CAPE TOWN, June 16 – South Africa’s new agriculture minister Tina Joemat-Pettersson said on Tuesday the continent’s biggest maize producer would not seize white farms to redistribute to blacks as this would harm its economy.
“With our willing-buyer, willing-seller policy there are times when the land becomes too expensive for the state to purchase, and if we face a programme of expropriation, it would further destabilise the economic industry of agriculture,” she told an agribusiness conference in Cape Town.
After the fall of apartheid in 1994, the ruling African National Congress set itself a target of handing 30 percent of all agricultural land to the black majority by 2014.
But progress towards the target has been slow, and only about 4 percent of land has been acquired from private owners amid funding problems that government officials say might hinder the government from meeting its goal.
Land reform is a sensitive issue in Africa’s biggest economy, where critics say the programme has hurt investment in the commercial farming sector and drastically reduced the land that is available for commercial agriculture.
Additional Reporting: Reuters
(Reporting by Muchena Zigomo; Editing by Keiron Henderson)
We know that SA will go the Zimbabwe way. What the agriculture minister has said in the above article is exactly what obtained in Zimbabwe before the land rush. She acknowledges her governement’s problems in acheiving land redristibution. This problem existed in Zimbabwe, but Zimbabwe had financial backers in this in the early stages of the land reform, but with the change of governement in the UK, things changed. Zimbabwe then went to the European Union about this and a land conference was held at which most EU nations pledged aid. Unfortunately, this was at the time when elections in Europe took place and governements changed and no aid came Zimbabwe’s way. With a little bit of political engineering and incitement the mases went onto the farms. What happened in the later part of the land rush saw opportunists taking over. These are largely educated people or people with power that usurped the masses. Unless SA has a solution to the funding problem primarily, the Zimbabwe fiasco will not be avoidable. The other issue in Zimbabwe was that the willing-seller was one who farmed in drought prone areas fit for ranching and never inhabitated by humans before in the history of agrarian Zimbabwe and naturally maize growing farmers in the new lands failed despite agricultural inputs and infrastructural development. I do not know what the situation in SA is like regarding the 4% government has bought so far.
What I have stated above are plain facts with no support to any racial groups. Southern Africa has a common history and indeed same bantu peoples. In fact it started in Tanzania, then Zambia, Mozambique and Zimbabwe. What happened in Uganda does not deserve mentioning here because that was odd. Naturally South Africa will follow. It is the youngest bantu nation and this is why it still having difficulty figuring where it is heading unless major spending decisions are taken. FUND AGRICULTURAL REFORM NOW. SPEND LESS ON THE ARMY. NEGOTIATE REASONABLE PRICES FOR THESE WELL RUN FARMS AND ACKNOWLEDGE THE INVESTMENT PUT IN BY PRESENT OWNERS. IT IS BUSINESS TO THEM AND A LIVELIHOOD. WHY WOULD YOU WANT TO TAKE IT FOR FREE? YOU STILL NEED YOUR POLICE BADLY THOUGH. These are the leasons I learnt from Zimbabwe, being an educated Zimbabwean myself.
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The Boers need to compromise,just like everyone else…they need to be compensated for at least half the market value of these farms.We all know their ancestors stole the land from Africans.Why would anyone pay for something that was stolen from them.Paying half the market value of these farms is a big compromise by Africans.
If these Boers dont accept the compromise,THROW THEM OUT,WHATEVER THE OUTCOME FROM THE COLONIAL MASTERS(EUROPE AND HER ALLIES)