Report slams South African govt. on land

South Africa's policy of transferring land from white to black farmers is out of step with the country's needs and in its present form will fail to deliver economic growth, a report has said. The De Klerk Foundation, headed by South Africa's last white apartheid-era leader F.W. deKlerk, rejected the idea that white farmers were to blame for the programme's slow pace and criticised suggestions the government might introduce compulsory land sales.

Land is a racially divisive issue in post-apartheid South Africa, where blacks were kicked off their land under segregational rule and colonialism. Whites still dominate land ownership, more than a decade after the fall of apartheid. The black-led government that came to power after the first democratic election in 1994 pledged to address the imbalance.

Whites, who constitute about 20 percent of South Africa's population, still own well over 90 percent of farmland and officials have struggled to meet a target of handing a third of land to blacks by 2014. The government often buys land from white farmers to return to blacks deprived of ancestral land, but officials accuse farmers of inflating prices to stall sales. The de Klerk Foundation said whites were making standard demands in a booming market. It criticised proposals to halt foreign land ownership, saying they were "inconsistent with the general policy" on foreign investment.

Officials have vowed to start seizing land when they feel price negotiations have broken down. The government carried out the first such order in February.

The government had not accepted offers of help from experienced commercial farmers, the foundation said, repeating a common criticism that handing land to ill-equipped black newcomers could threaten food security. President Thabo Mbeki's government is eager to revive agriculture, whose contribution to gross domestic product has dropped sharply over the past few years. It says it can create jobs in a country where roughly a quarter of the workforce is out of work. The foundation said this approach was flawed since a growing number of South Africans are moving away from rural areas. "Only 9 percent of black people who do not farm at present, have clear aspirations to farm," it said.

Speaking at the launch, AgriSA land affairs policy advisor Annelize Crosby said growing frustration among black South Africans over the slow pace of land reform should not be underestimated. But responding to a question, she ruled out any immediate threat of Zimbabwe-style land invasions however, saying South Africa was very different to its northern neighbour. "We have a clear Constitution, good policy and good regulations. The problem is with people getting frustrated. While Zimbabwe-style land invasions are not an immediate threat, we should not underestimate not doing land reform," she said.

Also speaking at the launch, the foundation's executive director, Dave Steward, said land reform in South Africa was one of the most "difficult, delicate and important topics in the national debate". Such transformation was "emotional and complicated. "It is crucially important that land reform is something that we all do together, transformation 'with' rather than 'against'," he said.

Reuters/Business in Africa