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Cosatu backs 50% farm stake for workers

Cape Town - The Congress of SA Trade Unions (Cosatu) in the Western Cape welcomed on Tuesday a report indicating that a proposal has been made for workers to get a 50% stake in farms.

According to Rapport, a proposal was made to expropriate half of every commercial farm in the country to hand it over to farm workers.

The Afrikaans Sunday newspaper reported that the proposal outlined that farm owners would not get the money from the stake for the workers, which will be paid for by the state.

Instead, the money would be paid into a trust aimed at investing and developing the farm for all shareholders of the farm.

Cosatu described the farm workers pay strike in the Western Cape as a "low level war", adding that the R105 minimum daily wage only brought a temporary reprieve.

It warned that underlying tensions remain unresolved.

"Continuing tensions in this sector has a real danger of spilling over into uncontrolled anger."

On Monday, the Freedom Front Plus (FF Plus) said the idea would not resolve the land reform problems in the country.

Spokesperson Pieter Mulder said the proposal threatened to destroy food security.

"The proposal of Minister Gugile Nkwinti and the department of rural development and land reform that commercial farmers should give half of their farms to their workers are unworkable and ill-considered," he said.

"When studying the proposals closely, it becomes clear that it originates from a minister and a department which has no understanding of the intricacies of modern commercial farming."

 - Fin24 with Sapa
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