The land wars of 2019: Analysing

The ANC proposes to continue working with large agricultural businesses, an approach that has to date marginalised small-scale farmers

Both the ANC and the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) will support the expropriation of land without compensation and propose the amendment of section 25 of the Constitution to achieve that end. But that is old news.

It will be recalled that the EFF had supported a motion towards a possible constitutional amendment, which the ANC largely endorsed. Extensive public consultations were held, resulting in a formal parliamentary decision to amend the section.

The details about the contours of the amendment remain murky, but the principle remains: both parties (wrongly) perceive section 25 as a stumbling block towards the achievement of the principle of expropriation of land without compensation. So, what is new from the manifestos about the land question?

The first is the proposed text of the constitutional amendment itself. The ANC’S proposed amendment is worded in tentative and conditional language, arguing that the amendment “should be done in a way that promotes the economic development, agricultural production and food security”. By contrast, the EFF views the point of the amendment as the “equal redistribution and use” of the land.

Framing the discourse, as the ANC does — in tendentious terms — exposes the embedded assumption that any expropriation of land without compensation conflicts with economic development, agricultural production or food security. Yet we do not ask whether or not South Africa is food-secure at present. Nor do we ask whether the over-concentration of land in a few families and commercial entities does not constrain economic development.

And so, what paradigm of “economic development and agricultural production” are we talking about? South Africa’s agricultural and food security patterns remain overwhelmingly white and to the exclusion of Africans.

Speaking about food security without addressing the structure of agriculture that ensures that the ability to produce food remains in the hands of the few only superficially answers the problem. For land expropriation to work, the paradigm must shift. At the heart of food production, agricultural productivity and economic development must be in the interests of those who work the land but nevertheless remain locked out of its economic benefits.

Unless the base of those who benefit from the agricultural supply chain is radically reconfigured and expanded, the purposes of expropriation of land without compensation will be defeated before it even begins.

What about land beyond expropriation without compensation? The ANC’S offering promises a regime that will “work with the established agribusinesses” to increase their contribution to export earnings, “greater support for emerging and smallscale farmhouse[s]”, investment in agricultural research and smart new technologies, working with “likeminded countries” for a just agricultural trade regime and developing sustainable agricultural strategies.

In simpler terms, the current few agricultural monopolies will be retained.

We can expect that these monopolies will, with the support of the state, multiply their profits, while giving a “helping hand” to the poor. No structural shifts. More of the same. Large agricultural entities, it seems, will be “nudged” to support emerging and small-scale farmers.

We have heard this before. And we are in a land and agricultural quagmire because these policy ideas — repetitions of the staple diet — have not worked. The ANC promises to perpetuate the exclusion and marginalisation of farming communities and small-scale farmers.

The truth is that the development of small-scale farmers cannot be left to the generosity of large businesses. The ANC promises to “address the domination of agricultural inputs by big business and the monopoly domination in agri processing and food retail”. Precisely what this means is unclear.

Left out of the account is primary agriculture, where the cycle of exclusion is most entrenched. Africans drive tractors on farms, but do not own them. The promise to “consolidate all government support provided to small-scale farmers” might be a positive step, but in the absence of targeted institutional reforms, such as the change of the mandate of the Land Bank, they ring hollow.

Small business routinely complains about lack of access to finance. In 2002, the ANC changed the mandate of the Land Bank so that, for all practical purposes, it operates like any ordinary commercial bank. In section 26 of the Land and Agricultural Bank Act, the bank’s mandate is to provide land and agricultural finance “against security”. It can be safely assumed that the persons who need Land Bank finance the most have no security.

Without a commitment to change the mandate of the bank so that it is truly development oriented, no “government support” to small-scale farmers will alter the landscape to advance these farmers.

Although the ANC raises concerns about wasted or underused land, its solution is lacking in substance. If the goal is optimum use of land, no clear answers are given for why the principle of “use it or lose it” cannot be explicitly spelt out in the manifesto. Land and property are expensive. But it is no answer to speak of “introduction of measures to address” the high prices of land and property, when the office of the valuer general exists, but has proven utterly inefficient in driving the prices of land to reasonable levels and facilitating speedy transfers of land.

A surprising feature of the ANC’S manifesto is its adherence to title deeds. Many developing economies across the globe have now accepted that title deeds do not constitute the magic wand to the problem of insecure tenure to land. But the ANC’S manifesto repeats the mantra to “accelerate the transfer of title deeds to the rightful owners”. Families, communities and societies routinely dispute entitlement to small and inhabitable houses.

Title deeds do not solve the problem, and in some instances compound it. The problem, of course, is not about title, but about the shortage of land. Addressing that through the “recognition” of rights of longterm occupiers in communal areas is simply short-sighted.

Communal areas constitute a small portion of all available land in South Africa. This is not a surprise. The balkanisation of South Africa by the establishment of independent homelands and the Bantustans consolidated the organisation of “native people” out of the urban areas into rural areas; their primary purpose was not to serve as centres of agricultural production but as labour reserves.

Granting security of tenure to persons living in what are still in effect labour reserves hardly scratches the surface of the land issue. A refocusing to the urban areas, where the greatest need for land is felt, is what is needed.

Curiously, the ANC manifesto refers to women and land only twice.

The ANC manifesto refers to women and land only twice. A manifesto responding to people’s needs should have placed women at the centre of land acquisition, land redistribution and agricultural production