South African farmers migrating to neighbouring countries

By Colleen Dardagan

In five years South Africa could be importing food from its neighbours as thousands of farmers pour over the borders because of the country's land claim policies.

Farmers whose land has either been bought or claimed by the South African government in the land reform process are moving to Mozambique, Botswana, Malawi, Zambia and Namibia, where their expertise is being welcomed with open arms.

This is contained in a report released this week. The report is based on a round- table discussion on land reform hosted by the Centre for Development and Enterprise last year and facilitated by local development specialist Jeff McCarthy.

Representatives of government and various agriculture sectors at the discussion said South Africa could be importing food and timber from countries such as Mozambique within five years.

AgriSA president Lourie Bosman said while there were no official figures of how many farmers were moving to neighbouring states, at least 35 000 out of 60 000 farmers in total had left the country since 1996.

"I can't tell you how many of those are now in countries such as Mozambique or Zambia, but what I can tell you is they're being welcomed with open arms. We are regularly receiving government delegations from those countries who are looking for farmers to invest in building their agriculture sectors.

"The land reform process is not working. The government is using taxpayers' money to take out farmers who are both productive and profitable, and replacing them with people who have little or no knowledge of agriculture. It's not rocket science to see that within a very short time South Africa is going to face a huge food crisis."

Charl Senekal, a Zululand farmer whose land is under claim, said that South Africans were flocking to Mozambique.

"We don't know what is going to happen in South Africa and they want us in Mozambique. If someone wants to start a viable project the government assists and supports it to make sure it works - their attitude is completely different from here," he said.

IOL