These were some of the criticisms expressed by opposition party leaders during last night’s agriculture budget vote debate in Parliament (13 May).
Minister Zokwana said the Agriculture Policy Action Plan (APAP) launched earlier this year broadly proposed growing the sector by focussing on expanding high-value, labour-intensive agriculture and by increasing the production and export of value-added products.
#AgriBudget Zokwana: main challenges impeding agriculture growth; high input costs, climate change, natural disasters.
— Farmer’s Weekly SA (@FarmersWeeklySA) May 13, 2015
But opposition parties argued that any hope for growth in the sector was being undermined by the uncertainty created by land reform, which, they said, would continue to discourage investment in the sector.
Annette Steyn, DA MP and spokesperson for agriculture, accused the ANC of purposefully causing land reform to fail. If the ANC was serious about land reform, it would have ensured that a proper budget was made available for this program, she said.
#AgriBudget @AnnetteSteyn: Agri department budget cut by R158 million due to persistent under spending @FarmersWeeklySA
— Denene Erasmus (@agri_erasmus) May 13, 2015
The ANC wanted land reform to fail because the state could then, at some point, evoke the limitation of rights under Section 36 of the Constitution and override the protection guaranteed to individual property owners in terms of Section 25, said Steyn.
This would allow the state to “control all land, whether in the form of ownership or as a custodian”.
Referring to the reaction from the agriculture sector last week after land reform minister Nkwiti announcing new caps on private land ownership, Steyn told Zokwana he “must stop telling farmers to calm down [and] that this is all a negotiating tactic”.
She was referring to comments he made when he addressed farmers at the Nampo agricultural show in Bothaville.
Steyn accused Zokwana of playing cat and mouse with the farmers, telling them to calm down every time Nkwinti announced “new populist proposals” for land reform.
Her sentiments were shared by FF Plus MP Dr Pieter Groenewald. He said Zokwana and Nkwinti were playing a game of ‘good cop, bad cop’ with farmers, with Zokwana, the good cop, telling farmers to calm down and enter into dialogue with the government, while Nkwinti, the bad cop, ignored all suggestions from organised agriculture and continued to announce radical and impractical land reform proposals.
“Don’t try to deceive the farmers, or underestimate their intelligence with the games you are playing,” Groenewald told Zokwana.
If the agriculture department was really serious about growing the sector, Zokwana would be opposing the land ceilings proposal announced by Nkwinti, said Groenewald.
The plan to cap private land ownership would only discourage investment in agriculture, he added.
