South Africa to speed up land reform

The South African government plans to buy up 5 million hectares of white-owned land over the coming year to speed its progress towards putting 30 per cent of farm land in the hands of black farmers, Agriculture Minister Lulu Xingwana has said.

Post-apartheid land reform has been advancing at a snail's pace. Black farmers still own only 4.7 per cent of farm land, Xingwana told a press briefing. Around 10,000 black farmers are to benefit from the land acquisition drive, which will require more expropriations of white- owned farms in order to keep costs down, the minister said. "The willing buyer, willing seller is not working," she declared.

Since 1994 the government has been buying up white-owned land and transferring it to new black farmers at the rate of around 300,000 hectares a year. Meeting its target of putting 30 per cent - around 25 million hectares - in black hands by 2014 requires speeding up the transfer rate to around 3 million hectares annually.

The minister also said plans were afoot to regulate foreign land ownership. The government regularly blames foreigners for shoving up property prices and making land reform more expensive, although foreigners own less than 5 per cent of South African land.

In 2007 the government carried out its first-ever expropriation of a farm that was the subject of a restitution claim - a scheme for blacks dispossessed under apartheid - after the owners and state failed to agree a price. Mindful of Zimbabwe's disastrous land reform programme that decimated commercial farming the government also announced more support for new farmers to ensure their farms were productive. New black farmers have repeatedly complained of a lack of financial and technical support.

Earth Times