Dropping food-production and 300 job losses: Four commercial farmers including Johan Ligthelm and Anton Coetzee, warned the ANC-run municipality of Middelburg Mpumalanga in advance not to build a new township on a farm they had bought - and which is surrounded by their four productive farms: Now the production of four farms are being steadily destroyed and Africa's largest peach-orchard, Ligthelm's Peach Orchards, no longer produce any peaches for the commercial market. Last year's crop went into the bellies of Somalela township residents who even stole his new saplings and replanted them in their own front gardens...
http://mobserver.co.za/25131/boere-het-gewaarsku-2/
The organised criminal gangs in the new township of Somapepa - where a drugs-problem is also being reported - have been looting their crops and livestock at such a steady pace that there was no commercial peach-production from Johan Ligthelm's farm last year - not one peach from his crop was sold on the commercial market.
"It's over, only a miracle can still save us,' he said.
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From 98 years ago, Jan Ligthelm's grandparents and parents developed the 500-hectare Ligthelm Peach Orchards in Middelburg - now this third-generation peach farm has been destroyed by criminal gangs:
Speaking to Middelburg Observer journalist Daleen Naudé, he shows one of the deep holes dug beneath the fences which surround his peach orchards.He's given up peach farming: last year's crop, costing R4,5m in wages to harvest and maintain the trees, was completely looted: his cattle now eat the peaches from the neglected trees. This orchard was the largest in Africa and produced tons of peaches each year.
http://mobserver.co.za/25127/grootste-boord-afrika-vernietig --
Headline in Middelburg Observer by Daleen Naude: "Grootste boord in Afrika vernietig"
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South Africa used to export huge quantities of dried and canned peaches and the Ligthelm peaches were popular with South African consumers.
Now, the owner of what was Africa's largest peach-orchard, Johan Ligthelm,
told the local Middelburg Observer that criminals have managed to destroy his farm completely over the past three years.
And he and his family also are living under constant threat of being murdered by the gangs from the new Somapepa township next door - who want the 500-hectare peach-orchard land to graze their cattle on.
The township residents also looted his newly-planted saplings and replanted them in their own front gardens... last year he didn't sell one peach: suffering R5,4million losses paid out in wages and investing in saplings, he said.
The Production of 4 productive farms in the Middelburg area are thus being destroyed by crime-gangs, wrote Daleen Naudé in the Middelburg Observer.
(Original articles are in Afrikaans. We translated them to English)
By Daleen Naude -- 16 February 2015 Owner Johan Ligthelm of Ligthelm Peach Orchards shows one of the many holes in the fencing dug by organised gangs of peach-thieves from the new Somapepa township next door. They have destroyed the farm completely because they stole their income: their harvests.
Now the thugs crawl beneath the fences to come and steal the peaches rotting on the trees."The LIgthelm peaches disappeared because the municipality built a black township right next the largest peach-farm in Africa,' he said.He's tired of trying to catch thieves crawling through the holes in the fences dragging crates of peaches with them.Thieves cut the cables and steal his farm-implements, and plundered his store. Thieves who even dug up the new trees and planted them in their own front gardens next door'.
And he's tired of living in constant fear from the criminal gangs next door: "I am their target and once they've killed me off, they will also have 500 hectares of land for their cattle.
It's a constant daily battle. Every morning when we wake up things have been stolen.He took journalist Daleen Naude through his orchards, telling how his grandparents started the farm 98 years ago.
He was paid 10 shillings for the very first crate of peaches he had harvested from his first Alberta peach-tree as a ten-year-old, he said. Everything is being looted ever since the municipality decided to build the large township right in the middle of commercial farms.
The looting and destruction started three years ago - but this past year was the worst. "The thieves just come in with the pickers and when they are caught,
they jump right across an eight-foot-deep hole they'd dug underneath the fencing and run off - or flee in a taxi.
They also start picking before daylight and manage to pack 18 bags of peaches into a taxi which always waits for them next to the road,' said Ligthelm.
After he suffered R5,4million losses from the peach-looting he decided that he wasn't going to harvest any peaches any more.
"I wasn't going to waste money to pay workers to keep the trees trimmed and thinned out and just put the cattle in the orchards to eat the peaches from the trees.
My livestock is fattening up nicely,' he said.
Ligthelm: "I am now contributing unwittingly to an approaching famine (when all the commercial farms are gone): 300 people now don't have seasonable jobs'.
He only has a few fulltime farm workers looking after the animals in the orchards. Due to the constant danger of armed farm attackers who want to kill him,
Mr LIgthelm bought horses for the herders to guard the cattle.
He said he doesn't believe he will ever be able to sell peaches on the market again - and to start somewhere else all over again will cost about R50-million - because that's the value
of this developed farm you see here in front of you,' he told journalist Daleen Naude.
He said he spent 16 months working 16 hours a day to build the water-storage dam on the property, for instance.
"My hands have been cut off: we can't celebrate our 100th anniversary of Ligthelm Orchards here. We will never be able to trade in peaches here again and now just stay here in our own
prison. The LIgthelm Peach Orchards are destroyed. It's over. Just a miracle could still save us.'
http://mobserver.co.za/25127/grootste-boord-afrika-vernietig
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