With green paper out real debate to start

A Green Paper on land reform that has already been signed off by the Minister of Rural Development and Land Reform, Gugile Nkwinti, and is on its way to Cabinet for approval, proposes radical changes to the way land is owned in South Africa.

One of its proposals holds that government will decide when farmers own “too much land” for a particular type of farming activity and they will be forced to share the surplus land with black South Africans. Another is to prohibit foreigners from owning “commercial land” in South Africa without the consent of local communities and participation of black partners.

Lucrative Western Cape wine farms are among the targets of the new policy, judging by remarks made by Nkwinti’s spokesperson Mthobeli Mxotwa. These farms, while often owned by foreigners, are nonetheless highly productive and are exporting some of South Africa’s finest wines to the rest of the world.

The argument regarding ownership of game farms that are also often the property of absentee foreigners is more complex. The successful ones are earning South Africa considerable income, while others are simply privately owned white elephants or weekend farms.

The decision to target foreign ownership has both merits and negatives and will have to be very carefully managed and publicised for fear of further hardening attitudes and investor resistance to South Africa. However these forms of shared land ownership involving foreigners are not altogether new and are practised successfully in many countries.

It may also become a growing trend in the near future given the ever- increasing pressure on governments to plan and act for greater food security in a world challenged by the potential of climate change.

As has been rightly noted in a research paper released by the Woodrow Wilson International Centre for Scholars and titled Asia’s future – Agriculture and land use: Competition among various land uses will be one of the most significant trends affecting Asia’s environment over the next 20 years.

Foreign enterprises are also increasingly investing in land ownership and land use rights in the Southern Africa region for agriculture, harvest of natural resources, tourism, biofuels and other industries – often competing with domestic ownership, investment and livelihoods.

Although technology continues to improve agricultural yields, foreign exports and other uses for land, as well as access to adequate water supplies are increasingly affecting food security in these countries.

But whether government officials with little or no agricultural experience or knowledge will be the right people to decide what size of farm is required for a specific agricultural activity is another question altogether. According to Rapport newspaper the president of AgriSA, Johannes Möller, has already rejected the proposals as being “stupid”. He reportedly said the department itself does not even know how to implement such a policy.

Mxotwa said the department was developing a new land tenure system and planned a complete overhaul of land ownership in South Africa with this new policy. This will include a commission for land management which will create and maintain a database of the ownership of every piece of land in South Africa.

The main objective of the policy, says the department, is to empower black South Africans to become landowners and reverse the current imbalances where 83% of commercial land in the country was owned by white farmers and businesses while 13% was shared among blacks, coloureds and Indians. It is difficult to establish whether these figures are really up to date or not. The term “commercial land” in the policy document also does not only refer to commercial farms but all land on which commercial business is conducted.

The policy was developed after increasing criticism of the government’s slow progress with its land reform and redistribution programme.

While the blame was put largely on alleged resistance by white farmers, government has tended to ignore well-founded criticism of incompetence by its own land claims commission and the department.

For one, many emerging black farmers to whom once-productive farmlands have been allocated have no working capital, skills or experience and have been left to fend for themselves by government. The result has been the collapse of these farms.

On this score Möller perhaps quite rightly commented that it would have been better for government to first address this problem and help these emerging black farmers get on their feet, before trying to radically alter land ownership structures.

Way forward

After being presented to the Cabinet, the policy document will have to go through a parliamentary process that is likely to generate controversy and resistance, including Constitutional Court challenges.

It is therefore impossible to predict when the proposed new policy will actually be implemented.

Perhaps the only reassuring thing about the Green Paper at this stage, may be Mxotwa’s assurance that the government will not conduct land grabs “left and right” and that all affected parties will be able to make submissions before a final policy and legislation is adopted.

But in the past government has demonstrated a willingness to shift the goal posts regarding other “assurances”, such as that relating to the willing seller-willing buyer principle and market-related prices for instance.

These changes will also have to pass constitutional scrutiny. But the tension created between the two basic sections in the Bill of Rights dealing with property rights –  the right to secure ownership of land versus the right to redressing historical imbalances – is likely to favour this policy.

Mxotwa has indicated that the new policy proposals are built around three basic concepts:

• Limiting the size of land that can be privately owned by one person, with government having the right to acquire the “excess” land and leasing it to black South African farmers;
• That state land may in future never be sold but only leased; and
• That foreigners buying commercial land in South Africa but who do not live on it, may only farm if they have black South African partners and that there should be productive discipline on such land.