Imagine hearing a knock on your door in the middle of the night. A crowd of people tell you to collect your belongings and vacate the premises. They tell you that your land and everything on it belongs to them now.
Such invasions have been happening in South Africa, and for over 4,000 white farmers, they have been deadly. White farmers are regularly attacked and even killed as frenzied blacks illegally take the land they believe rightfully belongs to them. On January 23, the government made these land grabs legal. Now those knocking on the door might be backed by the full weight of the South African government.
Despite the all-too-common farm attacks, South Africa had operated on a “willing buyer, willing seller” basis since 1975. But the new Expropriation Act, signed into law by President Ramaphosa, allows for the expropriation of any property—land, cash, movable property or corporate shares—without compensation. Vincent Magwenya, the president’s spokesperson, said that under the law, the state “may not expropriate property arbitrarily or for a purpose other than … in the public interest.”
Who determines whether a land grab is in the public interest? The South African government. If the land has been abandoned, underutilized or is used for purely speculative purposes, the government can grab the land. If it decides building on the property would cost more than the property is worth, it can grab the land. This law gives the minister of public works and infrastructure the power to expropriate any piece of land on behalf of the state, without compensation. All the government has to do is arbitrarily justify it .
According to South African journalist Robert Duigan, the Expropriation Act simply continues on a discriminatory foundation:
The Constitution already provides that discrimination is legal, so long as it is “fair,” and fairness is defined precisely on the grounds of race in this country, and has been for some time, provided the race of the person being discriminated against is white.
This law is state-sanctioned racism.
If a white family “abandons” their land because they were attacked, then the state can take it away. And if the family takes it to court, there is a new court system exclusively for expropriation without compensation. This leaves only the supreme and constitutional courts for those wishing to appeal. But this is only after the land has already been taken and requires massive legal fees. To top it off, the judges of these courts will be immune from prosecution or legal summons, except on charges of domestic violence. This means they can be bought for any price, by anyone, to steal any land in South Africa. In one fell swoop, the right to owning property in South Africa is essentially moot. This is the same type of behavior that destroyed Zimbabwe’s economy.
South Africa’s successful white farmers are already on edge because of the violent farm attacks that have killed over 4,000 farmers. Knowing that the state itself is now openly coming after them might trigger a mass exodus before their land is stolen from them.
In 1994, when Nelson Mandela became South Africa’s president, the world cheered for communism tidily dressed up as democracy. Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry said at the time, “South Africa is the first of the Anglo-Saxon nations to give away its God-given birthright.” The Trumpet wrote in 1997, “Disaster looms huge on the horizon of South Africa, as godless communism has its day bringing an [African National Congress]-dominated government to power with the apparent full endorsement of Western society!” As Herbert W. Armstrong proved in
The United States and Britain in Prophecy
, the Dutch, British and Irish South Africans are also descendants of the nation of Israel, a nation with a special relationship with God. But they have forgotten God and have given away their birthright. They gave South Africa up to communism and its consequent policies, such as this new Expropriation Law. South Africa is falling apart. It’s only the “first of the Anglo-Saxon nations” to do so, and it’s a strong warning to the rest of the Anglo-Saxon world.
“[We] are witnessing the fall of South Africa as a prelude to the accelerating descent of the United States and of the once great British company of nations,” our e-book
states. “South Africa is the first major domino to fall in what will become a free fall into slavery of those once mightiest nations on Earth!”
South Africa is a semi-arid country with a weak resource base for agriculture which is also threatened by climate change and sporadic droughts. Through the adoption of modern technology, increased productivity growth and new export markets, South African commercial agriculture has shown dramatic growth over the last three decades. At the same time, the sector continues to be characterized by an extreme dualism between predominantly white commercial farmers and mainly black smallholder farmers, and many failed efforts to grow the sector in a transformed manner. As a result, the country still has ‘two agricultures’. Persistent myths about farmland statistics and the structure of commercial agriculture in South Africa skew debates.
When the newly elected Mandela entered South Africa’s parliamentary chamber on May 10, 1994, he was announced by a bare-chested tribal imbongi shouting tributes to his accomplishments. He told the world, “We enter into a covenant that we shall build the society in which all South Africans, both black and white, will be able to walk tall, without any fear in their hearts, assured of their inalienable right to human dignity—a rainbow nation at peace with itself and the world.” Much of the world’s media followed the example of the imbongi and praised Mandela as a moral giant whose strength and sacrifice changed the entire world.
Almost 30 years ago, Nelson Mandela replaced Frederik Willem de Klerk in an election that astonished the world. Both men shared a Nobel Peace Prize for their work ending racial segregation in South Africa. Now both men are dead. In fact, the death of De Klerk on Nov. 11, 2021, prompted many South Africans to look back on their history and wonder what went wrong.
Now two generations have passed. The promise of a peaceful and prosperous South Africa remains hauntingly empty. Instead, rampant corruption has damaged the economy and people’s trust in the government. Unemployment rate is one of the highest damaging the future of young generations. Rolling blackouts have left millions without power. The murder rate is the world’s highest outside of Latin America’s worst drug-producing regions. Rioters and looters plague the nation’s cities, while black terrorists drive white farmers from their land. Black politicians sing racist songs like “Awuleth’ Umshini Wami” (Bring My Machine Gun) and “Dubul’ ibhulu” (Kill the Boer).
The South African Communist plague
Like Australia, Canada, Great Britain, New Zealand and the United States, South Africa is a unique nation descended from the lost 10 tribes of ancient Israel. Its recorded history began 370 years ago when Dutch navigator Jan van Riebeeck established a small colony on the Cape of Good Hope. Since the summer crops grown by Bantu tribes farther north do not grow at the southern part of the continent, much of the region was unpopulated. The pioneering Dutch were later joined by German and French Huguenot immigrants who came to farm the land.
Like the Pilgrims who settled America, the Afrikaners often compared themselves to the children of Israel. Some might have even understood that they were literally descendants of the biblical patriarch named Israel. In 1590, the French Huguenot magistrate M. le Loyer described an Israelite genealogy for the British people in The Ten Lost Tribes. In 1700, Dutch historian Mattheus Smallegange outlined an Israelite genealogy for the Frisian and Dutch people in The New Chronicles of Zeeland. Whether or not they understood their heritage, it is clear that Afrikaners tried to base their laws on the Bible and put their faith in God for protection.
When the English took control of the Cape in 1806, Afrikaners began trekking into South Africa’s rugged interior. There they met Bantu tribes migrating south from their homeland in what is now Zimbabwe. Many were fleeing the Zulu Empire and the Nguni, who were slaughtering millions in the indigenous communities: Hlubi, Mfengu, Ndebele, Ngwane, Soshangane, Xhosa, Zwangendaba and many smaller tribes. The Afrikaners sent emissaries to seek peace, but the Zulu king ordered them clubbed to death.
The resulting war with the Zulus motivated the Afrikaners to make a covenant with God. On Dec. 16, 1838, prior to the Battle of Blood River, the Afrikaners promised to build a church and forever honor the anniversary of the battle as a special sabbath if God would save them from slaughter. The battle was joined, and 470 Afrikaners defeated 20,000 Zulu warriors. God had honored their prayers, and the Afrikaners honored their promise. They made December 16 their most important memorial of the year: The Day of the Covenant. The following 64 years were a rich history of progress and prosperity. Afrikaners formed two Dutch republics: the Transvaal and the Orange Free State. Meanwhile, British prospectors began moving into the interior looking for diamonds, gold and other resources. A series of wars between the British and the Afrikaners eventually culminated with The South Africa Act 1909, which merged the various states in the region into the Union of South Africa.
As a dominion of the British Empire, the Union of South Africa safeguarded trade routes to India and acted as the storehouse of the free world. At its peak, this union accounted for 4 percent of Africa’s landmass, 5 percent of Africa’s population, 20 percent of Africa’s agricultural output, 25 percent of Africa’s gross domestic product, 50 percent of Africa’s electricity and 60 percent of Africa’s industrial production. By the middle of the 20th century, South Africa was producing vast amounts of antimony, chrome, chromium, diamonds, fluorite, gold, manganese, nickel, platinum, titanium, uranium, vanadium and vermiculite for the British Empire. These minerals and metals help build the dominance of the English-speaking peoples. But this dominance made South Africa a target for the Soviet Union. The Soviets knew that if they could infiltrate South African politics and seize control of the nation, they could deprive the industrialized West of its crucial supply of minerals. So they established a Communist party in South Africa and went to work.
Communist Onslaught
In the decades after World War I, South Africans increasingly departed from biblical values and moral restraints, as did the peoples of other modern nations of Israel. They adopted a liberal, anything-goes approach. In South Africa, moral decline created fertile soil for communism. In the 1920s, the South African Communist Party started trying to lure white miners away from the traditional biblical values and toward the atheistic values of communism. After the government banned the Communist Party, many South African Communists abandoned the strategy and instead started seeking converts among South Africa’s black population. The South African government blocked nonwhites from voting because the majority of the Khoisan and Bantu peoples in the region still practiced the values of their tribal cultures. Granting universal suffrage would blot out what remained of the Judeo-Christian principles that the European settlers of South Africa believed in.
In 1961, South Africa became a republic and replaced Queen Elizabeth II as their head of state. But the government retained its colonial-era policy of denying blacks the vote while simultaneously pouring money into the economic development of various black national homelands in an attempt to prepare them for independence. French author Paul Giniewski referred to the development of South Africa’s homelands as the most ambitious economic program devised for uplifting a developing people. Yet the industrialization of South Africa drew away millions of unemployed blacks from their tribal lands into major cities looking for employment, impairing this program and exacerbating the cultural clash between blacks and whites. A new generation of radical leaders mobilized the bitterness of black workers to create a terrorist cell called Umkhonto we Sizwe (“Spear of the Nation”). Its mission was to fight against the government, and toward that end it committed dozens of brutal terrorist attacks. Nelson Mandela was a terrorist and a member of the South African Communist Party Central Committee. He was eventually arrested for his role in bombing dozens of railways and petrol stations. But his imprisonment did not stop the Communist-inspired violence.
The Soviets and the Cubans supplied money and weapons to other South African terrorists in an attempt to aggravate tensions between blacks and whites. Their strategy was to spark a race war, seize control of the country, and establish a Soviet-led cartel to control 60 percent of the world’s diamonds, 75 percent of the world’s manganese, 80 percent of the world’s gold and 90 percent of the world’s platinum. The threat of Communist domination was why the South African government thought it more prudent to fund the development of black homelands rather than surrender to the African National Congress (ANC).
Shameful Handover
President F.W. de Klerk shocked the world when he released Mandela from prison in 1990, but African National Congress attacks were becoming so common that many feared race war. After the Soviet Union collapsed, President de Klerk appeased black South Africans by releasing a number of Communist prisoners and called his cabinet together to debate legalizing the anc. Many opposed his plans, but de Klerk legalized all banned political parties, including the Communist Party, and released Mandela unconditionally.
Mandela toured South Africa, giving speeches about peace and reconciliation, but made it clear that the African National Congress would continue its armed struggle if the government continued to withhold the right to vote from the black majority. The government agreed to negotiate and announced elections for April 1994, in which citizens of all races could vote for any political party. Mandela formed an alliance between the African National Congress, the South African Communist Party and the Congress of South African Trade Unions. These three parties received 63 percent of the vote, and Mandela was sworn in as the first black president in South Africa. The world rejoiced at the triumph of democracy in South Africa. Both Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Mandela dubbed post-apartheid South Africa as “a rainbow nation at peace with itself and the world.” Mandela filled his key cabinet posts with members of the Communist Party
South Africa is now a member of the BRICS alliance and Russian efforts to control South Africa’s mineral wealth have largely been successful. Current South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has appointed several Communist Party members to his cabinet. These Communists have been discussing an amendment to the South African Constitution to permit the seizure of white-owned land without compensation. This comes after at least 4,000 white farmers have been killed in a deliberate attempt to drive whites from their land. Now South Africa stands on the verge of a civil war that could kill or drive out the remaining white population and transform the nation into the world’s next Cuba, Venezuela or Zimbabwe. The first nation built on the anti-white principles of critical race theory is now a failed state and easy prey.
Land Reform or Land Grab
In 1994 post-Apartheid South Africa, white farmers owned 77.580 million hectares of farmland out of the total surface area of 122 million hectares. The new government set a target of redistributing 30% of this within five years. This target date has been moved several times and is now 2030.According to popular belief between 8% and 10% has been redistributed so far. But as we show below this is incorrect as it omits a number of key statistics.
Only 17%-20% of the 77.58 million ha is suitable for field crop, irrigation and horticultural production. More than 55% of farmland is only ideal for extensive grazing (land that is poor and dry but animals can roam widely, the Karoo being an example), and another 20% for intensive pastures and animal production (land, the KwaZulu-Natal Midlands being an example, that receives good rains and has good pastures for grazing).
This shows that the potential of farm land being used to create full-time sustainable livelihoods is limited. These realities are the basis for our arguments against five standard myths about agriculture and land in South Africa.
Myth 1: 40,000 white farmers own 80% of all South Africa’s land
The number of 40,122 commercial farmers is widely quoted as the total number of farmers earning a commercial income from farming. The number comes from the 2017 census of commercial agriculture. But the number is flawed.
Firstly, the census only considers farmers who are registered for VAT (for which the the threshold is a turnover of R1 million a year (about US$59 000 today). Adding in two other groups – the number of households involved in commercial farming as their main source of income and those that practice farming as a secondary source of income – the total number of households comes to 242,221. It’s difficult to estimate the “race” of commercial farmers. But, using different data sources including the 2011 population census, the 2017 agricultural census and the 2016 community survey we estimated that most commercial farm enterprises are black owned. And that only 18% of these households are white. Now to the 80% figure. In 1994 white farmers owned 77.58 million ha of freehold land. We estimate that white farmers now own 61 million ha of freehold farmland. This follows the implementation of redistribution and restitution programmes and other transfers of land to the state and black farmers. It still represents 78% of freehold farmland but covers only 50% of the total surface area of South Africa.
Fact: white commercial farmers (around 44,000 farming units) own 61 million ha – 78% of the farmland that comes with private title deeds or 50% of all land in South Africa.
Myth 2: Commercial agriculture is characterised by large-scale white farmers
This myth results from a misinterpretation of the concept of “commercial” and “scale”. Commercial agricultural production indicates production beyond subsistence needs, with some (or a major share) of the total production sold to the market. This usually also involves the purchase of production inputs such as seeds and fertiliser.
But commercial production happens at various levels or “scales of production”. The scale of farming is not determined by land size. Instead it refers to the gross farm income (or turnover) of the farming enterprise. Land size is not a good indication of the scale of the farming operation. For example, a small irrigation farm of 10 ha can deliver millions in turnover while a 10,000 ha extensive grazing farm is unlikely to exceed R1 million in turnover per annum. If we unpack the census of commercial agriculture, commercial farming in South Africa consists largely of small-scale family-based operations. Almost 90% of all VAT-registered commercial farming businesses can be classified as micro – or small-scale enterprises (turnover below R13.5 million). While this is true, it’s also a fact that there are just over 2,600 large farms with turnover on average above R22.5 million per annum. These farms are responsible for 67% of all farm income and employ more than half the agricultural labour force. If we take account of the farms that are not registered for VAT it is evident that 98% of all farming operations in South Africa are small-scale operations.
But, a mistaken leap is made to say that all white commercial farmers are “large-scale” operations, and all black farmers are “small-scale”. In the process, most writers on South African agriculture confuse the “scale of the operation” with the “race” of the operator.
Fact: most white commercial farmers in South Africa are small-scale and family-based operations. Only a small minority (2 600) are large-scale operations. Most of these are owned by white farmers.
Myth 3: Commercial farmers are hoarding land and not selling any farms
It is often argued that white commercial farmers are holding on to their land and not offering it for sale to potential buyers. Deeds office records provide insights into the activity in the farmland market. Between 2013 and 2021, the annual number of farm transactions recorded varied between 2,000 and 4,000. In 2021 2,585 farms were sold and registered to new owners. Most (58%) of these were farms smaller than 300 hectares. Between 2003 and August 2022, the state acquired 2.8 million ha which brings the total area of farm land acquired by the state since 1994 to 3,12 million ha (or 4% of freehold farmland). This suggests that the state is also active in the market.
Fact: The farmland market is active with around 2% of total farmland with private title deeds traded annually.
Myth 4: All black farmers with private title deeds acquired their land through the land reform programme
Deeds records show that since 1994 black South Africans have privately acquired a total of 1.78 million ha of farmland through normal self-financed market transactions. Over the same period the government redistribution programme has assisted beneficiaries to acquire a total of 7.2 million ha of farmland. Thus, for every four hectares transferred by the State to black South Africans, private transactions contributed another one hectare to the process.
Fact: Black farmers have acquired almost 2 million ha of farmland (2,3% of total freehold farmland) on their own without any assistance from the state sponsored land redistribution programme.
Myth 5: South Africa has only redistributed 8% of farmland to black people
The debate on the expropriation of land is largely driven by the myth that white farmers are hoarding land and are inflating prices, and therefore, it is impossible to remove the racially skewed land ownership patterns in South Africa. These arguments typically ignore the statistics on the land market and the fact that black South Africans have been acquiring farmland on their own. These arguments also conveniently ignore other factors, such as bureaucratic inefficiences, patronage and corruption – that have slowed down land reform.
In addition, the incorrect presentation of the progress with the land reform process is also maliciously used to inflate the argument for expropriation. If South Africans are true to themselves and correctly report the statistics, then they will be much closer to the 30% target.
Fact: Taking account of all the pillars of the land reform programme, it is estimated that 24% of all farmland has been redistributed or land rights have been restored. This is close to the 30% target, which could be reached by 2030.
South Africa’s agriculture remains an important sector of the economy and holds great potential to reduce poverty. It’s also central to the political economy of the country, as evident in the governing African National Congress’s (ANC) recent policy documents. The ANC acknowledges that agriculture holds the potential to uplift many poor South Africans out of poverty through increased food production, vibrant economic activity, and job creation. This is not a misplaced view. There is compelling evidence that, on average, growth in agriculture is more poverty-reducing than an equivalent amount of growth outside agriculture. This brings home the need to invest in and expand agricultural production, particularly for the benefit of poor rural communities. This is a view that many have held since the publication of South Africa’s National Development Plan in 2012. The plan argued for the expansion of agricultural production and agro-processing and held up the prospect of nearly a million jobs that could be created. But year after year, challenges have distracted the country from its agricultural expansion goals.
When the African National Congress came to power in South Africa in 1994, an expressed priority was land reform. This was to address the fact that black farmers had been excluded from the agricultural economy for most of the 20th century. The aim of land reform was to provide agricultural land to disadvantaged people, raising their productivity, income and employment.
A plethora of policy initiatives were launched. The target was to distribute 30% of agricultural land to black farmers. In 2006 the Proactive Land Acquisition Strategy (PLAS) was adopted. This replaced the land redistribution programmes implemented between 1996 and 2006. The acquisition programme involved the government buying farmland previously owned by white farmers and redistributing it to black farmers.
But, overall, it’s become clear that the new approach to redistributing farmland has been mostly ineffective. Failure can be attributed to limited implementation, poor institutional capacity and corruption. A research report first released in 2019 shed fresh light on how the most recent strategy has unfolded. Compiled by the Agricultural Research Council (ARC) for the Department of Rural Development and Land Reform, it provided a sober look at what happens when government bureaucrats get involved in land reform and farming decisions.
The main findings were that the performance on most farms bought under the acquisition scheme had been disappointing. More than half the current beneficiaries were not reporting any substantial production. The same percentage were evaluated as having a low capacity to achieve commercial status. Data collected and interviews with stakeholders clearly indicate the reasons for failure. They include poor beneficiary selection, inadequate support and infrastructure, and rampant crime. Post settlement support was found to be inadequate, and stakeholders appointed to support the new farmers were poorly monitored and not working in an integrated manner. Agricultural infrastructure, both off farm and on farm, needed attention.
The plan
The land acquisition programme was approved “in principle” in July 2003. It was officially implemented in 2006. Between 2003 and August 2022, the state acquired 2.9 million hectares of farmland previously owned by white farmers through the Pro-active Land Acquisition Strategy. Around R12 billion (US$706 million) has been spent on the acquisition of these farms over the last 16 years. This land is made up of 2,921 farms and is under 30-year leases to beneficiaries. The state also owns an additional 3,172 farms. It is unclear when and how these were acquired. Our best guess is that they were bought in the earlier iterations of the land redistribution programme.
Land reform had some clear objectives:
- acquire land of high agricultural potential
- integrate black farmers into the commercial agricultural sector
- improve beneficiary selection
- improve land use planning
- ensure optimal productive land use.
To establish the commercial potential and status of the farms, the Department of Rural Development and Land asked the Agricultural Research Council to conduct an analysis of all the land purchased under the scheme. Its remit was to:
- determine the agricultural potential of the land
- establish the performance of the new farmers
- define criteria for beneficiary selection
- define criteria for contracting support agencies
- establish interventions to help the scheme achieve its objectives.
The findings
Most farms acquired under the initiative had high potential. It’s therefore possible to dismiss the myth that the land acquired for land reform was of poor quality. The assessment showed that land acquired through the programme was generally of good or fair quality, and 98% of farms had fair to good natural resources. Most farms (59%) were large enough in size and had a natural resource base sufficient to support viable enterprises. Some (7%) were doing well, despite limitations, indicating that it is possible for the programme to achieve its objectives.
The report noted that roughly 60% of all the farms had the potential to achieve commercial levels of production. Another 23% had the potential to reach significant (medium scale) levels of production. Roughly 10% of the land had the capacity to support only livelihood level production.
According to the data, all the farms under review collectively employed 12,129 part-time and 7,045 full-time workers. Each farm on average employed six full-time and four part-time workers. Based on the potential of these farms, a total of 60,050 workers should be employed, suggesting that the growth and employment targets of the programme have been missed by a mile.
The report also looked at whether the farms were operational and in commercial production. It found that performance on most was disappointing. More than half the current beneficiaries were not reporting any substantial production, and more than half the beneficiaries were evaluated as having a low capacity to achieve commercial status. The report also addressed signs of degradation. Nearly half (47%) of the farms that had been acquired were found to have some degree of degradation, while 13% were seriously or severely degraded. This was based on an evaluation of the land through satellite imagery and the data collected for the farm, compared to the potential based on land capability maps. Of concern was the high number of commercially viable farms (42%) and medium-scale farms (53%) that showed signs of degradation such as erosion and overgrazing.
The question of whether farmers were engaged in optimal farm enterprise mix was also addressed. It appears that most tended to avoid high value commodities (fruit, vegetables and field crops) in favour of livestock. This could be attributed to lack of skills, water constraints, insufficient suitable infrastructure and moveable assets, or limited access to capital. Of concern is the significant number (350) of farms that produced no commodities.
The latest resolution on land reform passed by the ANC argues for legislative instruments to manage the state acquisition of land. The failures set out above suggest that the state will always be a poor player in redistributing land as it will always hold onto it.
What next?
Farming in South Africa kills White farmers.
There have been notable developments regarding white South African farmers applying to relocate to the United States, driven by recent policy shifts under the Trump administration. In early March 2025, President Trump announced an offer to provide a “rapid pathway to citizenship” for white South African farmers and their families seeking to leave South Africa, citing safety concerns and framing it as a response to alleged land confiscation policies and violence. This followed his decision to cut U.S. financial aid to South Africa, criticizing its land expropriation policies signed into law in January 2025 by President Cyril Ramaphosa, which allow the state to seize land in the public interest, sometimes without compensation, to address racial disparities in ownership.
The policy appears to be in its early stages, with no official government statistics released by the U.S. State Department or immigration authorities to confirm the volume or status of these applications. The process is likely being fast-tracked as promised, leveraging existing refugee or special immigration pathways, given Trump’s direct involvement and the administration’s focus on expediency.
Tensions between the U.S. and South Africa have escalated over this issue, evidenced by the expulsion of South Africa’s ambassador, Ebrahim Rasool, on March 15, 2025, after Secretary of State Marco Rubio labeled him a “race-baiting politician,” further complicating diplomatic relations that might affect such immigration efforts. In summary, white South African farmers are currently being offered a prioritized route to the U.S. under Trump’s directive. The exact progress of Afrikaners’ applications—how many have applied, been approved, or arrived—remains unclear without official updates, but the policy is actively unfolding amid significant political and media attention.
White farmers face a notably high risk of violent crime with armed assailants targeting rural properties, resulting in murders, robberies, and assaults. While exact statistics vary, some reports suggest white farmers are murdered at a rate significantly higher than the national average—sometimes cited as four times higher than the broader community or even 150 per 100,000 compared to the national murder rate of around 36 per 100,000. Experts like Gareth Newham from the Institute for Security Studies argue these attacks are primarily driven by economic motives (farmers being wealthy and isolated), not race, as Black farm workers and owners are also victims.
Beyond expropriation, white farmers face additional challenges from policies perceived as discriminatory. For instance, draft regulations could restrict farms deemed “too white” from exporting to markets like the EU and UK, part of broader equity schemes. While the South African government denies explicit racial targeting, critics argue these policies indirectly squeeze white farmers out of economic opportunities, such as water rights quotas or export market access, adding financial strain to an already vulnerable group.
Rising tensions over land reform have heightened a sense of insecurity. Political rhetoric from figures like Julius Malema of the Economic Freedom Fighters, who has historically called for land seizures, stokes fears, even if his party isn’t currently in power. Combined with South Africa’s high crime rate (over 20,000 murders annually, with around 50-70 being farmers), this creates a perception among some white farmers that they are specifically targeted, though the government condemns such violence and denies any racial agenda.
These factors—policy shifts, violent crime, and economic pressures—have led some white farmers to feel endangered, prompting interest in emigration, including Trump’s recent offer of a “rapid pathway to citizenship” in the U.S. The U.S. agricultural sector is robust, with access to advanced technology, larger markets, and subsidies (e.g., the 2023 Farm Bill allocated $1.4 trillion over 10 years). White South African farmers, many of whom run commercial operations, could leverage their skills in states like Mississippi, where some have already thrived since relocating in the early 2000s. Afrikaner farmers share linguistic and historical ties with Western cultures (descendants of Dutch settlers), potentially easing integration into rural U.S. communities compared to other destinations.
For individual farmers prioritizing safety and opportunity, moving to the U.S. could be a good solution—especially with Trump’s fast-track promise. The U.S. gains skilled agrarians, and farmers escape death.
