patterns of land ownership have not substantially altered.26 Most large commercial farms are still owned by whites; black farmers engage mainly in subsistence farming on communal land or small-scale commercial farming. There is great diversity and complexity in the commercial agricultural sector. North of the Soutpansberg, mainly stock farms and a smaller number of game farms cover most of the land given over to commercial farming. Citrus and vegetable farms are concentrated in the Limpopo Valley, especially Weipe, in Tshipise, and in Waterpoort. At the foot of the Soutpansberg, there is sub-tropical agriculture in Levubu. Commercial forests lie on the higher slopes and stock farms are to the south. The province also has private tea estates on land leased from the state, and tobacco farms.27 The agricultural sector is the largest employer outside the public sector, employing 118,261 people (only the Western Cape has a larger number of farm workers).28 The most labor intensive commercial agricultural farms are the citrus and fruit farms north of the Soutpansberg, and most of these farms each depend on hundreds of Zimbabwean workers—seasonal and permanent—who live on the farm. Farms at the foot of the Soutpansberg producing sub-tropical products or vegetables are less labor intensive than those to the north, and depend almost solely on South African labor that is more readily accessible because of the proximity of the former Venda homeland. The local workers commute to their homes on weekends or even daily. Farmers who depend on South African labor are hostile to Zimbabwean migrants, holding them responsible for the increase in crime in the province. Some farmers talk openly of how they strive to keep their areas “clean of Zimbabweans.”29 26 Ibid., pp. 10, 16-17. See also “Magoebaskloof farmers agree to sell,” Mirror (South Africa), April 28, 2006, which reported that one community was claiming 200 Magoebaskloof fruit estates and had successfully claimed state land leased to the Sapekoe Tea Estate. On land claims in Limpopo province, see Farmer’s Weekly (South Africa), September 10, 2004, pp. 34-35. 27 David Lincoln with Claude Maririke, “Southward Migrants in the Far North: Zimbabwean Farmworkers in Northern Province,” in Crush, ed., Borderline Farming, pp. 40-42. 28 Wegerif, Critical Appraisal of South Africa’s Market-based Land Reform Policy, p. 16. 29 Human Rights Watch interview with a white commercial farmer who was a Transvaal Agricultural Union (TAU) official for Soutpansberg, Levubu, April 29, 2006; Human Rights Watch interview with a white commercial farmer and lawyer, Makhado, April 25, 2006. HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH VOLUME 18, NO. 6(A) 12