South Africa's commercial farmers are helping develop the country's rural areas and should not be made part of the problem, deputy agriculture minister Pieter Mulder said on Wednesday.

"To politicise rural areas and to polarise farms is the most certain way to fail with the development of rural areas," he said in a speech prepared for delivery at a meeting of the Durbanville, Philadelphia and Cape Flats agricultural associations.

Locally commercial farmers were still too easily seen as part of the problem, which he said was propaganda for short-term political gains. The country and the agriculture sector needed a balanced view of rural development that recognised the important roles of both commercial farmers and farm workers.

Referring to the recent National Farm Workers' Summit in Somerset West, Mulder said a truly "serious" discussion on the matter was needed.

There should be few delegates discussing issues and drafting documents as equals.

Mulder said the recent conference, with 1100 delegates, Congress of SA Trade Unions general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi as speaker and delegates wearing Cosatu and ANC T-shirts was clearly not the way to go, as it pitted commercial farmers and their workers against each other.

Except for short-term political advantages for the ANC, it was destructive in the long term for the development of rural areas and for relations on farms.