League backs state's plan to own all land

17 March 2010, Business Report
URL: http://www.busrep.co.za/index.php?fSectionId=561&fArticleId=5391577

Johannesburg:  The ANC Youth League had come out in strong support of a Department of Rural Development and Land Reform initiative to nationalise all farmland, pledging yesterday to put the matter to the highest policymaking organs of the ANC.

As a storm of opposition to the plan emerged, with arguments put forward that it would destroy commercial agriculture, undermine investment in the sector and cause famine, the league spokesman, Floyd Shivambu, said the land issue followed on neatly on its call for mining nationalisation.

Thozi Gwanya, the department's director-general, reported in a strategy document that it wished to "facilitate a discussion" by proposing that all productive land "will become a national asset and a quitrent land tenure system (whether) with perpetual or limited right is envisaged".

The youth league would put the proposal to the upcoming ANC national general council in September - together with the nationalisation of mines proposal - for the national elective conference in 2012.

Shivambu said while the league did not want to see "what happened in Zimbabwe" repeated, the majority of the land should be transferred to the indigenous people. It was a consequence of the philosophy contained in the Freedom Charter, the guiding document of the movement, and he believed it would get widespread support from ANC members.

There was an outcry across the board in commercial farming and opposition political party circles yesterday.

Agri SA president Johannes Moller warned the Ministers of Agriculture and Land Reform that the nationalisation plan for farmland would assure South Africa that there would be famine in the future.

Moller said he would raise farming opposition to the plan. Deputy Agriculture Minister Pieter Mulder, who leads the conservative Freedom Front Plus which has the bulk of its support among Afrikaner farmers, was emphatic in his rejection of the plan.

"There can be no doubt that should all productive land in South Africa be changed into a national asset, it would mean the nationalisation of land."

Mulder, who joined the government last year, said the idea was that all agricultural land would in future belong to the state and existing owners' rights be changed to a rental system. "If such a proposal is made government policy it would be contrary to the constitution, it would permanently deter all investors from South Africa and it would create huge uncertainty in rural areas, which in turn would destroy food security."

Gwanya said that the plan could involve a change to the property rights protection clause in the constitution.

Agri SA immediately took up Mulder's call for the proposals to be opposed "by all interested parties". Moller said if climate change did not produce famine, the Gwanya plan would "most certainly" do so.

Moller, who hosted Rural Development and Land Reform Minister Gugile Nkwinti at a conference on assisting farming development - particularly black emerging farmers - two weeks ago, said it was astonishing that Nkwinti had "not even mentioned it (the plan)".

It also came out like a "bolt of lightning" at a time when President Jacob Zuma had just assured British investors that there would be no nationalisation "in any sector".

Moller said it was disturbing that different parts of the government had completely contradictory plans - one seeking investment in the economy by foreigners and another seeking to destroy local commercial farming.

He took issue even with Nkwinti's remark recently that the matter of foreign owners owning farmland would have to be dealt with. "Take a look at the foreign-owned wine farms in the Western Cape, then take a look at the farmland transferred through land reform and restitution," said Moller, noting that Nkwinti himself had pointed out that nine out of 10 land transfers to historically disadvantaged South Africans had failed to perform.

While Joe Gondo, the president of the representative body of emerging black farmers - the National African Farmers' Union - said he needed time to consult with his members to forge a position on the plan, the DA was adamant that the plan was dangerous.

The DA's Annette Steyn said the ANC appeared to have forgotten that it did not have the votes in Parliament to amend the constitution.

Spokesmen for the two department's ministers were not available for comment yesterday.

*  Published on the web by Business Report on March 15, 2010.