Women on Farms Project

18/08/2026

A group of farm dwellers facing eviction has received support from the Women on Farms Project (WFP), which staged a picket outside the Stellenbosch Magistrate’s Court. The eviction matter was postponed, while concerns remain over the future of the affected families.

WFP Co-Director Carmen Louw says the case could have wider implications for other farm-dwelling communities facing similar challenges.

Read more: https://vocfm.co.za/farm-dwellers-face-eviction-battle-in-court/

Photo: Supplied

17/08/2026

A group of farm dwellers facing eviction has received support from the Women on Farms Project (WFP), which staged a picket outside the Stellenbosch Magistrate’s Court. The eviction matter was postponed, while concerns remain over the future of the affected families. WFP Co-Director Carmen Louw say...

13/08/2026

13/08/2026

The AU FMSS Policy Framework and Strategy and Action Plan is likely to be adopted at the African Union (AU) Seed Summit in Eswatini in October. At this pivotal moment for the future governance of farmer-managed seed systems (FMSS), this briefing delineates a serious legal and political asymmetry.

The AU FMSS instruments appear to be open to advocacy. However, the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) Annex on Plant Varieties Protection could be used to push breeders’ rights, plant variety protection (PVP) enforcement and harmonised intellectual property (IP) rules, if national governments use the Annex as a template for domestic PVP laws and as a reference point for FMSS policy.

The stakes are high: will FMSS be protected as autonomous, farmer-led, rights-bearing systems, or made more visible to be registered, quality-controlled, digitised, monitored, extracted from, and incorporated into formal seed markets and IP regimes?

At this critical juncture, the demand is clear: protection, not absorption; seed sovereignty, not enclosure; farmer autonomy, not corporate, technocratic control. We urge civil society, small-scale farmers, women seed custodians, pastoralists, agroecology movements, and food sovereignty networks to collectively engage.

Read more here: https://t2m.io/whose-seed-whose-sovereignty_webpost

15/07/2026

Fourteen families are at risk of losing the homes they have lived in for decades

30/06/2026

As 30 June 2026, and the unlawful deadline for the departure of all undocumented migrants from South Africa approaches, WFP condemns the latest wave of xenophobic violence and the use of force and intimidation to address a complex, political, social, and economic issue.

Targeting poor migrants from other African countries largely lets the government off the hook for the real underlying causes of the current crisis, which includes low economic growth, high unemployment and rampant inequality.

WFP contends that the current displacement crisis can only be addressed through radical transformation of the economy that includes dignified work and a living wage, as well as land redistribution and agrarian reform.

29/06/2026

Targeting poor migrants from other African countries largely lets the government off the hook for the real underlying causes of the current
crisis, including, on the one hand, ineffective border control, inefficient and corrupt processing of applications for
permits and lawful regularisation, and on the other hand, an economic growth rate of only 1%, under-resourced
public services, an expanded rate of unemployment of 44%, 60% of the population living in poverty, and 20 million
people being food insecure. These realities are not caused by poor African migrants, but by the lack of real
economic transformation in South Africa – 32 years after the dawn of democracy, the country’s wealth remains
the most unevenly distributed in the world, with the top 1% of the population (approximately 356,000 people)
owning 55% of the country’s wealth. Land ownership continues to be dominated by white, mostly male, farmers
who still hold 72% of freehold farmland. While most farm workers earn the national minimum wage of
R30.23/hour, wine farm owner and luxury goods mogul, Johann Rupert’s net worth in 2026 amounts to a
staggering R306.58 billion.

29/06/2026

29/06/2026