Who should pay for war? The unfair burden falling on South African farmers

There is a frustrating inequality in South Africa's food system that is becoming harder to ignore. Costs are rising - everyone can see that. Diesel is climbing while fertiliser follows, and transport becomes more expensive as each week passes.

What is less visible is where those rising costs actually land, and more often than not, they land on the farmer.

When costs rise, farmers feel it first

There is no getting away from diesel prices on a farm. Fields are prepared while irrigation systems run through long dry spells, and livestock are moved across distances that cannot be shortened. Each of these actions carries a cost, and when fuel increases, that cost rises immediately.

At the same time, other inputs begin to climb. Fertiliser becomes more expensive while feed costs follow similar patterns. The pressure builds where margins are already tight.

Selling into a market that pushes prices down

Rising costs would be difficult enough on their own, but the deeper problem is that farmers are often expected to accept lower prices at the very same time.

A sheep farmer in the Karoo or a maize producer in the Free State does not negotiate from a position of strength. Buyers set the tone while market conditions or import pressures can push prices downward. Even as input costs climb, the price offered to the farmer can fall.

This results in an unsustainable price pressure, because the farmer's costs rise while selling prices are squeezed in the opposite direction. Farmers are not only unable to pass on increases but are frequently required to accept less for what they produce.

Prices rise elsewhere

Things look different further along the system. The cost of transport is passed on while processing costs increase, and they too are adjusted for. By the time food reaches retail shelves, prices have increased in a way that now affects the consumer directly.

Bread and meat cost more, and fresh produce edges upward week after week. While these increases are real, and even understandable, they raise an important question: if prices are rising at the end of the chain, why are they falling at the beginning?

This is where food supply chain inequality reveals itself.

Absorbing more than their share

Farmers are often expected to absorb these increases, but there is a limit to how much can be absorbed - yet that limit is tested again and again. Meanwhile, others in the system retain some ability to pass costs forward.

The adjustment continues along the chain without returning to the source, placing pressure where it is hardest to carry: the place where the food is painstakingly produced through drought and flood.

The cost of carrying too much

When farmers absorb too much for too long, planting decisions become more cautious while livestock numbers are reduced, and any expansion plans are paused so that risk can be more carefully managed.

Less production leads to tighter supply and higher prices, and over time, the system corrects itself, but not without disruption. The irony is clear: holding prices down at the farm level does not prevent increases, it often delays them, only for them to return with greater force.

A question of fairness and sustainability

There is a point where this stops being just an economic issue and becomes a question of fairness. Farmers carry the risk while managing the uncertainty of markets, and they now absorb the impact of global fuel shocks as well.

This is a heavy load for any part of the system. A more balanced approach would recognise that rising costs cannot become the burden of the farmer alone.

Final thought

The impact of the Iran conflict will not be evenly felt (it never is). But perhaps the more important question is not simply who will pay, but who should.

Why, time and again, it is that those who grow the food and carry the greatest risk, who have the least room to move, are asked to carry the heaviest share.