DEVELOPMENT-SOUTH AFRICA: Walking the Tightrope of Land Reform

By Moyiga Nduru Reprint | | Print |

Moyiga Nduru

NELSPRUIT, Sep 30 2006 (IPS) - South Africa is caught between a rock and a hard place. It must address the growing hunger for land on the part of black people and, at the same time, avoid going the route of Zimbabwe. Land reform in this neighbouring state, meant to address colonial injustice, has ended up undermining the economy.

Zimbabwe’s land reform has involved the seizure of property from thousands of white commercial farmers, starting in 2000.

The failure of the reform is reflected in Zimbabwe’s dismal economic performance. Figures released by the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe Sep.15 show that inflation is now over 1,200 percent, the highest rate in the world.

Before embarking on the ill-fated reform, Zimbabwe used to be the grain basket of Southern Africa. Not anymore. Reports indicate that a number of the farms were distributed to President Robert Mugabe’s associates, or to people who have no collateral to secure a bank loan for investment in agriculture.

Namibia is also in the throes of a debate on land issues. Official statistics show that whites in this country, who make up about 100,000 of Namibia’s 1.8 million people, own 80 percent of prime farmland.

But South African officials have dismissed perceptions that the difficulties surrounding land reform – which aims to rectify the wrongs of apartheid – will scare off foreign investors.

“I don’t think the land reform in South Africa will have any impact on foreign investors. We are following the same policy that we have been pursuing since the 1990s. It’s not something new,” said Dirk du Toit, deputy minister for agriculture and land affairs.

Du Toit met with journalists this week in Nelspruit, the capital of northern Mpumulanga province, where he was touring farmlands. Mpumulanga lies on the border with Swaziland and Mozambique.

“There are views that the only people who can do farming are whites. If they leave, then agriculture will collapse. This concern is also being expressed in some quarters in Zimbabwe,” said Tozi Gwanya, chief land claims commissioner at the Department of Land Affairs in South Africa’s capital – Pretoria.

“In South Africa, we are working together with strategic partners who transfer skills to black farmers. We are addressing equity, fairness and justice,” he said, adding that while the country could not have the majority of land in white hands, it was not chasing whites from the agriculture sector.

“We have got enough space and room for everybody in the new South Africa. If we achieve the 30 percent target of transferring land to black people by 2014, 70 percent of the land will still remain in the hands of white people. I don’t know why big issues are being made out of land reform.”

But some don’t believe that the government will confine itself to the target it has set.

“They won’t stop at 30 percent. Our calculation is that whites will be left with closer to 50 percent of the land they currently own,” Chris Jordan, manager of Property Rights at the Pretoria-based Transvaal Agricultural Union of South Africa, representing mainly white commercial farmers, told IPS.

“If we go the Zimbabwe way we may lose 15,000 farmers out of the total 46,000 commercial farmers by 2008/2010. These include black farmers who come to us complaining about their farms being targeted for acquisition,” Jordan added. “The pressure on commercial farmers to lose their land is becoming extensive.”

Last month Lulu Xingwana, minister for agriculture and land affairs, warned that the government would start expropriating white-owned farms by February 2007. She gave six months for negotiations concerning the transfer of property, and said if commercial farmers resisted this, government would have no choice but to go ahead with expropriation. The government wants to complete restitution by 2008.

Pretoria has also been criticised for moving too slowly on land reform.

Between 1994 and 2004 only 4.3 percent of white farmland was transferred to blacks, according to a 2005 study by the Centre for Development and Enterprise, a Johannesburg-based think tank.

“Land reform took off slowly because we had to put the commission (for land claims) in place. Although management is now in place, we still have basic challenges to address,” du Toit confirmed.

Although land occupations on the scale of those in Zimbabwe do not appear imminent in South Africa, government is aware of the need to move as quickly as possible on this issue. “It’s in the interest of national security that the (30 percent) target be reached. We need all the assistance that we can get from non-governmental organisations and business,” du Toit said.

“It’s in the interest of everybody that we address land reform.”

Certain blacks whose lands were seized during apartheid are becoming desperate to regain their property.

“Last week I spoke for three hours and lost my voice because people were complaining that their lands were taken and that we were doing nothing about it,” said Madala Masuku, who is in charge of agriculture and land affairs in Mpumulanga Province.

On occasion, interactions with white farmers, who keep guns at home to protect their property and themselves, become heated. “Sometimes we use the left hand to wave away guns pointed at us. We say first listen to us and if you decide to shoot, make sure that the bullet catches us for the right reason,” noted Masuku, referring to meetings with white farmers.

Gwanya said he had also been confronted with gun-toting white farmers while in the company of a government minister, whom he didn’t identify.

“The farmers told us that they didn’t recognise the government of South Africa. But, at the end of discussions, they said they would cooperate with it,” he recalled.

“And they sold their land,” du Toit interjected.

White farmers also believe that a spate of murders on farms is aimed at driving them off their land. “An average of two farmers and their workers are killed every week. Some 2,400 murders of farmers (and) their black workers have taken place since 1996. A third of those murdered are black workers,” Jordan said.

Police say the murders are criminal in nature, and not directed at farmers.

But Jordan disagrees: “We have experience that when there’s a claim on a farm then the level of murders goes up. They kill and don’t take anything from the farm. From our point of view, it’s an attack directed at white farmers and their workers to force them off land.”

Where white and black farmers cooperate, there seem to be some success stories.

“I only experience small problems, such as fixing defective water pumps and fences. Last year I harvested 5,038 tonnes of sugar cane. This year I’m looking forward to harvesting more,” Henry Magagula, a black farmer whose 37.2 hectare farm is situated some 110 kilometres from Nelspruit, told IPS.

Magagula took a loan of 302,000 dollars last year, payable over 15 years, with the support of his white mentor. “I grew up in a farming family. I like farming. I’m also thinking of raising chickens so that when natural disasters like drought hit my sugarcane farm, I have something to fall back on,” he said.

He employs two fulltime workers, and upwards of 30 seasonal workers during harvests. “When I raise enough money, I want to buy 100 hectares of land,” said Magagula.

The farm he owns is on Siyathuthuka Land Reform Project, which he shares with six other black farmers. Initiatives such as this may just be scratching the surface of what is required.

“Some 1,000 people applied for this farm. Only seven were selected to run it. It was a run-down farm. We managed to turn it around,” said Martin Slabbert, manager of Transvaal Sugar Limited, who mentors and helps the farmers with skills transfer and negotiating with banks.

At a neighbouring farm called the Moody Blue Land Reform Project, shared between the white owner and three black families, manager Rian Kotze said government needed to provide providing fertilizer more quickly – but didn’t have many additional complains.

“In a farm things don’t happen in two weeks. They must happen the same day. Apart from the delay in supplying fertilizer, we don’t have big problems,” he told IPS.