Fair enough the SA government has a lot to deal with but I fail to see how this massive problem can be ignored by them. 600 000 plus Grape-pickers have lost their housing and employment through the use of mechanical harvesters, this equates to at least three or four times that number if one includes dependents. If the government is not responsible for these people, who is?

Labour unions require a membership fee which the majority of Grape-pickers cannot afford and thus they are not protected by these organisations.

The Wine Estate owners form a whealthy white elite that has utterly failed to acknowledge any 'duty' in regards to their workers, and the suffering they have inflicted on them in the last few centuries. Of course there are caring exceptions to that generalization but too few it would seem.

So yes, sadly the protective structures that ought to exist have failed and it now depends on us, the consumers, to change this blood stained industry.

The failure to immediately rehabilitate the Grape-picking communities of the Western Cape can only lead to greater long term problems for the government. I suggest a complete ban of mechanical harvesters and the removal of any machine harvested wine, as well as wine blended with machine harvested wine, from the market.