‘State must partner up to solve this issue’
The government will not be able to resolve land reform on its own and will need to enter into partnerships to tackle the issue, says Elton Greeve, chief director of strategic land reform interventions at the department.
“It’s encouraging to see that the 80 partnerships that have been formed with white farmers are voluntary .... We [now] have farmers coming up to help us ....
“We need more noncoerced partnerships,” said Greeve.
The government is under pressure to complete the landreform programme.
In 2016, Parliament passed the Expropriation Bill, paving the way for the government to pay for land at a value determined by the valuer-general. The bill also allows for expropriation of land for the “public interest”, ending the willing-buyer, willing-seller approach to land reform.
BILL ALLOWS FOR EXPROPRIATION OF LAND FOR THE PUBLIC INTEREST, ENDING ‘THE WILLING-BUYER, WILLING-SELLER’ APPROACH
The government said this would speed up land reform. Greeve said many people did not grasp land reform’s economic and social effect.
Vumelana Advisory Fund, a nonprofit organisation that helps beneficiaries of the land-reform programme put their land to productive use, recently hosted a seminar to discuss four landreform scenarios likely to unfold over the next 15 years.
Scenario 1, Connection and Capture, paints a picture of what can happen should the government allocate land arbitrarily to shore up support ahead of the 2019 elections. Such a move would benefit the politically connected. Scenario 2, Market Power and Concentration, describes what can happen were the government to speed up land reform through community and private partnerships. Such a scenario would lead to the transfer of commercial farmland, but would not change the structure of agriculture.
Scenario 3, Occupation and Confiscation, describes what can happen if South Africans opt for land invasion. Scenario 4, Hard Bargaining and Compromise, describes what can happen if South Africans agree to equitable land sharing.