14 Jan 2021

Bobonong Sub-land Board member says growing crops at cattle posts is outlawed according to the Tribal Land Act.

Speaking at a meeting of Bobonong MP, Mr Taolo Lucas, at Metsibotlhoko and Lekgolwe cattle posts on Tuesday, Mr Bathoen Malemenyane informed livestock farmers that cattle posts were for livestock rearing.

Mr Malemenyane also added that land board allocated plots for boreholes, which should be six kilometers apart.

“Any other land use at the cattle posts will be contravening section 39 of the Tribal Land Act,” he said.

He warned farmers against offending the act, something that could attract a fine or prison term.

Some farmers had requested that they be allowed to practice integrated farming at cattle posts, but were informed that growing crops at cattle posts was not allowed.

Mr Malemenyane’s response was triggered by Mr Lucas who found his electorate to be split in two groups of the pro crop production at the cattle posts and those vehemently opposing the move.

However, Mr Lucas advised those who had not been formally ordered to stop ploughing to consider the best form of action. In the process of appeal after receiving formal order the produce would have ripened, Mr Lucas said.

In the conflicting groups, the pro crop production, more pronounced at Lekgolwe cattle posts argued that when permitted to till the land, farmers would be in a good stead to produce animal feeds while also producing for subsistence. 

The move, they said, would reduce movement to and from other settlements areas for food.

The pro crop production group also argued that growing crops at the cattle posts had been a practice at the areas they termed their ancestral lands until land boards assumed the role of land allocation.

Mr Daniel Mosesane argued that he had been a resident of Lekgolwe pre-independence and had never known any other village save for Mathathane where he attended school. 

He contended that they had been carrying out wholesale farming at Lekgolwe without interference.

Again, their contention was that ploughing fields in Tsetsebjwe had no more space to accommodate them hence the call for change of land use to cater for crop production.

They also sought to be allocated ploughing fields in Tsetsebjwe if not allowed to plough at the cattle posts.

They deemed the order to stop ploughing as oppressive to the inhabitants of the cattle posts.

However, the antagonists of crop farming at cattle posts moved that production of crops at the areas fuelled unnecessary tension between farmers.

They believed that crop farming would attract livestock that would consequently ravage the produce.

Also, they argued that ploughing fields reduced communal grazing land.

While he believed that crop farming could be carried out at a small scale either for subsistence or for production of animal feeds, Mr Lucas was also bothered by farmers who took crop farming at large scale thereby covering a lot of land meant for grazing.

Mr Lucas posited that the matter between the two groups of farmers needed amicable solution. 

To arrive to the solution, he proposed to meet with dikgosi and land board officials to devise means of co-existence between the two sets of conflicting farmers.

The legislator also said he received numerous complaints from those who had been ploughing, alleging that they had been ordered to stop crop production at cattle posts forthwith.

However, Mr Lucas informed his electorate that land board officials were implementing the act and attacking them would not change a thing.

Since crop farming was outlawed at the cattle posts, farmers who wanted to grow crops complained that department of crops ceased distributing seeds to them through ISPAAD.

To that, an official from crop production, Mr Pezisani Lelata cleared that his department ceased extending ISPAAD programme to cattle posts since the policy required that such farmers needed to produce fields’ certificates to qualify.

Also, Mr Lelata stated that dikgosi and land board officials were irked by department of crops’ continued distribution of ISPAAD benefits to farmers at cattle posts to a point where the department was accused of fuelling squatting.

It was also found that there were frequent complaints by crop producers at cattle posts who accused cattle farmers of neglect that leads to cattle ravaging their crops.

It was such a charged matter that Kgosi Tomeletso Kgosietsile told Metsibotlhoko farmers that they were responsible for reports that reached dikgosi and land board. Kgosi Kgosietsile argued that in the heat of arguments, aggrieved farmers would injure or kill livestock of the offending farmer.

In search of clarity on the matter, BOPA interviewed Kgosi Peloyame Phole who explained that from time immemorial cattle farmers would plough only three hectares for sustenance. 

However, Kgosi Phole gathered that people had taken to tilling huge chunks of land and thereby denying livestock enough pastures.

Quizzed about who took a blame when cattle have ravaged the crops of a farmer at the cattle posts, Kgosi Phole was unequivocal, 

“Both the livestock owner and the crop farmer should take care of their produce.” Ends