State looking for cheap land

It’s going to be difficult for the state to come up with the estimated R71 billion needed over the next five years to buy land for redistribution, said by rural development and land reform minister Gugile Nkwinti.
He said the recession was forcing government to find a cheaper alternative to the willing-buyer, willing-seller model of land reform.
“We will investigate less costly models,” he told parliament during debate on President Jacob Zuma’s state of the nation address.
Later, he tabled a report providing a frank account of how land reforms have fallen short of achieving agrarian transformation goals. The Constitution allows the state to expropriate farms for land reform and subtract apartheid subsidies from the price, but this has never been implemented because of the negative impact it would have on investor sentiment.
The report proposes an audit of privately owned agricultural land and asks if it can be bought at below market value. “We may not have to pay for the ill-acquired land,” the document says.
The document, circulated to members of the national assembly’s Portfolio Committee on Rural Development and Land Reform, also called for a review of all major land-reform models implemented in the last decade. The 1997 White Paper on land reform, on which the models are based, states land reform must reverse racially skewed land-ownership patterns, inherited from apartheid, which prevented black South Africans from using natural resources to accumulate wealth.
But, 15 years into democracy, most privately-owned land remains in white hands and poverty levels remain high in former homelands.
Nkwinti’s briefing document calls for the drafting of a new White Paper focusing on turning land reforms into a catalyst for rural economic development. This may require drafting new enabling legislation.
Policymakers will take a fresh look at three strategies in particular. The Proactive Land Acquisition Strategy (PLAS), where the state buys land aggressively and leases it to beneficiaries; the Land Redistribution for Agricultural Development (LRAD) model, which allows black farmers to access government grants to buy farms; and post-settlement support models and the controversial “use it or lose it” principle.
The document also commits government to reviewing outstanding rural land claims, where confusion exists between individual and community claimants. “This is excellent news,” said Kobus Pienaar of the public interest law firm the Legal Resources Centre (LRC). It has handled several high-profile restitution cases. “It’s the much-needed sane approach government has failed to take for many years.”
The LRC has been a vocal critic of the Land Claims Commission’s approach to community claims. These encouraged thousands of distant descendants of forced-removals victims to demand a share of scarce land resources, resulting in intractable conflict.
PLAS has been criticised for accelerating failure because beneficiaries lack secure tenure and can’t access production credit. This leaves them dependent on state aid. When this has proved inefficient, government can cancel leases by invoking the “use it or lose it” principle.
The paper says a rural development agency will be established to coordinate efforts by different departments, state entities and financial institutions. It will also perform a monitoring and evaluation role. The agency will launch a massive livestock-fencing programme on communal lands and a cropping or livestock pilot in each province.
“We’ll know we’re successful in the implementation of rural development when we see sustainable and vibrant rural communities,” the paper concludes. – Stephan Hofstätter