Agriculture Minister Tina Joemat-Pettersson congratulated Western Cape Premier Helen Zille on Friday for suggesting a 50/50 equity share scheme between farmers and their workers.

"If Premier Zille is saying 50/50, then it is radical and she deserves a round of applause for that," Joemat-Pettersson said at the start of a two-day farm workers summit in Somerset West outside of Cape Town.

"But she must bring her constituency to the table and then we'll talk about it," the minister said to applause from farm workers and delegates.

Zille said in her speech that equity share schemes were "desirable" because they were a model of genuine broad-based black economic empowerment.

"There's also evidence from government research that 50/50 equity share schemes are the most productive land reform model by far," Zille said.

"When equity share schemes work they are productive, sustainable and offer real empowerment.

"Equity share schemes had been used, but had to come to a halt due to problems with monitoring grants and budget constraints.

"Lets work quickly to resolve problems with equity share schemes so that farm workers who are the bedrock of sustainable food production can start reaping the benefits," Zille said.

President Jacob Zuma told the conference that much work still had to be done to ensure that farm workers were treated humanely by farmers.

"It is a fact that working conditions for many farm workers still remain far from ideal," Zuma said.

"Many have no insurance, including UIF, which means their futures are not secure."

Zuma said that the conference would go a long way towards finding solutions for problems affecting farm workers.

"It is clear that we need to do things differently in this sector, we can no longer delay the solutions," he said.