Leon joins land reform debate

2005-08-05 19:41

Cape Town - Estimates of the number of black South Africans who wanted to become farmers may have been exaggerated, Democratic Alliance leader Tony Leon said on Friday.

Joining the racially-charged debate over ownership of agricultural land in South Africa, he said a recent research report indicated only nine percent of black people who were not currently farming wished to do so.

In his weekly newsletter on the DA's SA Today website, Leon said the same report also showed black South Africans were demanding urban and peri-urban land, not rural land for farming.

Speaking last week at the national land summit, land affairs minister Thoko Didiza said the ANC had inherited one of the worst racially-skewed land redistribution problems in the world, with whites owning 87 percent and blacks 13 percent of agricultural land.

Undoing this apartheid legacy was a fundamental priority for South Africa, she said.

Willing buyer

At the same venue, deputy president Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka announced government planned to review the so-called "willing buyer, willing seller" principle, which has been the keystone of its land reform policy over the past decade.

Leon warned rejection of this principle by many delegates at the summit meant land reform in South Africa "has reached a potentially dangerous turning point".

The ANC had carefully adhered to the willing buyer, willing seller principle "since the interim Constitution was agreed to in 1993".

He said its plans to re-examine this principle threatened to "re-ignite one of the most contentious issues in our society". It could also frighten away foreign investors.

Leon said there were several important realities that had to be considered in the land reform debate.

Among these was recognising that while agriculture was an important part of the economy, it only accounted for a small fraction of the nation's output.

Limited tool

"Farming can create new jobs and new wealth, but overall it is a limited tool for achieving broad-based black economic empowerment and reducing poverty. Furthermore, the proportion of black South Africans who wish to become farmers may have been exaggerated.

"A recent national survey commissioned by the Centre for Development and Enterprise indicated that only nine percent of black people who are not currently farming wish to become farmers.

"The greatest demand among black South Africans is for urban and peri-urban land for living, not rural land for farming. In this context, the government's land reform goals seem outrageously ambitious," Leon said.

Over the past 10 years, the government had only redistributed about one percent of agricultural land.

- SAPA