A JOURNEY THROUGH TIME

THE

GRAIN AND OILSEED INDUSTRY

OF SOUTH AFRICA – A JOURNEY THROUGH TIME

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SAMSO intended to end the protracted disagreement between maize producers

and regarded it as its main task to establish all maize producers under its flag.

SAMSO’s operating structures consisted of local, district and regional maize

industry branches, the Executive council, the management committee and the

Annual Congress. The latter was accepted as the highest authority in the structure.

SAMSO’s structures made provision for membership for co-operatives that handled

maize. It was therefore not just a producer organisation. The co-operatives were

entitled to send delegates to the Congress, provided they were members of SAMSO

in their own right.

The establishment of SAMSO clearly indicated that the SAAU realised that a need

for a specialist organisation for the maize industry existed. The May 1978 edition of

SAMSO (the organisation’s magazine) reported as follows: ‘One should agree with

SAMPI that the idea of a specialist organisation was a bright one.’

SAMPI’s management was of the opinion that the founding of SAMSO was part of

the SAAU’s strategy to sink SAMPI. The emphasis of the fight consequently shifted

to which of SAMPI and SAMSO had to be supported as specialist organisation.

SAMPI found itself in a really difficult position after the SAAU’s strategic SAMSO

shift. This was aggravated by an order from Minister Hendrik Schoeman to all gov-

ernment departments and agricultural control boards to ensure that no exchange of

letters or interviews would in future be allowed with such organisations by officials

of the departments. No publicity was allowed to be given to the activities of these

types of groups through departmental publications or

Landbouradio

. SAMPI was

named as one of the organisations to which the order applied.

To counter this, SAMPI’s leaders among other things obtained approval from its

Congress to make a major effort to recruit members for SAMPI. During February

and March 1976 33 information meetings were held in the maize area, which were

attended in large numbers. SAMPI’s members were requested to resign from the

farmers’ associations of organised agriculture and establish SAMPI branches again.

SAMPI appointed organisers to run the recruitment campaign. They visited the farms

to recruit new members. In addition, various other methods and attempts were

employed to convince maize producers to join SAMPI.

On 19 August 1976 SAMPI addressed another request for affiliation with the SAAU,

among other things on the basis of SAMPI’s opinion that it was representative of the

majority of maize producers. The application was refused again and ostensibly the

chance of co-operation was lost.

Agreement 1976

However, in November 1976 Minister Schoeman convened a meeting with SAMPI’s

management committee and SAMSO’s management committee to sound them

out about the possibility of co-operation. Both organisations reacted very favour-

ably to this, to the extent that SAMPI’s management committee and SAMSO’s Ex-

ecutive met again nine days later and at the meeting signed an agreement that had

to serve as basis for unification.

An action committee was appointed and it was decided that the founding/establish-

ment Congress of the new organisation would take place during March 1977. The

date for the election of delegates to the founding Congress would be determined on

31 January 1977.

The process then started in all seriousness to join the two organisations under the

flag of the proposed organisation. This included decisions on the establishment of the

organisation’s office, starting a magazine, designing an emblem, funding, integration

of SAMPI members with structures of organised agriculture, et cetera.

Die Landman

of January 1977 carried a full article on the arrangements regarding

the new organisation. The first sentence of the article read: UNITY has been

achieved in the South African Maize Industry! Every person who produced maize

for marketing would be entitled to vote at the meeting of 31 January 1977 and

would vote in the magisterial district in which they lived or where their farming

interests were located.