Police Minister Mchunu clarifies rural safety strategy while addressing crime statistics

Minister of Police Senzo Mchunu on Friday firmly rejected claims of a genocide against white farmers in South Africa.

This comes as crime statistics from the fourth quarter of the 2024/2025 financial year, covering the period from 1 January 2025 to 31 March 2025, indicated six farm-related attacks with attacks not being on race.

Mchunu said that the National Rural Safety Strategy was designed to create a safe and secure environment in rural areas.

“In the fourth quarter, six attacks on rural communities were recorded. We do not categorise people by race, but in the context of claims of “genocide of White people”, we need to unpack the killings in this category.

“The two farm owners that were murdered during the fourth quarter were African and not White. Further to that, the two farm employees and one farm manager were also African – it is the one farm dweller that was White.

“The history of farm murders in the country has always been distorted and reported in an unbalanced way; the truth is that farm murders have always included African people in more numbers.”

Mchunu added that the government wanted to reject the notion of “land grabbing” in the country. Instead, he confirmed that there were cases of land invasions, but said the two were very different.

“Land invasions are not government policy, but are by and large, acts of desperation for land by African people who find themselves landless and in need to settle. It is sporadic and it remains unlawful,” he said.

Wandile Sihlobo, chief economist at Agricultural Business Chamber of South Africa (Agbiz), said that the South African farming sector or farming community was not under siege.

“The country has devastating crime incidents, which should remain a major worry for all,” he said.

“However, it is necessary to state that there is no land expropriation without compensation in the country, that the recent Expropriation Act has been massively misrepresented, and that property rights remain intact. Land Reform is still under the market principles of the willing buyer-willing seller.”

Jaco Minnaar, president of Agri SA, said it was good that Mchunu reverted to the National Rural Safety Strategy, which  was developed with farmers.

“The problem is the implementation, which is not currently on track, as well as the lack of necessary resources allocated to it,” he said.

“AgriSA and other role players are in the process to address this with the minister and SAPS, and hope with the spotlight now on it, we will make progress. We are glad that our government realised it as a big concern, together with crime as a whole in SA, and we will assist as far as possible to help address the issue.”

Francois Rossouw, CEO of Southern African Agri Initiative (Saai), welcomed Mchunu's recognition of farm attacks in the official crime statistics.

“However, the figure of only six attacks for the quarter must be viewed with caution. Many rural crimes go unreported, under-recorded, or misclassified due to inconsistent definitions and weak rural policing infrastructure,” he said.

“We take note of the Minister’s distinction between land invasions and land grabs, but in practice, the line between the two is increasingly blurred. The lack of consequences for illegal land occupations and weak enforcement emboldens those who target farms. That alone undermines confidence in the government's commitment to the rule of law in rural areas.”

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