SOCIAL TRANSFORMATION IN THE WINE INDUSTRY
As political barriers crumble and 350 years of social biases are redressed, people from disadvantaged communities are emerging as wine farmers and winemakers for the first time. Historically, these people have provided the labor on which the industry is based.
According to the SA Wine Industry Information & Systems, the wine industry contributes almost 10% to the Western Cape’s gross geographic product. Close to 100,000 people from disadvantaged groups are employed directly in the industry, which supports a total of over 215,000 jobs in the wider economy, including packaging, retailing and wine tourism.
A number of Cape wine farmers have established joint ventures with their workers to give them part ownership and to transfer skills in wine farm management, as well as winemaking. There have also been a number of private initiatives to extend vineyard ownership to communities living in winemaking regions, where proceeds from wine sales are used to improve the quality of life of residents.
Changes in local wine industry are also being supported by the Ethical Trade Initiative, which counts some of the UK’s largest retailers among its members. ETI promotes the notion of fair trading, which includes highlighting the conditions under which supplier’s own labor forces work. The ETI is working wit a number of prominent South African wine producers. Certificates are awarded to farms who meet the European Good Agricultural Practices (Eurogap) strict guidelines for environmental and social sustainability.
The South African Wine Industry Trust (SAWIT), representing government and industry, was created from the restructure of KWV with the express purpose of promoting and transforming the wine industry over a 10-year period. The body is governed by 13 trustees, six appointed by the Department of Agriculture and seven by the KWV. The trust operates two companies: (1) a business company to promote South African wines abroad and to develop research and technology to advance the wine industry, and (2) a development company to promote the settlement of new farmers, to support the upliftment of farm workers and farm worker communities, to help new entrants to the industry to market their wines and to ensure they have access to the extension services available to them.
Several private initiatives have sought to build a corps of black B.Sc. students, trained as oenologists and viticulturists. Registrations through the end of the academic year in 2002 showed that 21 students had been enrolled for B.Sc. degrees at the University of Stellenbosch (11 women, 10 men). Toward the end of 2000, SAWIT launched a not-for-profit wine education fund, which allows for 8 to 12 student enrollments per year. Courses are also being designed for wine marketing and wine tourism in consultation with the University of Adelaide and the University of Cape Town Graduate School of Business.
The above briefly touches on the many developments in the transformation of the wine industry. Efforts range from ownership and stakeholder empowerment, black education in the sciences and business of the wine industry, literacy and life skills development in the communities, capacity building through small-scale farming ventures, home ownership and community upliftment, and redress the root causes of substance abuse and crime among farm workers and their communities.