Agricultur group calls radical lan
Afasa demands new financia farmers and says land prices
A new agricultural grouping that dramatically defected from the African Farmers Association of South Africa (Afasa) is proposing radical measures to accelerate land reform, including the establishment of financial institutions to assist small-scale farmers, who are predominantly black.
“Land ownership is still skewed and it cannot be that black people are beggars in the land of their ancestors.
“Land prices in certain areas and provinces are artificially inflated. White landowners are aware that the government does not have the ability to buy land at exorbitant prices,” Ismail Motala of the Deciduous Fruit Development Chamber told Sunday World in the aftermath of the formation of the Black Agri Commodities Federation.
Motala added that the argument often canvassed by white commercial farmers that state land should be expropriated was naive.
“If state land was good enough for agriculture, with access to water, this land would have already been farmed by those that have been historically advantaged,” he said.
The organisation said it wanted a proper plan, including timelines, to accelerate land reform, which will benefit black emerging farmers and rural communities.
The proposals would be canvassed at the next ANC elective conference in December.
In an unprecedented move, this week, six key affiliates of Afasa staged a walkout at the annual elective general meeting of the 10-year-old agricultural organisation at Durban’s International Convention Centre.
At the heart of the schism is, despite contributing a larger amount of money to run Afasa’s affairs, the commodities were sidelined in the national executive committee, the key decision-making body of the organisation.
But what broke the camel’s back were disagreements over the amendments to the organisation’s constitution, which would