaching your eight-year-old how to send a panic signal on the radio before he can properly ride a bicycle. It is kissing your wife goodbye in the morning and quietly wondering if you will both be alive at sunset.
It is spending millions on electric fences, armed response, cameras and safe rooms while the government tells you food security is a “national priority” – yet does almost nothing to stop the murders.It is watching the same government demand a “master plan” for agriculture and bigger production figures to impress economists, while farmers are being killed, maimed and driven off their land.
And right now, while foot-and-mouth disease is ripping through herds again, the state veterinary services and many in the corporate world have one thing on their minds: Christmas holidays. Vaccines are late, movement bans are chaotic, and the crisis is costing the country billions – but the beaches are calling.Farmers are expected to feed a nation that barely notices when another farmer is butchered.
It’s the season of back-slaps and photo ops. The silos are bursting, exports are soaring, and the government is quick to hail South African farmers for another stellar production year. The President might even tweet a sunny graphic about “food security triumphs.” And SARS? They’re already knocking on the door, ready to scoop up every rand of income tax from those hard-won profits.But let’s drop the applause for a moment. While politicians pat themselves on the back for “enabling” this bounty, they’re busy piling on the very barriers that make farming feel like pushing a boulder uphill – in a hailstorm.
Take the new Water Act amendments, looming like a storm cloud over 2026. What was once straightforward access to the streams and boreholes that have sustained farms for generations is about to become a bureaucratic nightmare. Stricter allocations, bans on private water trading, mandatory 32-metre buffer zones around “source areas,” and a “use it or lose it” clause that could slash unused rights – all in the name of equity and sustainability.
The government’s draft Firearms Amendment Bill – branded “reckless and dangerous” by everyone from gun owners’ associations to the DA – is a direct assault on rural self-reliance. Law-abiding citizens, especially isolated farm families, face “exceptional circumstances” hurdles just to renew a self-defence licence. Prove past attacks, geographic vulnerability, or a lack of alternatives? While criminals roam with unregulated arsenals, farmers will be left debating whether to arm themselves with pitchforks or prayers. In a country where farm murders remain a grim statistic – over 50 this year alone – disarming the vulnerable isn’t protection; it’s provocation.
Lurking beneath it all, like that persistent nail in your boot that you can’t quite dislodge, is BEE. Black Economic Empowerment was meant to level the playing field, but two decades on, it’s often a compliance quagmire that squeezes margins and scares off investment. Mandatory equity deals, procurement hurdles, and skills-transfer mandates sound progressive – until you’re a mid-sized farmer trying to keep the lights on amid soaring input costs and volatile markets. It’s the policy that never quite fits the farm, turning every expansion or partnership into a legal minefield. Farmers aren’t opposed to transformation; they want it done right, without the endless audits that reward paperwork over production.
They are expected to increase production while they are under siege.They are expected to trust a government that cannot – or will not – protect them.Until South Africans who live behind high walls in the suburbs and cities truly understand that food does not magically appear on Shoprite shelves, that it is produced by men and women who live under constant threat, nothing will change.Next time you buy a litre of milk or a loaf of bread, spare a thought for the family who risked their lives to make it possible – and ask yourself whether your government is doing anywhere near enough to keep them alive.Because without farmers, there is no food.
It’s time for real support, not rhetoric. Streamline the Water Act to protect farmers, not punish them. Scrap the firearms overreach and focus on catching criminals. Reform BEE to empower without exhausting. And when the harvest praise rolls in next year, make sure it comes with policies that actually help sow the seeds.Farmers aren’t asking for handouts. They’re asking for a fair fight. Give it to them – before the praise turns to panic.
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