(adopted at the National Farm Dweller Workshop held in Pietermaritzburg on the 11th & 12th December 2006)
New legislation must recognise that:
1. Farm dwellers are a distinct group of people, with particular needs – they need targeted transformation programmes.
• The unequal relations established by apartheid laws need redress and transformation.
• Farm dwellers have citizenship rights distinct from farm workers rights.
2. Farm dwellers live as families – they require protection of family life and protection of tenure rights for all household members.
• Family life must be recognised and protected as a whole. Farm dweller residences on farms are homes not houses and families are varied in size and identity.
• Homes provide a necessary social identity for families and their associated cultural practices – including birth and death. Women and wives must receive equal tenure rights.
3. Farm dwellers are dependent on natural resources for survival– they require secure access to agricultural land for food production.
• Because of our history, many farm dwellers are economically vulnerable – they need access to natural resources for survival.
• Access to food is a citizens right. Use of land for food production, at whatever scale, is a form of farming.
4. Farm dwellers are insecure as a result of multiple tenure rights– they require the right to exclusive real rights to land.
• Unequal power relations and multiple tenure rights are the cause of ongoing conflict on farms, and must be redressed.
• Farm dwellers’ require exclusive real rights to land to change the unequal power relationships in farming areas.
• In the interests of development and economic growth multiple tenure relationships on land must be addressed.
5. Farm dwellers are equal citizens – they need access to fundamental rights
• Access to social services and basic infrastructure are fundamental rights of all citizens including farm dwellers.
6. Farm dweller matters must be addressed urgently
• An interim moratorium on eviction of farm dwellers is necessary to rectify the failed recognition of farm dwellers as equal citizens.
• Alternative legislative framework in the form of a Farm Dwellers Citizen Bil must be drafted.
