Affairs, Ms Lulu
Xingwana (MP) at the launch of the Land and Agrarian Land Reform Project and
Land Rights Awareness Campaign in the Eastern Cape province, Rockhurst Farm,
Makana Local Municipality, Grahamstown
3 November 2007
Programme Director
Honourable Premier: uMama Nosimo Balindlela
Honourable MEC for Agriculture: uTata Gugile Nkwinti
Executive Mayor, Honourable Councillor Mvoko
President of Women in Agriculture and Rural Development (WARD), uMama
Molo
Councillors
Members of the media
Ladies and gentlemen
It is indeed a pleasure for me to be amongst you today. I regard this day as
a milestone in our endeavour as Government to ensure the equitable
redistribution of land amongst our people. Government has set a target of
redistributing 30% of white-owned agricultural land by 2014. This target
equates to approximately 34 million hectares. Looking at the progress to date,
we have managed to redistribute a very miniscule percentage of this target.
Most of this land has been redistributed through a demand-led approach.
This approach has so far shown to be inadequate for us to meet our target
since it is reactive to the needs of individual applicants. Honourable Premier
and Honourable MEC, it was upon realisation of these challenges that I
established the Project Management Unit (PMU) which is the national
implementing agency of the Land and Agrarian Reform Project (LARP). It is
responsible for fast tracking land delivery towards the attainment of the
Presidential priorities for 2007 to 2009. The focus of LARP in the Eastern Cape
province is on the acquisition of land in order to provide long term security
to farm dwellers, farm workers and emerging communal farmers.
Madame Premier, MEC, ladies and gentlemen, taking into cognisance the need
for sector support from agriculture, housing and local government, the project
is located within the priority projects of the Economic Cluster of the
Provincial Programme of Action. Madam Premier, as you know, the total
agricultural land in this province is estimated at around 9,8 million hectares
(ha). The target for redistribution is 2,9 million ha. To date, the land
delivered through both Redistribution and Restitution Programmes amounts to 315
000 ha. This figure leaves us with a shortfall of about 2,6 million ha and the
provincial PMU is tasked with accelerating the redistribution process.
Madame Premier, as women with rural backgrounds, you and I understand the
emotional and spiritual attachment that farm dwellers and farm workers have to
land which some of them have occupied for generations, regardless of its
condition and location. This has presented me with a dilemma as in some
instances marginal land has been acquired, thereby inadvertently defeating our
objective of fighting poverty and underdevelopment.
It is imperative that PMU ensures that the province redistributes 650 000 ha
of agricultural land to 5 250 new agricultural producers by 2009. As I have
stated before, the Provincial Land Reform Office will need to target farm
dwellers and farm workers in the realisation of this target. The target group
is spread out around Chris Hani Ukahlamba, Amathole and Western District
Municipalities. The area is suitable for a number of enterprises including
livestock, pineapples, Protea flowers, fynbos, deciduous fruit, poultry, wool,
citrus and fodder production.
Madame Premier, honourable MEC, the aim is to settle individual applicant
households or families on farm units, depending on the land use and
productivity of the property acquired. LARP, with the assistance of the
national Department of Agriculture and, provincial departments of Agriculture
and Local Government will formulate settlement models or agricultural villages
according to commodity type. These villages must cater for farm dwellers who
want to farm on a commercial scale and those who want tenure security with
access to land for household food security.
Ladies and gentlemen: It is befitting that I congratulate the group of
people that are leasing Rockhurst Farm. I would also like to applaud you for
your tenacity in acquiring this property. Making a living out of farming is not
easy. It needs go-getters. People who never say die, who never give up. My
officials have impressed upon me that they have been assisting you with
mentoring training and equipping you with the necessary skills to run this
enterprise, with this assistance and the fact that you are within such close
proximity to water, I am sure the sky is the limit.
Programme director; I'm also delighted that this project is targeting farm
dwellers and farm workers who are the most vulnerable members of our society
having endured insecure tenure, terrible working and living conditions whilst
they work and live in the sector that produces food for local and international
consumption but remain hungry and their children malnourished. Today I am also
launching the Land Rights Awareness Campaign whose slogan is: Land Rights Are
Human Rights.
This campaign is a call to all stakeholders, farmers, non-governmental
organisations (NGOs), community-based organisation (CBOs), farm dwellers and
workers that government has put in place a legislative framework to deal with
issues of tenure security on farms and to regulate relationships between farm
owners and farm dwellers. It is always disturbing to hear of continued cases of
illegal evictions. The main objectives of this campaign is to raise the public
awareness on land rights issues and to encouraged the stakeholder participation
in dealing with land tenure issues.
Our history of dispossession changed the indigenous people of these areas
into farm dwellers and farm workers when white farms were created. It is known
that most of you have never been anywhere else but were born on these
properties where you now find yourselves landless. This is a product of many
years of conquest, legislation and other measures by the previous undemocratic
governments and as farm dwellers and farm workers you find yourselves in
exploitative situations entirely dependant on farm owners. With this Land
Rights Awareness Campaign I say let us talk and find solutions together and
respect the rule of law and as one message of this campaign indicates "stop
illegal eviction".
There will be no stability on farms if there is no acknowledgement of this
terrible history and a move towards the recognition of tenure rights through
observance of the legal framework that this government has put in place.
Programme Director, through the Land Rights Awareness Campaign I hope to
increase access to the Department of Land Affairs by people faced with problems
of insecure tenure. In this regard a call centre with a toll free number 0800
00 7095 has been set up. This number is also being displayed on banners around
this tent, write down the number and phone the department when faced with an
eviction threat.
Programme director, further assistance, on the land rights is the setting up
of the Land Rights Management Facility to provide legal representation and
mediations services. I therefore encourage the use of these services than to
resort to illegal and other forms of land rights violations. To illegally evict
means the total disrespect of the rule of law and the government will not
tolerate. We will ensure that the law takes its course. We say to all our
stakeholders in the agricultural sector, stop all illegal evictions now!
I thank you. Siyabulela.
Issued by: Ministry of Agriculture and Land Affairs
3 November 2007
Source: Department of Agriculture (http://www.nda.agric.za)
