March With Farmers to the Provincial Building On 17 March 2010!

March with farmers to the Provincial Building on 17 March 2010!

The Ithemba Farmers Association and their supporters are marching to the Department of Housing on 17 March to object to being unfairly evicted from their farmland. Participants include members of the Campaign: Right to Agrarian Reform for Food Sovereignty. They will use this action to demonstrate their concerns to the city and the province, which are using an old law reminiscent of Apartheid spatial development to evict these farmers and establish a temporary relocation area (TRA) and eventual township on the land in question.

The government refused to follow proper consultation processes, violated regulations on fair administrative procedures, and failed to meet the basic requirements for establishing a township on this land and rezone it from agricultural land to housing. It also suspended relevant environmental laws and failed to investigate health, safety, environmental, and suitability criteria for the proposed development, posing serious risks for occupants of the proposed TRA and subsequent township.

Instead of building shacks on this land, the Ithemba Farmers demand that the government embrace this agricultural land as a rare commodity in the Western Cape. “We have cleaned this land and used it to provide healthy food for our families and surrounding community for years. This is a fight for the poor, the landless and small-scale farmers,” says Craig Jonkers of the Ithemba Farmers Association, “We’re asking the public to join our struggle.”

They are meeting at 10h00 opposite the Cape Peninsula University of Tech. in Cape Town, on Keizersgracht and Tennant Streets. They will march to the Provincial Building on Wale St. and deliver a memorandum of demands to the Minister of Housing and the Mayor of the City of Cape Town at 11h30 at the entrance to the Department of Housing.

Please contact Craig Jonkers 078 153 6783 or Ricado Jacobs on 082 890 7551 for more information.