Land: first fix state’s own tenant crisis
Thousands of black farmers on national land desperate for title
● Less than a third of black grain farmers in a countrywide assistance programme are producing any crops because they have little or no access to bank finance, according to data from producer organisation Grain SA.
The vast majority of these farmers — about 3,800 in total — farm on governmentowned land, and therefore have no individual land title to acquire loans from credit facilities. Attempts to get the government to provide guarantees for use as collateral have thus far failed, prompting concern about these farms’ viability.
Grain SA, the country’s biggest producer organisation, is appealing to key government stakeholders to rethink land reform policies in the light of findings that suggest that simply expropriating productive farmland to transfer to black farmers could dramatically decrease SA’s maize crop to the point where imports would be required — resulting in price increases.
A Grain SA delegation presented its findings to parliament recently after continuing meetings with political stakeholders, notably the ANC. The topic was also at the forefront of debate last week at a large agriculture exhibition in Bredasdorp, attended by about 4,000 farmers.
Rather than risk a crop-production nightmare, the government should rather transfer title of government land to individual farmers to enable them to invest in their land, Grain SA CEO Jannie de Villiers said on the sidelines of the Bredasdorp show.
In cases where black farmers have been properly recapitalised — such as the nearly 150 black farmers producing more than 250 tons within the Grain SA assistance programme — the success rate skyrockets to about 90%, compared to the majority failure rate for small farmers with no capitalisation, De Villiers said.
“We’ve always said if we can develop [existing] black farmers then it places less pressure on land reform. But we can’t move these guys forward because they can’t get finance — because they don’t have title deeds,” he said.
Of particular concern was Grain SA’s cohort of about 800 small farmers with between 10ha and 50ha who were “going nowhere” due to the finance stalemate. Said De Villiers: “These are all potential commercial farmers but all of their land belongs to government. There is no finance for them.”
The Credit Act prevents banks extending credit without adequate security, and without credit — and effective mentoring programmes — emerging farmers are illequipped to deal with additional stresses such as drought and crime, and the growing threats of fall armyworm (now present in all nine provinces) and climate change.
De Villiers said the results of the Grain SA assistance programme — a public-private partnership involving industry and government funding — raised big questions about how the government would manage land expropriation: “The issue is whether they will expropriate with or without title deed. If you do it without [title deed] then we influence food security.
“In our pool, only about 30% of black farmers are producing, the rest are forced to just sit on the land. This is why we are saying we want a sustainable land reform programme. It must solve the problem, otherwise it will just expand the problem.”
If national production fell below 11,5Mt (the past season yielded an impressive 13,8Mt), poor South Africans in particular would be worse off due to the knock-on effects of grain imports, said De Villiers.
A case in point is North West farmer Ramodisa Monaisa, who is sitting on 1,000ha of government land acquired last year. “I’m stuck because I can’t go to the bank,” said Monaisa.
“When people look at our farms it seems to them as if black people cannot work or are lazy. We are ready to plough but the challenge is finance.
“At the present moment the government we thought will come and help us is now just leaving us. We feel hopeless. It can be so
‘We are ready to plough but … I’m stuck because I can’t go to the bank’
frustrating when you wake up in the morning and you don’t know what to do. We see opportunities but because we don’t have money we are just idling about,” he said.
De Villiers said successful subsistence farming interventions had proved their value: in the Grain SA programme, subsistence farmers had typically increased their yields from about one ton to more than four tons. To qualify for the programme, farmers invest R3,500 of their own capital and receive about R10,000 worth of inputs such as seed and pesticides.
Economist Theo Vorster, from Galileo Capital, said technological and knowledge assistance was vital in reducing the “yield gap” between small-scale and commercial farmers. Lack of access to cash and land title also prevented emerging farmers “from accessing the mainstream farming support value chain”, Vorster said.
Despite the sensational soundbites from “fringe” players such as the EFF, key stakeholders were making meaningful progress towards a consensus about challenges.
“For the first time there is really honest discussion between the parties … this is the chance for SA to clarify a lot of things.”