DEVELOPMENT-SOUTH AFRICA: Unease in the Wake of an Expropriation

By Moyiga Nduru Reprint | | Print |

Moyiga Nduru

JOHANNESBURG, Feb 17 2007 (IPS) - Fritz Ahrens has worked on the family farm, Sterkstroom, since he left school 20 years ago. Born on the 200-hectare property in South Africa’s north-eastern Limpopo province, the 40-year-old Ahrens makes a living by helping his father produce litchis, macadamia nuts and avocados. The farm employs 46 full time and seasonal workers.

But Ahrens, like many of the country’s 43,000 commercial farmers, is worried about the future of white farmers in South Africa, especially as Sterkstroom is being claimed by people whose ancestors were evicted about a century ago.

His concerns deepened with the first farm expropriation under the African National Congress (ANC) government this week; the property was seized after negotiations with its owner, the Lutheran Evangelical Church of Southern Africa, stalled. The church has 60 days to hand over the property, which will be divided among poor rural communities.

“We feel threatenedàWe want to go on, but what’s our future?” Ahrens asked in an interview with IPS.

Following the demise of apartheid in 1994, the ANC administration set a target of transferring 30 percent of agricultural land to blacks by 2014, in an effort to compensate those dispossessed as a result of racial segregation.

More than a decade later, much remains to be done. “The latest information shows that only four percent of the land has been transferred,” says Ruth Hall, who researches land issues at the University of the Western Cape.

Last year Agriculture and Land Affairs Minister Lulu Xingwana tightened up on the period of negotiations between farmers and claimants, which can sometimes take up to six years. A six-month limit on negotiations was imposed, the minister accusing farmers of holding up negotiations in a bid to get more money for their land as it appreciated in value.

“We have 6,000 rural land claims left which we must finalise by 2008,” a spokesperson at the Department of Land Affairs told IPS. “We should address the imbalances of the past. Nobody is being targeted.”

Ahrens is unconvinced: “Why take farms from productive farmers? There are farms in former homelands lying unused. They say it’s bad (the land in these areas). Give it to me and in ten years I’ll turn it around.”

Many black farmers would find it difficult to develop land in the former homelands, set aside under apartheid for settlement of blacks, for lack of collateral.

“The commercial farmers produce food for 47 million South Africans. We don’t want to become like Zimbabwe, which used to have 4,500 commercial farmers. Now the number of white commercial farmers there has dwindled to about 200,” Ahrens added. “As a result, there’s an acute food shortage there. Zimbabweans are now running to South Africa to look for jobs.”

Zimbabwe’s land re-allocation programme followed farm occupations that began in 2000, spearheaded by veterans of the country’s 1970s independence war in apparent protest at the continued landlessness of majority blacks. Two decades after independence, much of Zimbabwe’s prime agricultural land remained in the hands of whites.

However, certain government critics view the occupations as having been orchestrated by government in a bid to short up support ahead of the 2000 parliamentary election, in which the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front faced its first serious challenge from the opposition.

Hall believes Ahrens’ fears are misplaced.

“The parallel with Zimbabwe is uncalled for. South Africa has legal and institutional mechanisms in place. Under South African laws, there’s compensation,” she told IPS.

Ahrens says he’s waiting for the land claims court to set a date for the hearing to determine the fate of Sterkstroom. If it rules in favour of the claimants, the Ahrens family will have to move.

“When your land is appropriated, you are given three months to leave the property. The government sets a price which you must accept. There is no appeal – it’s final,” Chris Jordaan, manager of property rights at the white-dominated Transvaal Agricultural Union of South Africa, told IPS. “This is what worries us.”

According to Jordaan, morale is low among farmers: “The atmosphere outside there is very depressing. First, you have land tax on farms coming up. Then you have expropriation. There has been constant pressure on commercial farmers for ten years. All this is restricting their abilityàto (work for) optimal production.”

“If the trend continues, we are going to loseàapproximately 12,000 commercial farmers in the next eight years,” he added, in reference to the period remaining for transfer of the 30 percent of agricultural land.

“A farmer, who has lost his farm, will not return to farming again. He will need at least 12.5 million rand (about 1.8 million dollars) to buy a new farm, restock and get back into production. This takes about four years.”

However, Hall emphasises the necessity of land reform.

“This is part of the unfinished business of the transition in South Africa. It’s a key settlement to the agreement that made our reconciliation possible. But the state should make efforts to address land reform without hurting both parties (farmers and claimants).”