DEVELOPMENT-SOUTH AFRICA: New Black Farmers Carve a Niche for Themselves

By Moyiga Nduru Reprint | | Print |

Moyiga Nduru

BASOTHO LETJHABILE FARM, South Africa, May 18 2004 (IPS) - A bevy of girls emerges from a group of farmhouses, three of them giggling after they spot rare visitors to this part of the world: two Chinese nationals. The men are part of a group of journalists that has been invited to tour various farms, to inspect South Africa’s land reform programme.

This particular farm, Basotho Letjhabile, is located in the Free State province on the border with Lesotho – some 350 kilometres from the main commercial city of Johannesburg.

The girls are amongst the 18 children belonging to nine black families that bought the property from a white commercial farmer, Toets Cahl, in February. "Some of these families have been working together for 30 years on different farms," says Elisa Maloka, a local agricultural extension officer.

"The previous owner of this farm decided to bring them here five years ago," he explains.

Before selling the farm, Cahl left the workers to run the 1338-hectare property on their own for five years – only visiting them once a year. He later sold the holding for about 194,000 dollars and retired to Cape Town. Basotho Letjhabile consists of 180 hectares of arable land, while the remainder of the farm is used for grazing.

"Cahl wanted to sell his farm but the option was that only his farm workers must buy and occupy the farm. The purchase price includes implements that were donated by the seller," Peter Brislin, Acting Director of the Department of Land Affairs in the Free State, told journalists. These implements include tractors and an imposing windmill used for pumping water.

Eva Mahao, who looks a lot older than her 51 years, is one of the beneficiaries. "We see our lives improving. Our men plant maize and we raise chicken and sell vegetables," she told IPS.

"If our men work as hard as they used to do for the farm owner, I’m sure there will be a significant progress."

Along with eight other family members, the Mahaos have planted maize on 80 hectares of the land – and acquired 234 cattle and 120 sheep.

When the African National Congress took power from the white apartheid government in 1994, it placed land reform at the top of its political agenda and launched an ambitious programme of land restitution, redistribution and security of tenure for farm workers.

The restitution programme aimed to address wrongs that dated back to the 1913 Land Act, under which whites were allotted 87 percent of South Africa’s land – while the majority blacks were crammed into the remaining 13 percent.

"Under the 1913 Act, several million people were moved from their lands – some through the barrel of the gun and some by other means," Brislin says. "As a result, black people lost their skills, expertise and ability to use the land."

According to government officials, some three million hectares have been transferred to 700,000 black households and individuals since the advent of democracy in 1994. This includes land transferred through restitution, redistribution and the allocation of state property, says the Department of Land Affairs.

"The Minister (of Agriculture and Land Affairs, Thoko Didiza) says by 2014, 30 percent of agricultural land in South Africa should be owned by blacks," Brislin told IPS. "But we are far behind this target for various reasons."

Part of the problem has to do with lack of money.

"We have severe budgetary constraints. Last year we were allotted 26 million rand (3.4 million dollars) for land purchase and we overspent by two percent," Brislin says. This year the province has been allocated a budget of 4.3 million dollars.

However, rising land prices may undermine these gains. "In parts of Free State, the price of land has doubled in the past two years," Brislin says. In prime farming areas, a hectare of land currently sells for about 120 dollars.

"State lands are still very cheap – they go for 200 rand (30 dollars) a hectare. Unfortunately there are not enough for everybody," Moshidi Marun, an extension officer, told IPS.

Land and agricultural officials also grumble that white commercial farmers are offering poor lands and property that is in financial trouble for sale to black farmers.

While extension officers visit the reallocated farms once a week to advise emerging black farmers, challenges remain.

"I have to work hard. I used to work for others. But now, as an independent farmer, I have to think on my own," Ernest Phekonyane of Phuthanang Midlands II farm, near the Free State capital of Bloemfontein, said in an interview.

Adds extension officer Loffi Myberg, "The farm workers lack experience in decision making. When you are a farm worker you do what the owner tells you. But now the new farmers must make their own decisions, which is not easy."

Myburg supervises Handevat farm, near Bloemfontein. As part of an experiment, white commercial farmers have teamed up with black workers to run this farm.

South Africa’s 60,000 white commercial farmers have a network of unions, clubs and training centres for their members. "They also enjoy personal relations with their bank managers – something which the emerging black farmers have yet to forge," Brislin notes.

To help farmers get the necessary expertise, agriculture authorities in the Free State say they have started week-long training programmes for new black farmers.

This is news to Phekonyane. "I’ve never been trained. I’m using my past experience as an extension officer on the farm," he says.

Land ownership has also proved to be a sensitive issue in other parts of the Southern African region.

In neighbouring Zimbabwe, thousands of war veterans and ruling party supporters, egged on by government, invaded and seized white-owned farms between 2000 and 2002. This was initially portrayed as a spontaneous attempt to correct the racial imbalances in land ownership that had continued 20 years after independence.

However, government critics have since claimed that the seizures were orchestrated by the ruling party in a bid to maintain power in the 2000 parliamentary poll.

The occupations, which have affected 4,500 white commercial farmers, have taken a heavy toll on agricultural production in Zimbabwe, with half of the country’s population now dependent on food aid.

Namibia, too, has begun a process of expropriating land for redistribution to majority blacks. Authorities say farmers will be properly compensated for their properties – although President Sam Nujoma has also threatened to seize land from white commercial farmers who abuse their black workers.

South Africa’s government has dismissed fears that the country will follow Zimbabwe’s example if white commercial farmers continue to obstruct the state’s ‘willing seller, willing buyer’ policy.

"We have legislation in place which forbids invasion of land by anybody," Silinda Israel of the Department of Agriculture said in an interview.

Adds Brislin, "Expropriation is there in law. But it will only be used under extreme circumstances."

While this has prompted some to commend government for maintaining investor confidence in South Africa, the approach elicits little joy on the part of the Landless People’s Movement (LPM), a pressure group.

"We do not want to go the Zimbabwe way. But people need land. Only less than three percent of the land held by white people has been distributed to our people in a decade. We hope things will change and government will start expropriating land," the LPM’s Mangaliso Kubheka told IPS Monday (May 17).

In a recent interview with IPS, Philip du Toit, author of ‘The Great South African Land Scandal’, said "I have no problem with land reform. It’s the right thing to do. The problem is that land is being dished out to people who do not know anything about farming." Studies by the British Department of International Development and the Programme for Land and Agrarian Studies at the University of the Western Cape in South Africa have also pointed to the fact that new black farmers who acquire land need more in the form of agricultural support services.

However, an official from the Department of Land Affairs rejected the claim that certain farms have collapsed under black management. "We are not aware of those claims. They are baseless claims meant to distract our attention from the land reform programme," the official told IPS Tuesday.