Black farmers tell Zokwana of their struggles

MINISTER of Agriculture Forestry and Fisheries Senzeni Zokwana heard firsthand the struggles of black farmers in the Western Cape.

This was during meeting in Stellenbosch organised by lobby group African Farmers Association of SA (Afasa) in partnership with research organisation the Agricultural Research Council (ARC), which is overseen by the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (Daff).

Small-scale farmers and representatives of farming associations attended the meeting, considering it an important step in addressing the underrepresentation of black people as farmers in the agricultural sector.

According to Afasa, only 1% of agricultural land in the Western Cape is in the hands of black farmers and the entire value chain of the sector is white-owned.

The 2017 land audit showed that land ownership patterns in the country were still skewed, with whites and corporate entities owning 82% of the land, while 17% belonged to the state.

The audit’s breakdown by race showed that whites owned 72% of land, while blacks had 23%.

In 1994, the government promised to distribute 30% of the land, but it took 24 years to transfer just 5% to 10%, at a cost of about R55billion.

Zokwana said agriculture was going to be central in the sixth administration as outlined by President Cyril Ramaphosa.

“As a department, already we have set up blended finance for small-scale farmers and the land bank has been given additional funds for their business propositions.

“Various developmental finance institutions are now going to finance agriculture projects too,” Zokwana said.

“With the advent of the looming amendments of Section 25 of the Constitution for land expropriation without compensation, government will focus on growing emerging farmers.

“Unused land will be expropriated for them, to be used productively.”

Zokwana said water was central to a new revolution of increasing farmers and farming itself.

Afasa Western Cape chairperson Ismael Motala said: “This dialogue is not because of the elections, but we have to be able to say: how do we form a clear dialogue with national government? We need this dialogue in terms of the Western Cape, as this province’s agriculture is the most unique in the country,” said Motala.

He said there should be a concerted effort to find out who owned what.