The so-called coffin case drew attention to problems of farmers whose crops are merely stripped. In the matter concerned, the farmer came down on someone who was stealing his sunflowers.
A few years ago, the SABC program, Focus, had a program about farmers near Bapsfontein whose maize was almost wholly stripped while it seems from the afar that everything is right. Bakkie goes to the center of the land where it is loaded and stolen.
Recently it has been reported that the Pecan nut theft in Northern Transvaal amounted to about R140 million a year. In broad daylight, a farmer found his own workers who had stacked a bakkie full of pecan nuts. The value of such cargo amounts to R50 000.
During the weekend, some people from a settlement near Ofcaloco, near Tzaneen, started to strip mangos on a farm. The local police could or did not want to do anything to stop the poaching.
The poaching continued the next day, and police reinforcements were called while the CPF was also on the scene. When they tried to stop the poaching, the poachers set fire to a tractor.
The police knew who were the culprits but did not make an attempt to arrest them.
Farm workers have been intimidated to help with poaching.
Even senior SAPS staff were on the scene but could or did not want to do anything for fear that the poachers would also target other farms of neighboring farms.
It thus appears that the police do not have the ability to address this type of crime.
It is not known how much damage the farmer suffered from poaching.
Read the original article in Afrikaans on Die Vryburger
South Africa Today – South Africa News
