BLOG POST: Pandemic Stories: Hopes and fears of Zweli Majozi* an immigrant farmworker

*Not his real names

I spent some time visiting Agriparks and gathering data for my thesis. I have travelled through four provinces and visited several Agriparks. I travel and visit research participant within the restrictions of and follow all Covid-19 protocols. I am also mindful that the participants comply. Agriparks are the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development’s small farmers' incubation programmes, providing support services, economic programmes and infrastructure. Agriparks are mainly located in districts or rural areas that are usually characterised by low income and high unemployment populations. Beneficiaries of Agriparks are predominantly emerging black farmers who constitute the largest proportion of citizens dwelling in former homelands. Agripark farmers and farmworkers alike reminisce their pre-Covid farming experiences, more than they talk about sixteen months under Covid-19 restrictions.

Farmers work for long unscheduled hours with shortened lunch breaks to make up for lost income. They are, however, more concerned about their immigrant co-farmworker abasebenzi (workers), who lost their jobs due to Covid-19 restrictions and suffered the double jeopardy of loss of income and not receiving a state social support grant. I, therefore embarked on an expedition to find an immigrant farmworker willing to share his or her Covid-19 experiences. The name, Zweli Majozi emerged, and I promptly sought after him. Things moved quickly, we agreed on a date and time.

I interviewed the 55-year-old Zweli Majola, at the agreed-upon Agripark. When we met, Zweli was, due to Covid-19, temporarily out of work. He works for a black entrepreneur farmer, farming a one-hectare net-shaded area. Asked what he grows, “it depends on the seasons” he explains, “cabbage, carrots pepper-bell, kale and butternut”. We discussed his decision to leave his home, his experiences, hopes and future dreams. Zweli was a man with huge ambitions and courage. He explained that he and his three other countrymen left Malawi five years ago. He was born into rural poverty in a village growing maze, milking and herding goats for wealthier neighbours. When he arrived in South Africa, he was helped by family and friends to obtain his legal immigrant status. He is renting a backyard shack, sharing the space with other Malawian shack-dwellers, he tells me. His wife joined him later, they have two South African born children. Immigrant families living in the same space often share social responsibilities, especially childcare. He explained, “my friend found me the job at the Agripark, it was at the beginning of the year 2019”. He was excited to talk about his work on the net-shaded farming plots, where he grows cash crops for the farmer. “I’m at peace nurturing seedlings, they are delicate and require attention to thrive,” he says with a smile as wide as the arch over the Moses Mabhida Stadium. I was captivated by his passion for farming and the environment. “I want my own plot” he declared, “I was negotiating with my boss for a sharecropping arrangement that would allow me to produce and have access to the markets”. For this, he had saved money, from his wife’s salary. Then Covid-19 hit, scuppering the plans.

Unverifiable media sources report a surge in migration, with people moving into South Africa to search for greener pastures. Migrants from neighbouring countries tend to find work in South Africa’s most poorly standardised sectors, such as agriculture, and are unionised. The uncertainty accompanying documented immigrant workers’ rights, ambiguity of employment rights, and the skewed power relations between workers and farm-owners remain unattended. Many documented immigrant farmworkers are denied basic rights and protections that their fellow abasebenzi enjoy. They are not protected from unfair labour practices, sectoral minimum wage, no paid leave, and do not have the right to file flexible working hours, among other basic labour rights. The Covid-19 pandemic compounded by the wrecking effects of unsafe working conditions and financial insecurity, has left immigrant farmworkers adversely exposed. The situation is exacerbated by the fact that immigrant farmworkers have no access to state support grants, mainly because they are not legally registered as employees. Amid Covid-19 pandemic devastation, the South African government should back immigrant farmworkers by making its support regime more flexible, argues a labour expert. A grant support system that works fairly should also prohibit such enormous inequalities in working conditions

He fears the long-term impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the farming workforce and hopes social grant policies are revised to include immigrant workers, a viewpoint supported by the labour expert. He and the immigrant community live from hand to mouth, “If Covid-19 continue like this, where will we be?” He wonders. “Everybody is facing loss and financial ruin.” Something must be done, I think to myself. Albeit the despair, he remains optimistic. Immigrant farmworkers rights to live life without fear and discrimination are the basis of inclusive and democratic societies.

My name is Zakes Hlatshwayo a PhD candidate in the Human Economy Programme at the University of Pretoria. My PhD research and current areas of work focus on agrarian change in South Africa and the role of the state in this from the perspective of the landless poor. I’m exploring practises of emerging farmers and how the state supports them. I’m part of the UP Team researching the Impact of Covid-19 on Food Systems.

I intend to use this blog to tell pandemic stories about farmers, especially black farmers and workers, as frontline traders, their struggles for recognition or exemption as essential service providers, about serving people and serving society. A run of short interviews will tell the stories of the Covid-19 crisis from the perspective of black frontline farmers and workers, to ensure their contribution to society and saving life is not erased after lockdown. I opted to provide a lot of space to what they said, where the interviewees’ words provide the text of the storylines, to get the story straight from the farmers and workers themselves.

I mean to engage with issues and accounts that really reflect their reality of daily life and experiences. Hopefully, brings vision, narrative and a breadth of experience, which will lead positive change and take the farming sector to a different development path.