Farm Workers March on Parliament to Demand Public Land for Housing

About 150 farm workers marched to Parliament in Cape Town on Thursday, calling on Public Works Minister Dean Macpherson to release public land for housing and for redistribution to farm workers.

They chanted "resistance everywhere, all the time" and carried placards reading "We want land for housing" and "We want justice" as they walked through Hanover Street, according to GroundUp.

The march followed the three-day National Farm Worker Platform, hosted by the Women on Farms Project (WFP). About 15 farm worker organisations from across South Africa participated, including the Casual Workers Advice Office, the Rural Women's Assembly and unions representing farm workers, with officials from the departments of employment and labour, and land reform and rural development also attending.

The event ended with the march, where the organisations called for an urgent meeting with Macpherson and for public land to be redistributed to "farm workers and farm dwellers who have often lived and worked on the land for generations". Farm workers want public land released for women small-scale farmers and to be used to house farm workers.

In their memorandum, the groups said limited access to land remains a major contributing factor to the inhumane conditions experienced by many families living and working in farming communities.

Carmen Louw, WFP co-director, said the organisation had seen an increase in evictions in the Stellenbosch area, and that it wants people who work and live on farms to have access to housing and land to grow food for their families. Engela van Schalkwyk, who lives on a farm in De Doorns, said her mother lived and worked on a farm for nearly 60 years and had to leave the farm and the home she had lived in her whole life when she retired. Public Works did not send a representative to receive the memorandum or respond to GroundUp's questions by the time of publication.