Farm and rural killings should not be politicised and all murders should be treated equally, Minister of Police Nathi Mthethwa said on Monday.

Addressing an AgriSA conference in Pretoria on rural safety, Mthethwa said that the race card should not be brought into the debate by unions, political parties and other stakeholders to advance their own agenda.

"We do not see it as anything else political or racist, we see it as just crime.

"We cannot sit on different sides of the fence and point fingers, we need to recognise that most farmworkers and farmers are valuable assets."

Mthethwa said that a rural safety plan to be rolled out in the near future was a sign of government's commitment to curbing the "senseless crimes" and mitigating the economic impact of stock theft.

"We are concerned about murders generally, it pains us to see one productive person has been eliminated from the face of the earth because of senseless murderers,' said Mthethwa.