{"id":169989,"date":"2020-10-25T15:07:13","date_gmt":"2020-10-25T13:07:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/article\/the-farmers-are-coming-protesters-march-to-parliament\/"},"modified":"2020-10-25T15:07:13","modified_gmt":"2020-10-25T13:07:13","slug":"the-farmers-are-coming-protesters-march-to-parliament","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/the-farmers-are-coming-protesters-march-to-parliament\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cThe farmers are coming!\u201d protesters march to Parliament"},"content":{"rendered":"
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About 300 farmers and supporters gathered outside Parliament to protest against farm attacks. Photo: Ashraf Hendricks<\/p>\n

About 300 farmers and supporters gathered outside Parliament on Sunday morning to protest against farm murders and farm fires. Holding white crosses, a group marched to Parliament chanting \u201cdie boere kom! (the farmers are coming!)\u201d while others arrived on motorcycles and their vehicles. In July a similar protest<\/a> took place.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe farmers are the reason why we have bread and butter. Why we have food. Why we have meat. They are the heart and soul of the country,\u201d said Justin Taylor, a supporter who arrived on a motorbike. He said he was there to make a stand against farm murders. Taylor said more policing and patrolling were needed. The government was focusing on gangsterism and train sabotage but \u201cwe haven\u2019t seen any law enforcement acts in the farmland\u201d, he said.<\/p>\n

According to AfriForum<\/a>, there were an estimated 57 farm murders in 2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cFarmers are living in fear in our country,\u201d said Ivan Meyer, Western Cape MEC for Agriculture. Speaking to the crowd, he said agriculture played a significant role in South Africa\u2019s economy, and \u201can attack on a farmer or a farm worker is an attack on the economy of South Africa\u201d. Meyer said President Cyril Ramaphosa should be concerned about farm attacks \u201cbecause a farm murder in South Africa compromises food security and political stability on the African continent\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur hearts are bleeding,\u201d he said. \u201cMr President, stop farm attacks in South Africa right now!\u201d<\/p>\n

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Benjamin Botha said he was there to protest against farm murders, gender-based violence and gangsterism. Botha, who lives on a farm in the Northern Cape, said he personally had not been affected by crime, but his neighbours had. Photo: Ashraf Hendricks<\/p>\n

Jannie Meyer, convener of the protest, said, \u201cI want people to take us seriously. We are not here to fight. I want the President and all the heads of political parties to understand that we must unite, come together and solve this problem amicably\u201d. He said he was not part of any organisation but he wanted the government to treat farm murders, farm fires and threats as \u201cpriority crimes\u201d.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u00a9 2020 GroundUp. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License<\/a>.<\/p>\n

You may republish this article, so long as you credit the authors and GroundUp, and do not change the text. Please include a link back to the original article.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Source: GroundUp<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

About 300 farmers and supporters gathered outside Parliament to protest against farm attacks. Photo: Ashraf Hendricks About 300 farmers and supporters gathered outside Parliament on Sunday morning to protest against farm murders and farm fires. Holding white crosses, a group marched to Parliament chanting \u201cdie boere kom! (the farmers are coming!)\u201d while others arrived on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":169990,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9928],"tags":[28001],"class_list":{"0":"post-169989","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-groundup","8":"tag-groundup","9":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/the-farmers-are-coming-protesters-march-to-parliament.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169989","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=169989"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169989\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/169990"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=169989"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=169989"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=169989"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}