Agri Securitas is a Trust Fund that was established in 1998 with the main goal of fighting crime in the rural areas by assisting farming communities financially. These donations are made for specific Security Projects and benefit the entire rural communities for each each project.
The majority of this funding is put towards CCTV Cameras and assisting the farmers in upgrading, expanding, or establishing a CCTV Network in their areas.
Agri Securitas, through Agri SA, announced that more funding would be made available during 2023 and asked Agri Eastern Cape to assist with the process in the Eastern Cape.
Agri SA announced earlier this month that R1.9 Million in funding has been made available by Agri Securitas to 29 Farmers Associations across South Africa. of this number, 7 Associations within the Eastern Cape were successful in their applications and accumulatively received almost half a million Rand of the total R1.9 million made available!
This is a massive contribution to the Eastern Cape! Agri EC and the associated Agricultural Associations are extremely grateful for this generous donation!
While some of this funding will be used to improve current systems in certain areas, the majority of the funds will be used to install new CCTV Cameras in areas where there were essentially "Gaps in the system".
Agri Eastern Cape has a unique situation where the Organisation runs a 24/7 Agri Ops Coordination Centre for its members. This centre serves all members of Agri Eastern Cape in terms of crime reporting, emergency assistance, as well as fault reporting and escalations (Eskom outages, etc.). The Agri Ops Coordination Centre is run by the Agri Eastern Cape Rural Safety Manager, with a dedicated team of Operators who work on a rotational shift basis to ensure that there is always someone to available to assist the members of Agri Eastern Cape in their time of need at any time of day or night.
However, the Agri Ops Coordination Centre also monitors a large number of CCTV Cameras for Farmers Associations, Neighbourhood Watches, and Rural Communities. This allows for all these cameras to be linked together through one network and an accumulative database of crime related information.
Agri Eastern Cape currently manages a network of 836 CCTV Cameras spread across 243 poles throughout the Eastern Cape.
The Agri EC CCTV Network has been designed in a way that it not only benefits the Agricultural Associations who have had to make the financial contributions to have these cameras installed, and to also keep them operational on a monthly basis, but it also benefits the local communities of each area where they are installed. Businesses in towns, Residents in towns and those that transport or travel on these routes all benefit from this project as there is an extra layer of security thanks to the CCTV Network managed by Agri Eastern Cape.
Agri Eastern Cape has also partnered with a number of Private Security Providers throughout the Eastern Cape. As these Security Providers offer a service to the farming communities, so access and information from the CCTV cameras is granted. This is all done to help add an extra layer to the security and safety of these rural communities.
Further to all of this, Agri Eastern Cape assists the SAPS on a daily basis with ongoing investigations linked to a variety of cases and types of crimes. The goal has always been to put the tools in the hands of those who have the power to use them effectively.
Agri Eastern Cape is also a member of the E2 (Eyes and Ears) initiative, which is a formalised agreement and initiative with the SAPS. The E2 project was initiated by Business Leadership South Africa (BLSA) with the aim of using resources available in the private sector to assist law enforcement in the fight against crime in this country. Agri Eastern Cape is in full support of this and play an active role in the Eastern Cape.
But none of these initiatives, projects, partnerships, and operations would be possible without the Farmers of the Eastern Cape who have had to cut into their profit margins and capital resources in order to fund these security measures throughout the Province that benefit not only the farmers but their rural communities as well.
Thankfully, this burden is lessoned through organisations like Agri Securitas who have made generous donations to assist the farmers and members of Agri Eastern Cape.
Agri Securitas has supported the Eastern Cape on numerous occasions with invaluable donations that have allowed for the Security Network and the Agri Eastern Cape Coordination Centre to grow at a rate that has surpassed our expectations and made a sizeable difference in the efforts to fight crime in the Eastern Cape over the last few years.