land – praag.org

Church set alight by land invaders

A church was set alight during a violent protest in Kalkfontein near Kuils River on Sunday evening, Western Cape police said.

“It’s confirmed that the church has been set alight. Apparently it appears it was set alight by protestors,” said police spokesperson Colonel Thembinkosi Kinana.

“As I understand it, it’s a continuation of the land invasion protests that were going on the weekend,” he says.

No injuries were reported.

“No arrests have been made so far. The investigation is still on going,” says Kinana.

Kinana could not confirm whether the protests were linked to similiar protests late in March when a council home rented by law enforcement officer was petrol bombed, allegedly by a group of people evicted from land they illegally occupied.

Members of the public order policing unit would remain on scene, Kinana says.

Since March, the area has seen an invasion to occupy a stretch of land belonging to the city council.

Another expensive black farming project tanks

President Jacob Zuma handed over 85 new tractors to the Masibuyele Emasimini project in Mpumalanga and KwaZulu-Natal in June 2010 to encourage small-scale farming.

The The R500-million for the project is wasted it seems. The project was intended to help “emerging black farmers” but is on the brink of collapse with only six of 32 tractors allocated to the DrJS Moroka municipality still running.

The government has meanwhile proposed that commercial farmers give half of their farm land to black workers.

The rest are idle because of lack of maintenance, timeslive reported.

Tractor drivers in Machiding, who battle to get diesel fuel and broken tractors repaired, went on strike early this month because, they say, they have not been paid.

In Mmametlhake and Marapyane, more than 30 farmers missed planting 65ha of sunflower seeds this season because 17 of the tractors allocated to their area were either broken or did not have fuel.

The African Farmers’ Association of SA said a total of 185000ha of once-productive, redistributed land in KwaZulu-Natal was standing idle as farmers waited to benefit from the project.

Emerging farmer Abios Maloka said 25ha of maize went to waste last season because the fields had not been ploughed in time .

“Instead of assisting farmers, [the programme] brought devastation and hopelessness. Before, we would plan in advance to get the fields ploughed but we were given a false sense of hope. Now we are sitting with heaps of fertiliser and seed that has not been used.”

Job Mthombeni, president of the African Farmers’ Association of SA in Mpumalanga, said the association had told the government of its concerns.

He said at first the project ran efficiently, with the shortage of tractors being the only shortcoming.

Farms for sale in crisis-ridden Ukraine

Experts say the crisis in Ukraine is set to trigger the sale of state-owned farm land and small family plots to foreigners

Ukraine, known as Europe’s bread basket, has the eighth largest agricultural area in use globally and is the world’s third largest exporter of corn and sixth largest grain grower, potentially making it a prime target for foreign investment.

But the government has been wary of allowing foreign land sales, fearing rural unrest, and the value of its 32 million hectares (79 million acres) of farmland has been limited by its division into small plots with relatively low productivity.

However economic turmoil emanating from the conflict between pro-Russia rebels and government forces in the east has intensified the need for change, said Heinz Strubenhoff, agribusiness investment manager for the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation in Ukraine.

Opening the farm sector, a key driver of the economy, to outside investors has long been backed by the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF), and Strubenhoff believes changes will now happen sooner rather than later.

“It’s time to think about privatization. They need to prepare everything to allow for farm land sales (to foreign and domestic investors) in three to four years,” Strubenhoff told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Currently, farm land cannot be bought or sold in Ukraine, but companies can sign onto long-term leases with small holders.

President Petro Poroshenko, elected last May after protests ousted previous Russian-backed leader Viktor Yanukovich, had considered lifting restrictions on land sales during “long discussions” with World Bank officials, Strubenhoff said.

But Kiev backed off the move as it feared a backlash from rural communities, he said.

Ukraine’s Ministry of Agriculture was unable to immediately respond to requests for comment.

Agriculture Minister Oleksiy Pavlenko told local media last month that he believes Ukraine can produce 100 million tonnes of grain annually by 2020, up from 62 million tonnes in 2014.

To nearly double production, the country aims to attract $25 billion in outside investment for agriculture, Pavlenko said.

But enticing new capital in the midst of the conflict that has displaced nearly a million people won’t be easy.

Jean-Jacques Hervé, counselor to the board for agriculture at France’s Credit Agricole Bank in Ukraine, said local people don’t have enough money to buy the land.

“Speculators with access to foreign currency would be the biggest winners (if the land market was opened),” he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Selling land to foreign investors could cause problems and the government should instead help get finance to farmers, search for new export markets and simplify the procedures for land leases, he said.

Frédéric Mousseau, policy director of the Oakland Institute, an NGO critical of privatization, said pushing Ukraine to open its land market would end up giving domestic and foreign oligarchs more control over the country’s agriculture potential.

“About 20 percent of the country’s most fertile lands are already controlled by large agribusiness firms (through long-term leases),” Mousseau told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

“The (proposed) reforms would just intensify this concentration.”

But despite concerns from some quarters, U.N. officials are backing the World Bank’s view on sales.

“In the long term, Ukraine should aim to open its land market to allow optimum resource allocation,” Dmitry Prikhodko, an economist with the U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

With foreign currency reserves low, Kiev needs the World Bank’s money – up to $2 billion this year with another $8 billion from the IMF – which potentially gives officials like Strubenhoff greater policy leverage.

“There is a big chance in the crisis for the Ukrainian government,” Strubenhoff said.

Source: Reuters

Zim’s white farmers face new land grabs

Most of Zimbabwe’s white farmers were stripped of their land in often violent evictions that started in 2000. Now the remaining white farmers are on edge because of threats of new evictions linked to the country’s long-running political turmoil.

Mandi Chimene, a newly appointed provincial governor for Manicaland province, said at a rally this past weekend that she had evicted white farmers from 12 farms in the Headlands district alone, claiming they were being protected by the former vice president’s faction. Joice Mujuru was ousted from the ruling party congress in December after falling out of favor with the president and his wife.

Another newly appointed governor, Joe Biggie Matiza of Mashonaland East province, said he will take similar action by the end of this month.

However, human rights advocate and political analyst Gabriel Shumba said that linking the evictions to the Mujuru faction “is just political expediency by those seeking to evict them.” Shumba said, “White farmers are caught up because they are in possession of an asset that is in demand.”

The Commercial Farmers Union, which represents mostly white farmers in Zimbabwe, has sought a meeting with the lands minister over the evictions, said spokesman Hendricks Olivier. “The eviction of both black and white farmers is not good for the sector,” Olivier told The Associated Press. “We need a clear policy.”

Douglas Mombeshora, the lands minister, recently said black farmers can enter into joint venture with partners of other races. But vice president Emmerson Mnangagwa later delivered a conflicting message, warning of more evictions of white farmers. President Robert Mugabe has often spoken against joint farming partnerships between blacks and whites.

There are fewer than 300 white farmers out of the original total of 4,500, according to the Commercial Farmers Union. The land eviction program that targeted white farmers starting in 2000 was defended by Mugabe as necessary to correct land imbalances dating from the era of white rule, though the upheaval was blamed for mismanagement of Zimbabwe’s once rich agricultural economy.

Source: AP

Privatize government’s land to get budget balanced: TAU SA

Land under the control of government is an unhealthy practice that causes only harm to the country and to agriculture.

Mr. Louis Meintjes, TAU SA’s president, responded to the news of horrific neglect on a farm near Nigel that is managed by the local authority. Apparently many pigs and chickens died of thirst while plants in vegetable tunnels also died of drought. Meanwhile, it was revealed that the Mamahlola farm near Tzaneen, which was given to the Banareng Ba-Ga-Letsoala community 10 years ago and since then placed under the administration of the government, is not able to pay its workers because of mismanagement.

“It is a known fact that land that is privately owned is generally better managed as it is as part of a business that is considered to be profitable.

“Where government is the manager of land it is delegated to an official with no personal interest in the land. He does not share in the profits or losses with the result that he does not really care about the success.

“During the interim budget by the Minister of Finance he announced that certain state assets will be partially sold in an effort to get government out of its financial problems. Under those circumstances it would be desirable also to sell land owned by government and to get commercial farming going, rather than to let it be neglected as in the Spaarwater and Tzaneen cases where also R15 million of taxpayers’ money was pumped in without a single cent return from it,” SAID Mr Meintjes.

It’s also a fact that many of the land that changed of ownership due to the restitution process is still registered in the name of the Republic of South Africa. That land’s title deeds should be registered in the name of the current beneficiaries to enable them to get that land in full commercial production. Without ownership of that land they will experience difficulty in becoming successful farmers because they do not have access to capital, says Mr Meintjes.

“At the same time, the ANC’s secretary-general, Gwede Mantashe, has to take notice of these developments. This is not a perception of inability: here is the reality of failure, and failure by a local government under ANC control.”

Billionaire’s buying up mega-farms

It was a showdown in New Mexico earlier this year, as two billionaires, both from Fort Worth, Texas, battled it out to buy two enormous cattle ranches.

When the dust cleared, oil, gas and real-estate investor Bobby Patton, co-owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers, had won the 174,000-acre York Ranch, spending more than the $10.9 million asking price and outmaneuvering D.R. Horton , one of the country’s largest home-building companies. In a separate deal, D.R. Horton, founded by Donald Horton, outbid Mr. Patton for the nearby 292,779-acre Great Western Ranch, closing in July for around the asking price of $59 million.

The market for large ranches is on the rebound. The recession and droughts dampened demand for wide swaths of ranch land in recent years. Dry conditions forced ranchers to sell off their herds, creating a glut that drove down cattle prices. Now, with easing drought conditions across much of the country and higher cattle prices, ranches that had been sitting on the market have started to sell. A boom in the oil and gas industry and current 2% interest rates on ranch mortgages are also fueling big land grabs.

“It’s the perfect storm,” says Sam Middleton, a Lubbock, Texas-based ranch agent who is representing Waggoner Ranch. With 510,000 acres across six counties in Texas, Waggoner Ranch is one of the largest ranches ever to go on the market. The heirs of Texas cattle baron W.T. Waggoner listed it just a few weeks ago for $725 million. Mr. Middleton and Briggs Freeman Sotheby’s International broker Bernie Uechtritz say “hundreds” of interested buyers have called about the property.

Demand is particularly strong right now for mega ranches—those with over 25,000 deeded acres and often more than 100,000 total acres listed in the $10 million to $175 million range. Deeded acres are more desirable because they’re owned outright; ranches may also include acreage leased from the state or federal government, which allows them to graze their cattle in exchange for a fee. These properties typically have cattle operations, as well as recreational assets such as hunting, fishing or hiking. Some listings include mineral rights in the sale, which offers potential revenue from oil, gas, uranium, coal or other resources.

Hall & Hall, a ranch real-estate agency that listed both the York and Great Western ranches in New Mexico, says a substantial part of its $1 billion-plus in ranch sales since 2012 has come from these larger properties. The firm has sold seven ranches bigger than 25,000 deeded acres since 2011, three times the number it sold in the previous four years.

Buyers of these mega ranches are looking for income, such as a profitable livestock operation or fees from allowing wildlife-hunting, says Jeff Buerger, a Denver-based partner with Hall & Hall. More important, they are looking for a safe, long-term investment. The value of U.S. pasture land normally grazed by livestock rose 11% in the fiscal year 2014, which ended in September, from a year earlier, after averaging about 5% yearly increases for the two years before that, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

In a statement from D.R. Horton, the company said the purchase of Great Western Ranch was a “long-term investment, with no immediate plans for development. It will remain an active ranch operation and be made available for use by our key employees.”

Michael Hewatt, a member of the D.R. Horton board, says the company will use it much like it does the two large ranches it owns in Texas: as a place to entertain brokers, bankers and other D.R. Horton vendors. “It’s a perk for the people we work with,” he says. He also says the ranch is a “good investment for the long term.” Mr. Horton has also personally purchased large parcels of ranch land in Texas and New Mexico, according to public records.

Mr. Patton is more likely to use York Ranch for entertaining than for raising cattle, says Thomas G. Fitzgerald, one of the sellers. Mr. Fitzgerald says the cash flow from the cattle was “insignificant” in comparison to the value of the land. There’s also some potential hunting revenue, from $25,000 to $40,000 a year. The ranch, which has elk, mule deer and pronghorn antelope, is allocated about 14 big-game tags—which signifies the number of animals that can be harvested. A three-bedroom, two-bathroom main house and a small airplane hangar with two landing strips came with the sale. It is very much a working ranch—it’s nothing fancy, says Mr. Fitzgerald. Mr. Patton declined to comment on his plans for the ranch.

A major ranch purchase also comes with bragging rights. Many of the bigger properties are known as “legacy” ranches in part because buyers want to stake their claim in history. These ranches stand out for their size, unusual location or a unique feature, says Eric O’Keefe, editor of the Land Report, which publishes an annual ranking of the largest 100 private landowners in the country. To make that list requires owning 100,000 deeded acres or more.

Billionaire Stan Kroenke, who owns the St. Louis Rams and soccer’s Arsenal F.C., bought a roughly 124,000-acre ranch in 2012 near Augusta, Mont., listed for $132.5 million by the estate of William and Desiree Moore, the late co-founders of Kelly-Moore Paints. Called the Broken O Ranch, Mr. Kroenke’s purchase elevated him on the Land Report’s list of largest landowners, where he currently holds the No. 9 spot. Mr. Kroenke didn’t respond to a request for comment. Liberty Media Chairman John Malone remains at the No. 1 spot on the Land Report’s 2014 list, with 2.2 million acres. Mr. Kroenke didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Much of the action is in New Mexico. Unlike Texas and Colorado, the state still has quite a few very large properties that haven’t been broken apart. Real-estate agents estimate that New Mexico has about 30 ranches bigger than 100,000 acres of deeded land. Land prices are lower, too. New Mexico ranch land sells for $200 to $300 per acre, compared with as high as $1,000 an acre in Wyoming, Montana and elsewhere.

Ben Scott of Dimmitt, Texas-based Scott Land Co. is representing a 109,000-acre Double V ranch near Roswell, N.M., listed for $26.2 million, or $240 an acre. Double V first went on the market in 2009 but didn’t sell. It was relisted in the spring of 2013 and is currently under contract.

Caleb Matott, also a Texas-based ranch real-estate agent, in August sold the 35,000-acre Red Bluff Ranch, listed for $7 million, near Roswell, N.M. The buyers were Mr. Horton and his wife, Martha, personally—not by the company, according to public records. In marketing the ranch, Mr. Matott stressed the legacy value of the property: “To stand on the same ground that John Chisum, John Tunstall, Billy the Kid, Pat Garrett and so many more have stood, makes a man walk with a little higher step in his stride. To own a ranch of the grandeur makes a person part of history.”

Mr. Patton has another property in New Mexico: He and Mark Walter, the Chicago financier who is also a co-owner of the Dodgers, bought the 93,403-acre Double H ranch in west-central New Mexico last year through Double H Holdings LLC, which was used to buy the York ranch. The sale price isn’t public, but the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, a habitat-protection organization that owned the ranch, earned at least $30 million in the deal, according to Blake Henning, vice president of lands and conservation for the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation.

Vast ranch holdings by a few individuals can cause deep resentment in the community, Mr. Henning says. Since private landowners either ban the public from hunting on the land or use outfitters to sell expensive hunts, local hunters often complain, he says.

That resentment won’t go away soon. Competition for recreational ranches, particularly by owners of thriving oil and gas companies, has picked up. There’s a shortage of supply now of the largest properties, which tend to go to the same small group of investors. “There’s a finite group of potential purchasers. We are all aware of them and what their appetites are,” says Greg Fay, founder of ranch brokerage firm Fay Ranches.

Great Western Ranch closed in July for around the asking price of $59 million. A previous version of the story said the ranch had sold for more than its asking price.

Source: WSJ

Communists play cat and mouse with South African farmers

Hundreds of South Africa’s commercial farmers have now gone home after TAU SA’s yearly congress in Pretoria. In the north of the country they wait for the summer rain: their soil is prepared, the seeds are planted and the days grow hotter. Eyes look skyward for the first signs: they wait for the whip of the pre-storm wind, for that scent of moisture, for the quick darkening of the sky. Fifty three million South Africans depend on the country’s commercial farmers for their daily bread.

In his keynote Congress speech, TAU SA president Louis Meintjes covered many points – government propaganda on how “the whites” stole black land; farmworkers’ “rights” (but nothing about the rights of those who created the farms); how the country is run from Luthuli House, making the claim that SA is a democracy something of a farce. Then there’s the ubiquitous Freedom Charter, trotted out at every turn by the ANC, an outdated manifesto, written by white communists (notably Rusty Berstein), whose so-called principles are today only supported by countries like North Korea.

Then there’s the government’s 50/50 plan – the “sharing” of private farms with the workers which has elicited guffaws around the world and caused many potential investors to run for the hills. TAU SA says this latest caprice is a bridge too far. It is patently unacceptable, for many reasons but not least that it will cause hardship and hunger.

Then followed the president’s key question: where will it stop? Each demand’s acquiescence is followed by another demand. Despite reams being written about the empirical impracticality of the ANC’s farm policies, it is clear the government takes no notice. Willy nilly it surges ahead with plans and notions and white papers and green papers, each more ludicrous than the last. Communism’s DNA is well entrenched at Luthuli House, despite its spectacular failures in the twentieth century.

It should be therefore no surprise that the government proffered this policy during pre-1994 negotiations for the transfer of power in South Africa. It is a pity that many who negotiated with the ANC did not take cognizance of communism’s awful legacy.

Book

In his book How Communists Negotiate by American Admiral C. Turner Joy (MacMillan & Co, NY 1955), this Commander in Chief (UN Command) of Naval Forces in the Far East and American representative at the South Korean Armistice Conference at the end of the Korean War set out how the North Korean communists meticulously planned to get as much as they could without giving away anything to the other side. Virtually all of the processes he outlined regarding the negotiation process there were repeated by the ANC pre-1994.

His chapters include “Setting the stage”: Turner says the communists carefully consider the physical circumstances of the negotiating venue. (Remember the luxury game farms and the joint fishing trips of the Codesa protagonists. Then there were the well-dressed ANC big wigs in West Africa sporting English tweeds, briar pipes and a good British accent).

Chapter Two of Turner’s book – “The Delegation” – outlines how the very best intellectual minds and people of good appearance headed the communist teams at Korea. In pre-1994 SA, no rabble nor any toyi toyi-ing mobs were anywhere near the discussion venues. Chapter Three discusses the “Loaded Agenda” – “the Korean communists sought an agenda composed of conclusions favorable to their basic objectives, with some allowances for compromises if it suited them”, wrote Turner.

(It is rumoured that the Mozambican president Samora Machel told Nelson Mandela not to frighten SA’s whites because he would need them during the transition period so that the country wouldn’t disintegrate, as did Mozambique after independence. This practical approach to preserve the functional status quo during the early period after 1994 was sold as forgiveness and reconciliation on the ANC’s part, while in reality it was a calculated policy to preserve stability.)

Chapter Four – “Incidents” – refers to the communist policy of creating violent clashes and disturbances during the negotiation process in order to unnerve the other side who long for peace and want to hurry up the peace process to avoid further violence. (Nelson Mandela refused to renounce violence as a condition for his release. In fact after his release in 1990, violence increased exponentially until power was transferred in 1994.)

The Veto

The chapter on “The Veto” illustrates a Machiavellian method used to increase the chances of compromise from the other side. The stubborn recalcitrance of the North Korean side was designed to irritate the Americans into accepting some points in order to move ahead as they were tired of the delaying tactics.

Turner’s assessment of how the communists decide what is the truth and what is not is contained in the fascinating chapter “Truth and Consequence”. He says “the distortion of truth as practiced by the communists is a science”. (Remember Bishop Tutu’s assertion that there were “four kinds of truth” in his Truth and Reconciliation Commission summing up! Then we have the current “truth” about land theft, and a new “truth” about South Africa’s history, designed to engender a feeling of guilt among whites. This is entirely misplaced: without white settlement of Southern Africa, there would have been no present-day South Africa.

Whites found people who had no written language, who created no infrastructure and whose lives were beleaguered by battles with other tribes. They had no land titles and lived in primitive dwellings surrounded by sparse agriculture. Why the guilt among whites?)

Inches and Miles

The chapter most apt in relation to the TAU SA president’s speech is entitled “Inches and Miles”. Here Turner puts the case of “give an inch and they’ll take a mile“ so succinctly. He says:

“Communists regard any concession made by their opponents as a sign of weakness. Many Westerners entertain the notion that to accept some part of a communist negotiating proposal will encourage the communists to respond in kind.

“On the contrary such action is likely to induce an even more adamant attitude on their part. If Western negotiators agree to a communist proposal without insisting on an equal concession on another point, the communists conclude that their opponents are in a weak position and then they demand more.”

Thus the “fundamental techniques” to which Turner refers as part and parcel of communists’ negotiating processes are being used in South Africa 60 years after this Korean episode.

Anybody who cared to read a South African Communist Party directive on Reform and Revolution which was circulating in the mid-eighties would have seen that the doctrine was as sacred then as it was from the early days of communism. In para 13.2.3, it says “at the same time we must not mechanically dig in our heels against any future possibility to negotiate or compromise with other forces. We must remember that virtually all revolutionary struggles in the post-war period (Algeria, Vietnam, Angola, Mozambique) reached their final climax at the negotiating table.”

The TAU SA president asks: Do we know what we are supporting? Where will it stop? My personal opinion is that it is irresponsible to support any policy unless you know where it will end and what will be the final goals. He asks the ANC government: what is your end goal and when will you stop?

Herein lies the rub. Give and give and more will be asked of you until there is nothing more to give. Feed the crocodile and it will turn around and devour you. The ANC government cannot be allowed to usurp the commercial farming sector. It is to no one’s advantage. Indeed, it is a catastrophe waiting in the wings.

ANC approves land expropriation bill

The government moved closer to passing a law that would allow the state to expropriate white-owned land and assets on Thursday.

The cabinet approved the draft land expropriation bill and will now wait for parliament to approve it.

The bill seeks to replace legislation dating from 1975 and “align the overarching legislation governing the expropriation of property to the values and provisions of the constitution”.

The government tried in 2008 to pass a land and assets expropriation law but it was withdrawn after its constitutionality was questioned.

Deputy Public Works Minister Jeremy Cronin said the current version of the law recognised the jurisdiction of the courts in determining compensation.

The bill also gives other organs of state powers to expropriate, but the government can table limitations once the bill is approved.

The government also approved the establishment of a state-owned property firm that will manage the state’s property portfolio, which is valued at over R530-billion.

Cronin said the National Treasury will also be approached to help capitalise the new State Property Management Agency to the level where it can employ experts such as property lawyers, economists and actuaries and offer them salaries that match those offered in the private sector.

Public Works Minister Thulas Nxesi said the agency would be the flagship of his department.

He said the agency would be the largest property company in the country.

The agency was established to enhance the management of land, government buildings and other property assets , including the property portfolios of municipalities and provincial governments, Nxesi said.

Source: timeslive.co.za

An end to free government housing?

Human Settlements Minister Lindiwe Sisulu wants to end to free government housing.

“Somebody has to have the courage to say this is not what we intended,” she said. Free housing was not in the Freedom Charter, which talked of there being houses, or in the constitution, which set out the right of access to adequate shelter.

Currently there are many reports of beneficiaries of free government housing selling their homes, often for next to nothing and without the right paper work.

In her budget speech this week Sisulu said it was do-able to provide 1.5 million housing opportunities over the next five years.

This included about one million brick-and-mortar free government houses, with 50 mega-projects of at least 10 000 units to get under way within 100 days.

The remainder would be made up of site and service spots, where people could build their own homes, affordable rental accommodation and the financing in the gap housing market for those earning too much to qualify for free homes and too little for commercial mortgages.

Land is at the heart of state housing provision in integrated human settlements. Sisulu is determined suitable land will be identified and acquired: “We might think of expropriating for this purpose.”

But as the Lwandle evictions in a freezing mid-winter cold spell showed, the DA-controlled Cape Town council and provincial administration, the government-owned SA National Roads Agency and the national transport and human settlements departments will be subject to a ministerial inquiry.

Sisulu is adamant the lessons from this eviction will be applied countrywide and, if necessary, the Prevention of Illegal Eviction Act will be amended to ensure every party is aware and sticks to its obligations.

“It’s not just about Lwandle,” Sisulu said.

South African government’s communist land policy: final proposals

FINAL POLICY PROPOSALS ON “STRENGTHENING THE RELATIVE RIGHTS OF PEOPLE WORKING THE LAND”

STRENGTHENING RELATIVE RIGHTS OF PEOPLE WORKING THE LAND.
Policy Proposals: Final Draft. 21 February, 2014.

A. CONTEXT
The broad context for all rural development and land reform policies is the Constitution and the law of the Republic, particularly sections 25, 26, 27 and 36 of the Constitution. Secondly, it is the Freedom Charter (FC), which declares that ‘South Africa Belongs To All Who Live In It, Black And White!’ Thirdly, it is the National Development Plan (NDP). Fourthly, it is Agenda 21 of the United Nations. Lastly, General Comment No.7 (1997). The right to adequate housing (Article 11 (1) of the Covenant): forced evictions

The tension to which these provisions are particularly pertinent, in the case of rural development and land reform, is the necessity to address historical land hunger, which could be absolute in most instances; and, extreme concentration of land ownership and control in a few hands, on the other hand.

The mandate of the Department of Rural Development and Land Reform is to mediate a ‘just and equitable’ redistribution of land across these two disparate and potentially conflictual patterns of land ownership and control.

The principles and the strategic thrust underlying land reform, as set out in the Green Paper on Land Reform, are as follows:

deracialising the rural economy;
democratizing the allocation and use of land across gender, race and class; and,
sustained production discipline for food security (and food sovereignty).

The strategic thrust, also set out in the Green Paper, is that land reform should be pursued with minimal or no disruption to food production and security.

The Department defines land reform inclusively of the following four functions or pillars:

restitution of land rights;
redistribution of land;
land tenure reform; and,
development of the land.

It further defines the strategic objectives of land reform as two-fold:

that all land reform farms are 100% productive during the 2014-2019 Medium Term Strategic Framework (MTSF) period; and,
rekindling the class of black commercial farmers which was deliberately and systematically destroyed by the 1913 Natives Land Act, re-inforced by other subsequent pieces of legislation enacted by successive Colonial and Apartheid regimes.

B. SOME POLICY PERSPECTIVES AND CONSIDERATIONS

The Draft Bill consolidating the Extension of Security of Tenure Act (Esta) and the Labour Tenants Act (LTA) seeks to deepen the security of tenure of farm-workers and farm-dwellers, without threatening household food security and national food sovereignty. This sensitive balance between security of tenure rights, on the one hand, and food security and sovereignty, on the other, must be maintained at all times.

For the benefit of people who have not had sight of the pertinent provisions of the FC, the NDP, Agenda 21 and General Comment No. 7 (1997), we highlight such pertinent provisions below.

Clauses of the FC:

Clause 3: The People Shall Share In The Country’s Wealth!

The national wealth of our country, the heritage of South Africans, shall be restored to the people;
The mineral wealth beneath the soil, the banks and monopoly industry shall be transferred to the ownership of the people as a whole;
All other industry and trade shall be controlled to assist the well being of the people;
All people shall have equal rights to trade where they choose, to manufacture and to enter all trades, crafts and professions.

Clause 4: The Land Shall Be Shared Among Those Who Work It.

Restrictions of land ownership on racial basis shall be ended, and all the land re-divided amongst those who work it to banish famine and land hunger;
The state shall help the peasants with implements, seeds, tractors and dams to save the soil and assist the tillers;
Freedom of movement shall be guaranteed to all who work on the land;
All shall have the right to occupy land wherever they choose;
People shall not be robbed of their cattle, and forced labour and farm prisons shall be abolished.

Agenda 21:

In 1988, in the Global Strategy for Shelter to the Year 2000, adopted by the General Assembly in its Resolution 43/181, the “fundamental obligation [of Governments] to protect and improve houses and neighborhoods, rather than damage or destroy them” was recognized.

Agenda 21 stated that “People Shall Be Protected By Law Against Unfair Eviction From Their Homes and Land.” In the Habitat Agenda, Governments committed themselves to “protecting all people from, and providing legal protection and redress for, forced evictions that are contrary to the law, taking human rights into consideration; [and] when evictions are unavoidable, ensuring, as appropriate, that alternative suitable solutions are provided.”

The National Development Plan:

Chapter Six of the NDP. Sums up the essence of an integrated and inclusive economy in the following ‘Key Points’:

Rural communities require greater social, economic and political opportunities to overcome poverty.
To achieve this, agricultural development should introduce a land reform and job creation / livelihoods strategy that ensures rural communities have jobs.
Ensure quality access to basic services, health care, education and food security.
Plans for rural towns should be tailor-made according to the varying opportunities in each area. Intergovernmental Relations should be addressed to improve rural governance.

General Comment No.7 (1997):

In its General Comment No.4 (1994), the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights observed that all persons should possess a degree of security of tenure which guarantees legal protection against forced eviction, harassment and other threats. It concluded that forced evictions are, prima facie, incompatible with the requirements of the Covenant.

The term “forced evictions” as used throughout this General Comment is defined as the permanent or temporary removal against their will of individuals, families and /or communities from the homes and/or land which they occupy, without the provision of, and access to, appropriate forms of legal or other protection. The prohibition on forced evictions does not, however, apply to evictions carried out by force in accordance with the law and in conformity with the provisions of the International Covenants on Human Rights.

In case where eviction is considered to be justified, it should be carried out in strict compliance with the relevant provisions of international human rights law and in accordance with general principles of reasonableness and proportionality. The Committee considers that the procedural protections which should be applied in relation to forced evictions include:

an opportunity for genuine consultation with those affected;
adequate and reasonable notice for all affected persons prior to the scheduled date of eviction;
information on the proposed evictions, and, where applicable, on the alternative purpose for which the land or housing is to be used, to be made available in reasonable time to all those affected;
especially where groups of people are affected, government officials or their representatives to be present during an eviction;
all persons carrying out eviction to be properly identified;
evictions not to take place in particularly bad weather or at night, unless the affected persons consent otherwise;
provision of legal remedies; and,
provision, where possible, of legal aid to persons who are in need of it to seek redress from the courts.

We, therefore, need to develop a system of incentives and disincentives to encourage those with vested interest in the land to conduct their relationship around land according to the dictates of these Clauses of the Freedom Charter, the National Development Plan, the UN’s Agenda 21 and General Comment No.7 (1997), with whatever necessary adaptations here and there, as the case might be, given peculiar conditions and circumstances.

C. COMBINING SHARE-EQUITY WITH CO-MANAGEMENT

A combination of Share-equity and Co-management is the key to achieving this system of positive incentives and disincentives. This should be built into the current Draft Bill, so that it could assist government manage unintended consequences to the re-opening of land claims and the introduction of the Exceptions to the 1913 cut-off date for the Khoi and the San descendants, historical landmarks and heritage sites. These Exceptions need not fall under the framework of the Restitution of Land Rights Act (as amended).

As I understand it, put generally, the LTA provides the capacity to translate tenancy rights into the right to claim land restitution, as well as securing protection against eviction (with no reference to whether or not such eviction was justified or arbitrary), after a certain length of time working and residing on a farm. Even justified eviction (we must define, and differentiate between, arbitrary and legitimate eviction upfront) would require the evictor to ensure that the evicted has alternative residence.

The Share-equity Scheme could, and should, as circumstances might dictate, be complemented by the establishment of Sustainable Rural Settlements on land acquired either through share-equity rights accumulated by workers over time, as workers on farms, or, through state interventions.

The United Nations ascribes effectiveness of “sustainability” to the following conditions:

Socio-cultural development: health, education and recreation;
Economic development;
Environmental development;
Institutional / political support; and,
Morality and aesthetic relational values.

These Sustainable Rural Settlements would achieve at least three objectives:
secure the residential tenure of the farm-dweller/worker;
enable him/her to sell his/her labour-power across the fence, without fear of eviction; and,
strengthen his/her bargaining power in advancing worker rights and improving his/her conditions of living.

With the advent of the Land Rights Management Committees, which are multi-stakeholder platforms, the relations being created in these proposals should be easily managed.

But, there does not seem to be any sort of duty and responsibility placed on the worker-dweller to play their role in ensuring that their right of tenure to the land is earned; and, could be systematically defended. This is a serious gap, viewed against the Third Principle and the Strategic Thrust of land reform, as they stand now. South Africa is a constitutional democracy. Everybody’s rights are enshrined in the Bill of Rights; and, our Courts guard the observance of these rights very jealously. But, in any constitutional democracy, rights are balanced with responsibilities.

The system we introduce, therefore, must take this necessary balance into cognisance. We have a system of rights and responsibilities; duties and services; and, opportunities and constraints, all of which hang on the authority of the constitution and the law.

D. WHAT IS TO BE DONE?

Protect and promote relative rights of people working the land.

The regime being proposed here is based on the relative contribution of each category of people to the development of defined land portions or farm units. The historical owner of the land automatically retains 50% of the land, while the labourers on the land assume ownership of the remaining 50%, proportional to their contribution to the development of the land, based on the number of years they had worked on the land.

The Government will pay for the 50% to be shared by the labourers, but the money will go into an investment and development fund (IDF) to be jointly owned by the Parties constituting the new ownership regime. The Fund will be used to develop the managerial and production capacity of the new entrants to land ownership, to further invest on the farm as well to ay out people who wish to opt out of the new regime.

Keep the current regime of tenancy protection and derived rights, but balance that up by introducing a regime of duties and responsibilities which the worker-dweller must observe and comply with, in order to sustain the share-equity regime being introduced here.

All labourers who would have worked on a farm for ten consecutive years (but less than twenty-five years) of disciplined service, based on the regime of duties and responsibilities historically obtaining on the farm, the worker-dweller must be entitled to ten percent share-equity on the land, based on its market value.

Should the worker/dweller wish to leave the farm, after ten years of disciplined service, having earned the ten percent share-equity ownership of the land, he/she should be compensated to that extent, over and above whatever other rights were due to him or her, as an employee.

After ten years of disciplined service, the Farm Manager should, by force of law, introduce the worker-dweller to basic elements of farm management, reflective of the new relational dynamics.

After twenty-five years of disciplined service, the farm-worker/dweller should be entitled to twenty-five percent share-equity on the land. The same conditions, which define the relationship between the farmer and the worker/ dweller, as set out in the relevant paragraphs above, hold in this regard as well.

After fifty years of disciplined service, the farm-worker/dweller shall be entitled to fifty percent share-equity on the land; and, all the conditions as set out in the relevant paragraphs above apply.

In the event a worker/dweller failed to comply with the regime, as set out in the contract of disciplined service, the Farm Management (reflective of the new regime) is obliged to take the matter up with the Land Rights Management Committee (LRMC). The LRMC has to consider the matter and advise on steps to be taken. In the event the decision is that the worker-dweller has to leave the farm, the Municipal Council must provide the farm-dweller with suitable accommodation, within a prescribed period.

If the farm-dweller had not completed ten years of service, the ordinary conditions provided for by the country’s labour relations system will apply.

If the farm-dweller had completed ten years of service, and had earned tenancy rights, the LRMC has to take this into account if it determines that the farm-dweller had to leave the land.

These conditions should constitute a regime of the protection of relative rights on land, in alignment with the provisions of the Freedom Charter, the NDP and the United Nations Agenda 21.

E. HOW IS THIS WORKER-EQUITY GOING TO BE FINANCED?

There are two main sources of financing the worker-equity:
through the Land Reform Programme; and,
through own historical contribution by the worker.

The Land Tenure Act (and so should the consolidated draft of ESTA and the LTA) recognized the farm-worker’s cumulative rights, based not only on the fact that a worker lived on the farm for a particular period, but on contribution he /she made to the development of the farm, through his / her labour power.

That labour power was never fully compensated for, in the form of wages. That much is clearly demonstrated by the vast difference between the affluence of the farmer and the abject poverty of the farm-worker.

The relative equity stakes recognize this full contribution, which the exploitative wages have denied the workers for all of those years. The contribution by the government is an attempt at restoring the dignity of the worker.

Contribution by the state must go to further development of the farm. With the acquisition of equity by farm-workers must come a fundamental change in the control mechanism of the farm.

The acquisition of equity is, and must be seen to be, a fundamental game-changer. It introduces co-management of the farm, based on relative equity-holdings and the capacity of each participant in production and management.

The equity-holders must establish an Investment and Development Fund (IDF) which must be representative of all equity-holders to the farm.

The Government (drdlr) will deposit its contribution into the IDF, not to the farmer, for that would be double compensation. He/she will benefit, like all others, from dividends allocated by the IDF. With that contribution, the government earns the status of Ex-officio member of the management of the Fund; and, should be entitled to a single representative on it.

We are, therefore, introducing a system of collective ownership, based on relative equity-holdings. However, although the government has full speaking rights in the management of the IDF, it will not have voting rights. Those rights should be the preserve of the equity-holders.

F. EXPLANATORY NOTE

Figure 1 below is attempting to illustrate the workings of the Model described above. It is a graphic attempt at operationalising the constitutional principle of ‘Just and equitable’ re-distribution of land.

Figure 1: A Radical Redistributive Model For Land Reform

G. CONCLUSION

The Extension of Security of Tenure Act and the Labour Tenants Act were meant to strengthen the security of tenure of farm-workers. They were meant to make it relatively difficult for the farmer or farm manager to evict farm-dwellers. At least not without due process! However, arbitrary evictions continue to be the order of the day. The policy measures introduced here, backed by several authoritative constraints, are meant to change the agricultural landscape fundamentally. What is being introduced here is not just a humane set of socio-economic relations; it is a redistributive model of agricultural growth.

These policy proposals are meant to strengthen the position of both the farm-worker and the farmer, as people working the land. These proposals recognize that both the worker and the farmer have vested interest in the land; and, both want to improve their living conditions through working the land.

There is a direct relationship between these policy proposals and the ANC’s policy on the limitation of land holdings by private individuals and entities, now contained in the Agricultural Landholdings Policy Framework of the Drdlr. The Model can easily be adapted, where there is enough goodwill between a farmer and his or her employees, in the implementation of the land tenure model of ‘Freehold with limited extent’, and its cousin, land access and ownership by foreign nationals: ‘A combination of freehold with limited extent and leasehold’.

The legal rights of these two important actors, in so far as they relate to the farm, are historically not equal. The farmer is, historically, the sole owner of the land and has full responsibility for its up-keep and maintenance, including ensuring that workers on the land have decent living conditions, are paid decent wages and he pays rates and income tax, while the farmworker does not carry such legal burdens. This relativity of rights and responsibilities is fully recognized.

However, these policy proposals introduce a new system of substantively recognizing the relative contributions of the farmer and farm-workers to the development of the farm as well as the integrality of their relative rights on the land – on the one hand, the farmer has original rights while, on the other, farm-workers have accumulated or secondary rights, as defined in the Land Tenure Act.

The moral basis for these proposals is that fellow South Africans who benefitted from the proceeds of the land dispossession wars and the race-based segregation policies and laws of successive Colonial and Apartheid regimes have a moral duty and responsibility to contribute to the restoration of justice and national reconciliation effort. Secondly, maintaining the current status quo is politically undesirable and unsustainable.

Nkwinti, GE (MP)
Minister: DEPARTMENT OF RURAL DEVELOPMENT AND LAND REFORM

Shares in farms a smoke-screen for expropriation

The issue of proposed shares for farmworkers is a thinly disguised attempt by government to expropriate farms and could allow the uncertainty amongst South African farmers about their future to reach crisis levels, Mr. Pieter Groenewald, the Freedom Front Plus’ parliamentary spokesperson on Rural Development and Land Reform, said.

Mr. Groenewald said the proposals contained in a policy document of the department of Rural Development and Land Reform about the voluntary issuing of shares to farmworkers, boils down to nothing less than brutal expropriation of land, similar to that which took place in Zimbabwe.

According to Mr. Groenewald the document is making waves in agricultural circles and the proposals have been met with great concern.

One of the proposals in the document is that a person with ten year service is entitled to 10% shares for 50 years. The document does not at all make mention of what would happen if workers eventually hold the majority of the shares in a farm.

The document also mentions that it intends to reverse a wide range of uncertainties regarding property rights which were brought about by land expropriation, humiliation and exploitation of people.

Mr. Groenewald said the proposals are frightening and could cause enormous harm to South Africa’s agriculture as it could lead to large scale disinvestment.

“What will happen if a farmer has four workers who worked on his farm for 25 years each? Will that mean that they could take over ownership without compensation and the farmer has to seek another livelihood?

“South Africans and the world should open their eyes now about the ANC government’s plans with land ownership in South Africa.

“It is clear that the land reform program is a miserable failure and other plans are now being made to expropriate land from farmers without compensating them,” Groenewald said.

TAU SA sees risk of famine due to ‘communist-style land reform’

TAU SA called on the Minister of Agriculture, Tina Joemat-Pettersen, to express her opinion on her colleague of Rural Development and Land Reform’s ideological process which will deprive white landowners of their rightful property.

TAU SA`s president, Mr. Louis Meintjes calls minister Nkwinti plans “constructive deprivation of white landowners, if not plain legalized land grabbing”.

In a letter to Minister Joemat-Petterson Mr Meintjes asked her if her colleague’s policy also is government policy, and whether she, who is also in essence the minister who has a direct interest in food security, can condone the ideological approach which has the potential of “totally destroying commercial agriculture”.

Meanwhile, Minister Nkwinti was informed in a separate letter that until he and his department display the common decency to respond to correspondence, TAU SA was not prepared to participate in the NAREG process or any of his ministerial work sessions, and that TAU SA did not regard those actions as meeting the requirements applicable to a public consultation process as it does not comply with administrative requirements.

Mr. Meintjes called on Minister Joemat-Petterson to ensure that the plans and proposals for Land Reform would not give such rights to farm workers that it would jeopardise food security, because in terms of the proposals farmers would eventually have no authority to make any decisions on their own farms without the consent of their employees.

“Those proposals effectively puts Government in charge of all agricultural properties. This is a communist approach and TAU SA will have no choice but to encourage farmers to put measures in place within the shortest time possible to ensure that they will be able to continue with their operations without labour,” said Mr Meintjes.

“Should these proposals be contained in legislation it will influence the total economy negatively, and we foresee famine in South Africa,” Meintjies concluded

EFF will rule next, says Malema

The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) will become the new ruling party in South Africa, leader Julius Malema said on Saturday.

“We are going to take this government and once we take it, we are not going to negotiate, we are going to take our land,” he said at an EFF rally in Sebokeng, south of Johannesburg.

“We are going to take it because its our land.”

He told a cheering crowd that he would not be intimidated by anyone.

“They will say all sorts of things about us, but they will never shake us,” he said.

“If they want to disrupt our meetings, we are waiting.”

Malema urged residents not to be scared.

“We must never be intimidated. We all have a right to be involved in politics.”

He told residents that the EFF was there to defend them.

“There is no one who is going to tell us this is a no-go area. We can go anywhere in South Africa,” he said.

“There is no one who’s going to take your pension. We are here to defend you.”

Malema was at the rally with businessman Kenny Kunene, and expelled ANC Youth League spokesman Floyd Shivambu.

He said earlier that the African National Congress needed Jesus to return to earth, because the party had become arrogant.

“They [said they] were going to rule until Jesus comes back. What kind of statement is that?” he asked.

“They need Jesus. So Jesus has come back they must go out. They are not the Alpha and Omega”.

He said the people of the country were the “Alpha and Omega”.

“You must exercise power. We can take over this government,” Malema said.

In March 2009 President Jacob Zuma told African National Congress supporters in Mpumalanga that the party would rule until Jesus returned.

Malema, who previously held the position of ANC Youth League president, was expelled from the party in 2012.

He launched the EFF “protest movement” on Thursday.

He said at the time that the EFF had a plan that included the non-negotiable principles of land expropriation and nationalisation of mines, both without compensation.

It was also strongly opposed to foreign land ownership.

“[There will] never be foreign ownership of land, that is what we will do when we take over.”

Malema warned South Africans on Thursday to prepare for the sacrifices that would come with the EFF’s envisaged revolution.

“There will be a day [when] we will wake up without bread on the shelves. We will learn to make our own bread.”

He said the EFF would have firm anti-corruption policies.

Malema is facing corruption charges in the Polokwane Magistrate’s Court.

He is accused of making nearly R4-million from corrupt activities. He is out on bail of R10,000 and faces charges of fraud, corruption, money-laundering, and racketeering. – Sapa

The drum beat on SA land grab quickens

by TAU Bulletin

During the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearings in the late nineties, the Commission declared in its findings that there were four different kinds of truth. The Commission “rejected the popular assumption” that there are only two options to be considered when talking about truth – subjective and objective information – but that there were other kinds of truth – “personal or narrative” truth, “social or dialogue” truth and “healing or restorative” truth. We wonder which kind of truth is being published in our media on the history of land ownership in South Africa, and specifically why the reasons for the codification behind the South African 1913 Land Acts are being pointedly ignored.

South African history is arguably one of the world’s most controversial chronicles, but it was chronicled by those who could and did: the first Europeans who landed at the Cape, the subsequent colonial government, the missionaries, and the Europeans who made South Africa their home as did their counterparts who made other new world countries their home. The present government can only refer to the 1913 Land Act as a point of reference because their forefathers did not have the written word. They have no proof of anything other than what someone else wrote about. It is thus ironic that these complainants refer to “historical theft”, “land grabbing”, “stolen dreams”, “structural inequalities” and “infamous laws” as if they had their own factual proof that these circumstances existed.

Facts are ignored in the surfeit of hyperbole and distortions carried by the South African media which is increasingly becoming a mouthpiece of the government’s fraudulent propaganda.

TAU SA’s two previous Bulletins exposed this disinformation about the history of land in South Africa and the land devastation of Zimbabwe. Nobody in the media published one word of these Bulletins. TAU SA requested the Johannesburg Sunday Times to publish the 1913 Land Act Bulletin as an advertisement. The cost of a half page is around R180 000. TAU SA was completely ignored. The paper was not prepared to publish anything other than the politically correct myths and false dissemination about the history of land in this country.

This should reveal something to readers of this Bulletin. If the facts are ignored, who is kidding whom about press freedom in South Africa?

The media

City Press, a publication within the largest Afrikaans press stable in South Africa, carried a full-page article “A century of stolen dreams” containing the opinions and historical fantasies of one Dr. Ruth Hall from the University of the Western Cape. On the adjoining page was an article by ANC national spokesman Jackson Mthembu entitled “A Call to Accelerate Restitution”. His article was entirely predictable – land is a “ticking time bomb”. At the bottom of the double page spread was a large piece on the now discredited book by three British academics called “Zimbabwe Takes Back its Land” on which we wrote in a previous Bulletin. This double-page centre spread’s ideological humbug is served up as a true picture of the land question in South Africa.

Who is Dr. Ruth Hall and why does she have a say while not one word from commercial agriculture – the people who actually produce South Africa’s food – is printed anywhere? Hall holds a Ph.D. from OxfordUniversity in the UK and is an Associate Professor at the University of the Western Cape. She joined in 2002 and has continually punted a leftist, ideological viewpoint which is a total disconnect from SA’s agricultural realities. Her SA history in the article was distorted and her sanctimony and bitter criticism of the twin plagues of colonialism and apartheid infect her pronouncements. The “erasing of history, unjust laws, cheap migrant labour, the legacies of displacement, deprivation, dispossession, inequality and poverty” are alluded to as being the fault of whites. She laments the fact that there was not a Truth and Reconciliation Commission on Land.

South Africa’s largest circulation newspaper the Sunday Times gave prime space to one Mtobeli Mxotwa , spokesman from the Ministry of Rural Development and Land Reform whose article was entitled ”Radical steps needed to right the 1913 wrong”, while leftist Gareth van Onselen’s article on the same centre page was headlined “Consequences of a cruel act linger on”.

The absolutely useless ANC Youth League was given top space in The Citizen to say that “Land reform is too slow” while a large colour picture of President Jacob Zuma and the Minister of Rural Development shows them at the opening of an exhibition entitled “Reversing the legacy of the Natives Land Act 1913” at the Cape Town Convention Centre. Some newspapers printed critiques of current legislation but not one paper printed theTAU SA bulletin or excerpts thereof containing the historical facts on the history of land in South Africa.

The Land Act bulletin was specifically sent to Business Day, asking that some of it be printed. TAU SA was ignored. To top it all, the Afrikaans Sunday newspaper Rapport(30.6.13) carried an article by “political analyst” J.P. Landman who sees the government’s land reform program is a “political requirement for community and political stability”. In other words, hand over the farms to appease the (mostly violent) mob demands. Thus we are to continually appease each time there’s a riot, or a threat of violence. Feed the crocodile until it devours you! His Zimbabwe allegory is completely wrong – agriculture was destroyed by Robert Mugabe when he lost the 2000 election and grabbed farms to placate the so-called war veterans who demanded land, not because land was not handed over earlier. is Zimbabwe allegory is completely wrong – the land(Perhaps Mr. Landman would like to hand over some of his property as an appeasement gesture!)

Media

Instead of all of the above, when will the South African media explain the truth about land in South Africa? Whose viewpoints should be exposed to the population – those who produce the food or those who talk about expropriation, who draft parliamentary laws to further curb commercial farming, who are establishing a land valuer’s office to determine the price of land according to themselves, who urge giving in to the violence of the mobs, or the British university zealots with leftist agendas?

Getting the facts to the South African public is becoming as difficult as the course taken by samizdat activists during the worst years of the old Soviet Union. From the Russian sam “self”, and izdatelstvo “publishing”, these activists’ literature was secretly written, copied and distributed during the periods of Soviet repression. We haven’t reached this point yet, but when a national newspaper refuses to print undisputable facts about land in South Africa, and even refuses a paid advertisement containing these facts, then we can’t be too far behind. TAU SA’s bulletin and other news is disseminated via the internet, but the masses who vote for the ANC only read the inflammatory nonsense propagated by government-supporting academics and ANC spokesmen. These masses clamor for land based on this disinformation. They believe Jackson Mthembu’s ticking time bomb warning, and his statement that Africans can only build from the “ruins of the past” if they have a piece of land on which to do so. This is dangerous nonsense. Forty million black people each with a piece of land?

TAU SA tries to maintain the very best relationships with the media: there is also much appreciation of how the media has handled TAU SA’s viewpoints and how they have been presented in the media. In this light it is thus strange that this important topic is met with almost absolute silence. It doesn’t make sense. TAU SA is of the opinion that the land question is of crucial importance, given the implications for food security in South Africaand the emotional way it is presented to the voting public. The other side of the story should be heard – especially when this “other side” consists of the very people who produce South Africa’s food. For the sake of justice we would like to see this happen.

What are the facts?

All the undisputable facts on the history of land in South Africa can be found in the book “Disputed Land” by Louis Changuion and Bertus Steenkamp. Almost a third of the book contains historical documentation to back up the contents of the book. (It can be bought at Kalahari.com). As far as we know, not one South African publication has reviewed this book.
Only 35 000 commercial farmers provide food for South Africa’s nearly 53 million people. If the emotive recommendations of Dr. Hall, and the ignorant demands of the ANC ever become realities, will Dr. Hall and the ANC suggest suitable food supply replacements for SA’s commercial farming sector’s production? In a 25 June press release, TAU SA asks that the government “take active steps to prevent more farmers leaving the industry to avoid South Africa relying on unsustainable food imports”. The World Bank recently warned that food demand is growing, and that “disruptive weather events are increasing in frequency and amplitude. The variables that surround agriculture are increasingly volatile. Countries will not export food if they are themselves vulnerable.” The World Bank continues: “About 50% of global grain supplies are in India and Chinaand they are not exporting them. Countries from India to Egypt to Vietnam to Indonesia banned exports of rice during the 2008 crisis, while sudden changes in trade policy also affect exports.” Will the ANC turn South Africa into a country dependent on others for food?
The government’s land restitution policy is an abject failure. Hundreds of farms have been lost to production.
Black Economic Empowerment has not left agriculture alone. The current Broad-based Black Economic Empowerment Bill is due for amendment, and comment has been called for. It is a fact that profit after tax on average assets of a working farm in South Africa is 1,7%. Farming enterprises are running on thin margins – 85% of livestock producers show a profit per annum of less than R40 000 per month, while 27% of general farmers run at a loss and 58% make a profit of between zero and R500 000. Most farmers cannot afford BEE. BEE scorecards have been presented to agriculture on which little research has been conducted. If this legislation is thrust upon commercial farmers, many will go out of business, further impinging upon food security in South Africa.
Agriculture throughout the world is increasingly less labour intensive. The US farm population today is only 1,5% of the total. Yet American farmers feed 320 million people and they export massive quantities of food around the world. Thus this “hunger for land” and “everyone must have a piece of land” punted by the ANC is clearly a sop to their electorate but a danger to food security. South Africa will simply relapse into one huge squatter camp if commercial farms are broken up and redistributed.

Indeed the agricultural warning drum has been beating but who is listening? The “free” press should ask itself whether honest information or politically correct propaganda is its mission, and whether it should be held responsible for a collapse of food security in South Africa.