South Africa will offer as much as 700,000 hectares (1.73 million acres) of state land for lease as the government steps up its drive to compensate citizens forcibly removed and dispossessed during the apartheid era.

The growth of South Africa’s agricultural fortunes and job creation will, in part, depend on the expansion of agricultural activities in the underutilised former homelands regions and farms that government acquired through the land reform process.

South Africans cannot be redistributed into prosperity.

The President's panel on land reform and agriculture made 73 recommendations, of which 60 were supported and take to the Inter-Ministerial Committee on Land Reform and Agriculture (the IMC).

The Inter-Ministerial Committee (IMC) on Land Reform announced on Sunday that a new land expropriation bill had been submitted to Parliament.

South Africa’s land reform programme was supposed to ensure that the impoverished get to own and work the land. Now, only the politically connected and economically included are benefitting.

The Expropriation Bill of 2020, which is essentially the same as its 2019 predecessor, was gazetted last week. It is intended to supplement the EWC (expropriation without compensation) constitutional amendment bill, which is now being rushed through the final stages of the public consultation process so that the Ad Hoc Committee can present it to Parliament for adoption before the end of the year.

At the beginning of October, the department of public works and infrastructure published the Expropriation Bill in the Government Gazette along with an explanatory memorandum.

Optimism is probably South Africans’ most ironic quality — and an asset you would imagine it would be foolish to take for granted.

With the government budget deficit expected to pass 40% this year, the African National Congress’s (ANC) options to source the coal needed to fuel its gravy train are dwindling. There should be little doubt that the new expropriation law is intended to make up for this insufficiency.

Two weeks ago, City Press carried a depressing story on black farmers in Mpumalanga who stood to be removed from the state-owned land they were working.

As a land reform practitioner of several decades, my first reaction to the news that the department of agriculture, land reform and rural development was intending to release state-owned land on the basis of long-term leases was one of incredulity. 

Agriculture, land reform & rural development minister Thoko Didiza’s announcement that 700,000ha of agricultural land will be released for distribution is a positive step for agricultural expansion and inclusive growth.

About a third of the 700,000ha the government said earlier in October it would make available for land reform is already occupied by communities and black farmers, some of whom now fear they will be forced to vacate the land.

The South African government recently announced a plan to allocate 700,000 hectares of state land to black farmers. Exactly how many farms and beneficiaries this will involve is unclear.

Three Dutch members of parliament reiterated their concerns about farm attacks and the ANC government’s planned expropriation without compensation in a series of questions put to the Dutch Minister of Foreign Affairs, Stef Blok.

 When South Africa officially became a constitutional democracy in South Africa on 4 February 1997 it heralded profound change in the way the country is governed.

When South Africa officially became a constitutional democracy in South Africa on 4 February 1997 it heralded profound change in the way the country is governed.

In early October, the Department of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development announced it was making almost 900 farms available for emerging farmers to lease on underutilised or vacant state land.

The restitution of land remains a very emotive issue in South Africa.