When we consider inclusive growth of the South African farming sector, land reform will naturally be the key policy we utilise to achieve this objective.
Among numerous programmes available to us, the near-term and potentially more effective approach will be the release of the 2.5 million hectares of land that the government acquired over the years through its Proactive Land Acquisition Strategy.
Much of this land was previously utilised for farming activities. Currently, some of the land is underutilised, and some is under short-term leases to farmers who struggle to access the capital needed to unlock its potential.
The slow progress toward land release with title deeds to carefully selected beneficiaries has constrained our ability to boost agricultural growth and job creation in rural South Africa.
Naturally, when we assess long-term growth prospects for agriculture, we assume this land will be fully utilised to boost agricultural output and create jobs.
President Cyril Ramaphosa and the former minister of agriculture, land reform and rural development, Thoko Didiza, have pushed for the establishment of the Land Reform and Agricultural Development Agency, which would be at the centre of driving the release of the land to appropriately selected beneficiaries with title deeds, address finance challenges, and lean on organised agriculture and private sector skills.
This idea remains essential to our efforts, as it aligns with the Presidency's priorities on land reform and promises to be inclusive, involving the private sector and organised agriculture.
In his Opening of Parliament Address in July 2024, President Ramaphosa stressed the importance of this process when he stated: “We will increase funding to land reform, prioritise the transfer of state land and improve post-settlement support by strengthening the institutional capacity of responsible structures.”
Thus, it is key that the Department of Land Reform and Rural Development accelerates the establishment of the Land Reform and Rural Development Agency and ensures it begins its work this year. The department’s leadership shares this urgency.
Delivery, not dialogue
There is always the temptation to have elaborate consultations and dialogues about land matters. In fact, over the past three decades, South Africa has spent more time on such dialogues than on policy implementation.
This time around, we must avoid the allure of these elaborate consultations and instead move ahead with the programmes established in the previous administration, tweaking and improving them as they are implemented. This is not a call to minimise stakeholder input, but to focus on delivery and improve by doing so.
Failure to implement only prolongs the suffering for farmers on the ground. Importantly, it also makes it hard to believe the government is committed to the transformation agenda if land hoarding continues while black farmers are left on the side.
If the government cannot move ahead with releasing more land and supporting farmers, it risks the long-term growth prospects of South Africa’s agriculture and rural economy. The success of other government programmes, such as the Agriculture and Agro-processing Master Plan (Aamp), hinges on the progress of the land release.
I must also underscore that the aspirations contained in the Aamp are fundamental to our agricultural development and to our various value chain development approaches.
Another important aspect of the land release is that we must avoid the practice of the past few years, which has allocated a single land parcel to numerous beneficiaries. The policy focus should be a deliberate attempt to support and nurture a new cohort of individual commercial farmers. This entails selecting a few and a better new cohort of commercial farmers to support.
Indeed, focusing on creating and nurturing a new cohort of farmers does not mean the South African government must ignore the smallholder farmers. They should continue to receive the necessary support, as they play a vital role in household food security.
Deliberate support for commercial farming will also ensure that there are anchors of farmers in each region, which can serve as aggregators for surrounding smallholder farmers who wish to access commercial value chains. This year should be a period of implementation and progress in land reform and agriculture.
Indeed, many daily challenges continue to confront the sector, and we must tackle them. In the midst of all, the long-term approach should be to boost inclusive growth in the sector through the programmes I have underscored above.
Importantly, the 2.5 million hectares is not the end of land reform; all other programmes continue. It is mainly the near-term approach worth accelerating. DM
Sihlobo is the presidential envoy on agriculture and land. He is also the chief economist of the Agricultural Business Chamber of South Africa, and a senior research fellow in the Department of Agricultural Economics at Stellenbosch University.