Land reform a necessary fix for the faultlines in our economy
One of the catalysts for the rise of East Asian nations such as China, South Korea and Japan was restructuring agriculture and, central to this, land reform. Through it, income inequality in these nations shrank as new farmer-capitalists emerged, with less money spent on food imports. In the South African context such reform raises temperatures, given our polarising history with land that is best captured by the 1913 Natives Land Act. But whichever side of the political fence you are on, there’s a clear understanding that this issue needs to be addressed, and policy intervention is central.
Our closest example of what land reform means on a massive scale was that undertaken by Zimbabwe’s very desperate ruling elite at the turn of the century. Faced with possible ousting by what was then an emerging, urbanised and trade union-based opposition party in the Movement for Democratic Change, they unleashed an untidy and populist land reform programme that ruined the economy, setting it back decades. But that’s not to say the elite led by former president Robert Mugabe had been leading the country towards economic prosperity in the years before the land grabs were sanctioned.
Given that Zimbabwe is our closest and most recent example of land reform, there’s a natural apprehension by farmers and those most invested in the sector over such talk, especially after the ANC launched a review of the constitution that would allow for expropriation of land without compensation — even though the party’s December resolution clearly stipulates that allowing for it should be just one of the options open to effect land reform. And part of the party’s resolution is that land reform be premised on three elements: increased security of tenure, land restitution and land redistribution.
Those policy proposals in no way point to another Zimbabwe experience, and don’t speak to nationalisation of the sort proposed by Julius Malema’s EFF. Instead of being panicked as a nation, we should focus on what a well-implemented land reform process promises for the South African economy, which is trapped in low single-digit growth territory when what is most needed is the type of growth rates experienced in East Asia over the past few decades. If reforms are done well (or nearly as well as the apartheid regime went about its reforms) it is thought that growth in Africa’s second-biggest economy could move on to another plateau, one that would ensure that structural unemployment — which sits at over 26% — is finally and sustainably eroded.
According to the National Development Plan, the sector has the potential to create close to a million more jobs by 2030 if there would be increased investments to unlock production in communal areas, which land reforms form a part of in terms of increased tenure security.
With new technology, fertilisers and irrigation systems, the lands that we once thought barren in rural South Africa need not be, as long as there’s government and private sector support and it is well organised.
But of course, as part of land reform, some farmers will find themselves having to carve up their lands; one can’t ignore our shared history.
Land reform comes with great upheaval as it involves taking land from those who have it and giving it to those who don’t. To unleash it, title deeds are necessary. Landowners, white farmers, the government and our chiefs and kings need to buy in so South Africa can reap the economic rewards.
The issue of land reform should not be left to political parties to use as a populist ticket either for or against. It’s necessary to fix the structural faultlines in the South African economy.
Don’t panic, look at the benefits of good policy