A JOURNEY THROUGH TIME

THE

GRAIN AND OILSEED INDUSTRY

OF SOUTH AFRICA – A JOURNEY THROUGH TIME

ႄႈ

1992 disaster drought and later

In 1992 a disaster drought in the maize producing areas led to a major shortage of

maize in South Africa. About 4,3 million tons of maize had to be imported – the big-

gest maize imports until then. The government imported the maize from America,

but it was administered and distributed by the Maize Board in collaboration with

the Railways. The maize was of a very poor quality, mouldy, seriously contami-

nated with aflatoxin and full of chaff. Large quantities were not suitable for human

or animal use and were dumped in the sea.

In the 1993/1994 season a large surplus of maize was once again produced. In its

edition of November 1993 the magazine

Mielies/Maize

quoted the Chairperson of

the Maize Board at the time, Mr Jan Schabort, as follows: ‘Producers should not

produce for export. This year we are losing a lot of money because of the par-

ticularly large harvest. If we produce only for the domestic market, the future of

the industry should be positive. But then every farmer must do his bit and scale

down plantings.’

Oom Lang Hans Viljee from

Mielies/Maize

talks about the strike in Pretoria.

MR VIC MOUTON

AMPI’s Executive decided

that the fixed maize price

was too low. However, the

Minister of Ag¢icult§re, Mr Hen-

drik Schoeman, would not listen

to any arg§ment. You could fill the

Lichtenburg town hall within a

day, with easily 300 chairs having

to be set outside, with the farers

coming to listen – all in a fighting

mood. But Minister Schoeman

just said that’s the price, and

that’s it.

So, we decided not to deliver any

maize. A SAMPI Executive member

called Jan de Br§y – he fared

nex¥ to Sarel Haasbroek along the

Carletonville road – and Wilhelm

Els Šom the Leeudoringstad area,

were t«o instigators in that st¢ike.

De Br§y parked his t¢§ck in the

gate of the silo g¢ounds in Carle-

tonville so that the g§ys could not

get in. And if a lor¢® came to un-

load maize, he just chased them

away…jerked people Šom the lor-

ries and so on.

The st¢ike ultimately could not be

sustained. The goverment made

cer¥ain ar¢angements with us to

end it, but the maize price re-

mained exactly the same.

THE STRIKE IN 1985