Page 3 - 10 October 2025

THE REPORTER 10 OCTOBER 2025
· PAGE 3
For a few months, attributing and SOEs, as well as with acceptable simply because
bold ideological measures AAMP signatories. They the current minister is from
by the Department of t a b l e d n i n e f o r m a l the DA. They also question
Agriculture and its SOEs, objections. None has been the mandate of AAMP
which are out of step with the addressed. signatories who claim to
DA's own policies and pre- These organisations believe represent farmers.
election positions, to they have been deliberately “This is an agricultural
“muscle memory” worked excluded for criticising ANC m a s t e r p l a n w i t h o u t
for Minister Steenhuisen. policies rooted in socialist farmers,” said Dr Theo de
Farmers now see this as an ideology, the false “stolen Jager of SAAI and Bennie
excuse, similar to the ANC's land” and “farm worker van Zyl of TLU SA. “There is
habit of blaming apartheid exploitation” narratives, and nothing in that plan to excite
for the collapse of public u n a t t a i n a b l e s o c i a l - primary producers.”
services and entrenched engineering goals such as
corruption. Their principal objection is
the new employment equity
None of the stakeholders measures, the expropriation that profitability, sustain-
who, alongside the DA in at nil compensation bill, and ability, and value-chain
e f f i c i e n c y a r e n o t
2 0 2 2 , c r i t i c i s e d t h e new regulations on so-called meaningfully addressed in
Agricultural and Agro- fake meat and plant- or
processing Master Plan i n s e c t - b a s e d p r o t e i n the AAMP text.
(AAMP) were invited to the alternatives. “Transformation can never
AAMP Executive Oversight No progress has been made be more important than
Meeting scheduled for 7 profitability or sustainability.
October in Stellenbosch. on earlier promises to When transformation is
include the wildlife ranching
TLU SA was invited again industry, or even to solicit its elevated above sustain-
after being expelled from the input, in the AAMP. ability, you get Eskom's load-
2022 signing ceremony for shedding era or the current
seeking clarity on the term Consistent with the ANC's state of public healthcare.
“transformation,” which ideological tradition, trade When it trumps profitability,
appears 92 times in the unions were closely involved you end up where the SABC
M a s t e r P l a n . S i x in designing the AAMP and and Denel are today,” they
organisations that rejected are expressly acknowledged added.
the AAMP, namely SAAI, TLU in the text, yet none of the The DA supported this
SA, WRSA, the National employers' organisations position in 2022 after the
Employers' Association of were invited. rushed and premature
South Africa (NEASA), the The objecting organisations signing of the AAMP in
LWO Employers' Organi- maintain that positions P a r l i a m e n t . T h e
sation, and consumer which were fundamentally undersigned expect Minister
organisations, met three wrong under an ANC Steenhuisen to adhere to the
times with the Department minister do not become DA's pre-election policies.