Andrew Morphew: AgriSA has the numbers. But does government find mush or steel?

As AgriSA’s congress gathers under the theme “The Path is Clear”, one question hangs over it: when government tests organised agriculture, does it find mush or steel? Foot-and-mouth disease is the test case. AgriSA called the court action “regrettable”. Meanwhile its affiliate Free State Agriculture, together with Sakeliga and Saai, went to court and secured farmers’ right to vaccinate privately. Along the way it exposed a government that could cite no law against private vaccination and had “engineered delays”. The author argues that being heard by government is not the same as influencing it. With the economy barely growing, farmers are losing the customers they will need. Delegates must adopt red lines, an escalation strategy and accountability for results..By Andrew Morphew."Probe with bayonets. If you encounter mush, proceed. If you encounter steel, withdraw."The maxim is commonly attributed to Lenin. The principle it describes is real. Political advances continue until they meet meaningful resistance.The ANC does not hide this. Its 2017 Strategy and Tactics document, adopted at its 54th national conference, puts it plainly: "Assessment of the balance of forces helps clarify opportunities and constraints". Informed by a correct reading of that balance, it says, the forces of change "can move with speed towards their goal". Where resistance is weak, the programme advances. Where resistance is strong, it waits.That makes the capacity to resist an essential part of political negotiation, not an alternative to it.AgriSA is the largest federation in South African commercial agriculture. Its preferred strategy is engagement, cooperation and access to government. As its congress gathers on Wednesday under the theme The Path is Clear, one question matters. When government tests the resolve of organised agriculture, does it find mush or steel?Access is not influenceAgriSA has real achievements. Its technical work on trade, electricity tariffs, fuel supply and rural safety has delivered results that matter to working farmers. Those relationships are valuable. Permanent confrontation would serve nobody.But maintaining a relationship with government is not the same as influencing its decisions. Being consulted is not the same as being heeded. Where government is ideologically committed to a policy, polite disagreement changes little unless it is backed by credible consequences.If government knows that AgriSA will always return to the table, whatever the outcome, why would it ever compromise?The principle extends beyond party politics. It applies wherever the state digs in. The foot-and-mouth disease crisis has just provided a revealing test of what happens when engagement reaches its limits.Foot-and-mouth: the testIn January 2026, AgriSA welcomed the Minister of Agriculture's national FMD strategy and emphasised cooperation between government and industry. To its credit, it also supported industry-led interventions.Later that month, Free State Agriculture, an AgriSA affiliate, joined Sakeliga and Saai in a letter of demand seeking the right for farmers to procure and administer FMD vaccines privately. The demand was not met. On 2 March the three organisations filed an urgent application in the Gauteng High Court.On 24 March the court postponed the matter and set a timetable for government to publish its vaccination scheme. AgriSA responded that the outcome should be respected, and described the court intervention during an animal health crisis as regrettable.On 28 April the court criticised government's delays and imposed stricter deadlines.On 25 May the court granted interim relief. It found that the respondents could point to no law prohibiting private FMD vaccination, and that private vaccination would assist the fight against the disease, not hinder it.On 10 July the parties settled, on terms that expressly facilitate private procurement and vaccination.AgriSA regretted that farmers were taking government to court. Two months later, the court found that government had identified no lawful prohibition on private vaccination, had offered no substantive defence, and had "engineered delays" in having the matter heard. The question is not why farmers resorted to litigation. It is why their government made litigation necessary.And one question follows for AgriSA. Why did an affiliate of the largest federation in organised agriculture have to seek judicial relief to secure rights the federation itself should have fought for?AgriSA will argue that cooperation was delivering results. And cooperation did help bring industry capacity into the response. But there is an important distinction between proposing change and securing it. The court imposed deadlines after government delays, granted relief protecting private vaccination and exposed the absence of a substantive legal defence. Engagement and litigation were never mutually exclusive. The second became necessary because the first had not secured the rights farmers needed.The economy is the bigger testFMD was an immediate crisis. Animals were dying and farmers were watching their livelihoods disappear. Other policy failures do their damage slowly. Investment is postponed. Businesses do not expand. Jobs are never created. The customers who might have supported a growing agricultural economy never acquire the means to do so. The consequences are less visible than FMD, and potentially far greater.The National Development Plan is the government's own statement of what South Africa requires. It called for average real economic growth of 5.4% a year, 11 million additional jobs and unemployment of 6% by 2030. Those were not opposition demands. They were the state's own targets.South Africa has shown it can grow. Between 2004 and 2007 the economy grew at roughly 5.2% a year. Since 2013, growth has averaged roughly 1% a year. The IMF's July 2026 World Economic Outlook Update forecasts just 1.1% for 2026, against 3.8% for emerging and developing economies, 4.3% for sub-Saharan Africa and 6.4% for India.Stagnation results in millions of people without work, and therefore millions of potential customers without purchasing power.That matters directly to agriculture. Farmers must invest continually in technology, genetics and productivity to stay competitive. But greater capacity to produce is only worth something if somebody can afford to buy it. As employment and household incomes grow, demand grows, particularly for higher-value foods such as dairy, meat, fruit and vegetables. Exports are essential, but they cannot replace a prosperous domestic market across the whole industry.A farmer can raise productivity. A farmer cannot make an unemployed consumer afford more food.The pressure comes from both directions. Weak growth caps what customers can pay, while rising labour, energy and regulatory costs squeeze margins. Farmers respond the only way they can: more efficiency, more scale. The consequence is consolidation: fewer, larger farms, and fewer rural jobs, however well farmers breed, manage and improve.Why is the economy not growing? Infrastructure failure, poor education and crime all play a part. But policy carries a particular responsibility, because policy is a choice. BEE requirements that raise the cost of doing business, uncertainty over property rights and legislation permitting expropriation at nil compensation in specified circumstances discourage investment. And without investment there is no sustained growth in employment or household purchasing power.The argument is not against transformation or land reform. Properly structured, both can expand ownership, enterprise and participation. The objection is to implementation that reduces investment, employment and growth. Which in turn hurts transformation and land reform.AgriSA has opposed aspects of these policies and made extensive submissions. The question is whether the strength of its opposition has matched the scale of the economic consequences. Its mandate cannot stop at softening the effect of damaging policies on existing farms. It must extend to defending the economic growth that creates its members' future customers.Numbers without consequencesAgriSA's scale should be its greatest source of leverage. Yet organisations with a fraction of its membership secured through the courts what engagement had not.Government does not need to agree with AgriSA. It needs to believe that ignoring AgriSA carries a cost.An organisation that never escalates becomes predictable. A predictable opponent is easy to disregard. The political value of a federation is not how many farmers it represents. It is what government believes those farmers are prepared to do when their interests are threatened.Three decisions for congressThe question before delegates is whether AgriSA's relationship with government has become so valuable to the organisation that challenging government meaningfully has become difficult. That is a question about institutional incentives, not personal motives. And it is a question only members can settle, because the mandate belongs to the affiliates and producer organisations whose support gives AgriSA its legitimacy.Three decisions would settle it.First, red lines. Adopt clear, member-approved positions on the property rights, economic freedoms and investment conditions AgriSA will actively defend.Second, an escalation strategy. Engagement remains the first option. But unsuccessful engagement must trigger something: stronger public opposition, coordinated affiliate action, and litigation where justified. And when an affiliate escalates on its own, as Free State Agriculture did, the federation should stand behind it, not lament it.Third, accountability for outcomes. AgriSA itself wrote this month that the test of organised agriculture is not how many meetings it attends or how many policy papers it publishes, but whether a concern is "followed through to a result people can see". That is the right test. Delegates should apply it: judge leadership by the policy changes secured and the harmful proposals stopped or amended.This requires a mandate that puts members' long-term interests above the comfort of the relationship. The purpose of credible resistance is not permanent confrontation. It is to make cooperation work. An organisation capable of saying no, and meaning it, negotiates better, precisely because government understands the alternative..Read more:.FMD: Farmers can now vaccinate their own herds — Andrew Morphew unpacks what’s changed.AgriSA has the numbers, the expertise and the access to be formidable. Farmers need more than an organisation that helps them survive the consequences of government decisions. They need one prepared to defend the conditions in which agriculture can grow.The choice before congress is not between cooperation and confrontation. It is between influence backed by credible leverage, and engagement that government can safely ignore.When the bayonets next come probing, will they find steel or mush?.Sign up for your early morning brew of the BizNews Insider to keep you up to speed with the content that matters. The newsletter will land in your inbox every morning on weekdays. 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Andrew Morphew: AgriSA has the numbers. But does government find mush or steel?

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