South Africa's harvests suffer as migrant farm workers flee anti‑immigrant protests

Anti‑foreigner protests in South Africa set an unofficial deadline of June 30 for undocumented migrants to leave, prompting an exodus of more than 160,000 foreign workers, chiefly from Zimbabwe, Lesotho, Mozambique, Malawi and Eswatini. The sudden loss of labour has left farms across the country severely short‑handed, with citrus growers reporting unpicked fruit and vineyards lacking harvest crews, while sugarcane fields have lost up to 80 % of their workforce almost overnight.

Employers rely on migrant workers because they accept lower wages, flexible hours and minimal benefits, keeping labour costs competitive in labour‑intensive export sectors such as citrus, wine grapes, vegetables and sugar. Their departure forces farmers to either pay higher wages to local workers or operate with reduced crews, raising production costs and threatening South Africa’s export volumes and foreign‑exchange earnings. Unions dispute claims of a domestic labour shortage, arguing that local workers are available but often unwilling to take back‑breaking, low‑paid jobs.

The labour crunch highlights the economic risk of xenophobic violence, as higher unit costs and lower output could erode South Africa’s comparative advantage in global fruit markets, where it competes with producers in Egypt, Peru, Chile and Spain.