South African Farmers Lose Money As Zuma Protesters Hijack Food Supplies

South African farmers have been hit by days of unrest and looting as trucks carrying produce are prevented from delivering to markets, threatening food supplies, industry officials told Tanisha Heiberg and Zandi Shabalala of Reuters.

Crowds have this week clashed with police and ransacked shopping malls, with dozens reported killed as grievances unleashed by last week's jailing of former president Jacob Zuma boiled over into the worst violence in years.

Some of the country's major highways have been closed off. "Farmers have already had major losses because they cannot get their products to local markets and to shops," Christo van der Rheede, executive director at the country's main agricultural body AgriSA, said.

One of AgriSA's farmers has already reported the loss of 3 million rand ($205,333) of perishable produce that could not be transported, van der Rheede said.

All sugar mills in Kwazulu-Natal - the main sugar growing area and one of the provinces hardest hit by the unrest - have closed after cane trucks were hijacked, mills threatened and cane farms set alight, said South African Canegrowers Chief Executive Thomas Funke.

"Around 300,000 tons of cane to date has been burned. This is roughly 180 million rands of grower revenue," said Funke. Sugar producer Tongaat Hulets said its mills and refinery were also closed.

Citrus Growers Association Chief Executive Justin Chadwick said citrus exports had also been halted, with trucks unable to use the main arterial roads to the Durban port, where more than half of the citrus is exported. South Africa is the world's second-largest exporter of fresh citrus after Spain.

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