South African farm attacks
violent attacks targeting farmers and farm workers in South Africa
South African farm attacks (Afrikaans: plaasaanvalle) are violent crimes, including assault, murder, rape, and robbery, that take place on farms in South Africa. The attacks target both white and black farmers. The term has no formal legal definition, but such attacks have been the subject of discussion by media and public figures in South Africa and abroad.
Claims that such attacks on farmers disproportionately target white people are a key element of the white genocide conspiracy theory promoted by, among others, United States president Donald Trump, and have become a common talking point among white nationalists worldwide. Statistics provided from the South African Government show that farm attacks tend to take more black victims than white victims and show that farm attacks are relatively rare. Farm attacks form part of a broader crime problem in South Africa and do not have a racial motivation.
Terminology and definition
South African statutory law does not define a "farm attack" as a specific crime. Rather, the term is used to refer to a number of different crimes committed against persons specifically on commercial farms or smallholdings. According to the South African Police Service (SAPS) National Operational Co-ordinating Committee:Attacks on farms and smallholdings refer to acts aimed on the persons of residents, workers and visitors to farms and smallholdings, whether with the intent to murder, rape, rob or inflict bodily harm. In addition, all actions aimed at disrupting farming activities as a commercial concern, whether for motives related to ideology, labour disputes, land issues, revenge, grievances or intimidation, should be included.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 15, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2547929. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
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This entry incorporates text from “South African farm attacks” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.