Feeling stuck in life is awful. It is demoralising,
makes you unproductive, leaves you feeling
gloomy about the future, and the longer you
remain stuck the more difficult it becomes to
escape. So sometimes, in order to get unstuck,
you have to stop worrying too much about
whether or not you are taking a step in the
right direction just so that you can take some
sort of action that gets you moving again. If
it takes a misstep to get you out of a rut, the
mistake might have been worthwhile.
There are many proposals contained in the
final report by the Expert Advisory Panel on
Land Reform and Agriculture, published for
public comment recently, that are problematic,
or even somewhat out of touch with the
economic realities facing South Africa.
The report underemphasises the extent
to which corruption and government’s
ineptitude contributed to the slow progress
made with land reform. In fact, the process
has undergone more than a slowdown. Ever since the former Department of Rural
Development and Land Reform reopened the land claims process, it has become
desperately stuck. The panel’s vehement support for proposed amendments to the
Constitution to broaden the state’s powers to expropriate land without compensation
is also of concern, as this will undermine private property rights in South Africa.
But as Dr John Purchase, CEO of Agbiz, remarked, the report, whatever
its shortcomings may be, and despite its more controversial proposals, takes
the debate on sustainable land reform forward (see story on pg 17).
Dan Kriek, president of Agri SA and one of the members of the advisory panel,
who, with fellow panel member Nick Serfontein, published an alternative report
to the advisory panel’s, said that the panel tried, but failed, to strike a balance
between social justice, human development and economic prosperity.
Among the suggestions that Kriek and Serfontein agreed on with the rest of the panel
were the need to release state land for land reform, the need to provide support to new
farmers, and perhaps most importantly, the development of beneficiary guidelines
that must run hand-in-hand with the development of a transparent selection strategy
for beneficiaries. Those proposals that the advisory panel could not reach consensus
on included expropriation without compensation, a moratorium on evictions of
farmworkers and other people living on farms, insufficient focus on economic realities,
a proposal on a land tax to be paid by farm owners, and several proposals related to
the formula for determining compensation to be paid when the state acquires land.
Generally, I found the panel’s report very descriptive about how agriculture should
contribute to land reform, but it was significantly more vague on suggesting incentives
for role players’ participation. Or is the incentive more a case of ‘give it or lose it’? (^) ▪FW
Getting South Africa
‘unstuck’ on land
Denene Erasmus
Editor
From the Editor
4 farmer’sweekly 9 August 2019
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