Opening remarks by Minister in The Presidency responsible for Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation, Dr. Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma at the 2nd Colloquium of the advisory panel on land reform and agriculture, St George’s Hotel
Programme Director
Chairperson of the Expert Advisory Panel on Land Reform, Dr Vuyo Mahlati
Judge Jody Kollapen
Chief Land Claims Commissioner, Professor Gilingwe Mayende
Members of the Advisory Panel
Representatives of the political parties here gathered
Distinguished Guests
Ladies and Gentlemen
Thank you for having once again invited us to this second colloquium of this esteemed Panel.
Let me also take this opportunity to extend the apology of the Deputy President.
It was just two months ago in December that we met to unpack critical issues that relate to the motive question of land and inclusive growth.
On that occasion we took the time to recall the history and nature of the dispossession of a majority of our people. We also drew lessons from our immediate region. We will not belabour the historic vantage point of the 1488 history of the Oub, the 1652 tale of the Dromedaris, Reijger and Goede Hoop, and the many documented and undocumented heroic three century old battles and wars of a people dispossessed of their land and dignity.
In fact, the very formation of the African National Congress was a response to the mass uncompensated dispossession of the masses of our people, which formation had been preceded by various self-determination battles spanning over a century, including the battle of Isandlwana, the frontier wars, and the battles of Sekhukhune amongst many others.
In announcing its existence the African National Congress petitioned His majesty King George the fifth, in 1914 noting that the “petitioners are descendants of a race which, when their forebears were conquered by His Majesty's might, and their land [was] taken from them, their laws and customs mangled and their military and other institutions brought to nought…” Consequently the petitioners advanced their plea that “there shall not be, in the eye of the law, any distinction or qualification whatever, founded on mere distinction of colour, origin, or language, or creed; but that the protection of the law, in letter and in substance, shall be extended impartially to all alike.” It would take another 80years through the four pillars of the National Democratic Revolution for their prayer to realise partial fruition. In the meantime the People’s Congress in 1955 through the Freedom Charter declared that “the land shall be shared among those who work it” by re-dividing the land “amongst those who work it to banish famine and hunger”. An ideal we are, sadly, yet to meet 64 years later.
Incidentally, even both waves of the Anglo Boer War were largely inspired by unjust land acquisition aspirations of the contending colonialists, in the words of the 4th Earl of Carnarvon who had been dissatisfied by the ‘annexing’ of the Transvaal led by Paul Kruger amongst others “By acting at once, we may ... acquire ... the whole Transvaal Republic after which the Orange Free State will follow.”
We will spare you the full details of these historic facts and implications. Suffice to say, we chose to draw from this diverse history, because we wanted to illustrate that it is that very history that today shapes preferences and perspectives amongst today’s elites, social groups and the disposed masses.
Be that as it may, we emerged from the first colloquium with a general consensus that land, as well as its accompanying flora, fauna and waters are at the centre of our collective growth and development as a nation.
We are therefore impressed that in a short two months the Panel is now in a position to shape the details of the nature to be assumed by our land and agrarian reform. That land and agrarian reform is a prerequisite for our shared growth and development is thankfully no longer up for debate. It is a matter that even our peers and neighbours long recognised. As early as 2007 the former Prime Minister Meles Zenawi led African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) report recognised that “Land in South Africa is an emotive and volatile issue. It is potentially explosive unless handled properly”. The report observes that:
“There are signs of growing impatience and the government is under considerable and probably increasing pressure from many quarters over likely failure to deliver on its land reform… attention needs to be focused on the unresolved policy contradictions arising from the dominance of land market promotion objectives over and above mass securitisation of tenure. In this regard, the authorities may need to depart from entrenched norms already known to have limited results”.
The APRM team further notes that:
“The South African Constitution has been hailed as one of the most progressive in the world. However, the context within which constitutional governance arrangements have been crafted needs to be kept in mind. At the time of its design, it was more of a contract among previously suspicious parties for whom trust was a scarce commodity rather than a covenant born from shared mutual experiences and values. Hence what emerged was a contract both in the construction of the state and in the forging of a nation”
It is clear that the market based land reform initiative as dictated by the willing seller/ willing buyer formula will therefore not assist in addressing the inequality legacy of Apartheid, with serious implications for Agrarian reform and urban development. Although the latter is not in the purview of this Panel, the Panel ought to maintain it in its line of site, because the rapid urbanisation which is generally a response to the lack of development and agrarian reform in the rural areas. Our people do not desire to be in urban areas, but with the right type of development and ‘urbanisation’ in rural areas, they would really prefer to be there, and thus you only need to observe the N1 on Fridays and Sundays to understand that our people are dual residents.
Thus our desire to amend 25 of the Constitution. We are motivated by the pursuit of the love, growth and development of our people.
Land is a centrepiece in our development strategy towards the South Africa We Want, which is free of the triple challenges of unemployment, poverty and inequality. Land is a key factor in social, political and economic empowerment. The World Economic Forum has estimated that land and property can form up to 75percent of a nation’s wealth, and yet women who are 50percent of the global population own less than 20percent of it, despite the fact that more than 400 million of them farm and produce the majority of the world’s food supply[1]. It is therefore clear to us that gender equality and improved food security will require equality in access and ownership of land.
It is also clear to us that the adoption of the advent of democracy and the adoption of the Constitution did very little to reverse the Apartheid legacy of the no less than 17 000 statutory measures that controlled land division and segregation.
And so we must take more radical measures. At the current pace of land reform it will take us another 43 years to correct the injustice which has been visited upon our people which has confined them to just 21percent of the land 25 years after democracy. In the words of Archbishop Desmond Tutu during our dark days: “the natives are restless”.
Programme Director, it also stands true that access to land for the majority can propel our economy to greater heights. However it is also the task of this panel to identify supportive enablers for this to occur, beyond the Constitutional and legislative frameworks. In this regard the lessons we learnt from our neighbours in our previous colloquium will require more attention from this forum.
First and foremost with identification and acquisition must come skills enhancement and development. That is why we have emphasized the skills revolution as cardinal to our Agrarian reform. Some few years ago I was astounded by a report from AgriSA which reported that the average age of a South African farmer is 62years, the report went on to say that in 1994 there were some 120 000 farmers compared to a reported 2012 figure of 37 000[2]. I am not sure what the figure is now, but I am certain the picture remains largely the same. The then AgriSA Deputy President, Theo de Jager summarised the problem adequately, "We are to be blamed too. We have not made this profession sexy enough. It is not cool to be a farmer. We need to rectify this in a short space of time." We have the responsibility to bring sexy back to the sector, and part of this is by employing more efficient and technologically sound means of production.
We must encourage and attract young people into the sector, by also increasing accesses to learning opportunities, this may require specialized Agriculture institutions as we learnt on a recent trip to Malawi as well as Limpopo. Those institutions need not be institutions of last choice but institutions of first choice.
Secondly, we must pay attention to the issues related to access to financing for our farmers particularly Black and women farmers, they cannot be subjected to small scale farming forever, as important as this segment is to our economy. This will require that first we enhance the current and traditional practices employed by our people. For instance I recently came across an initiative that seeks to turn goat farming into sustainable Agro Businesses. However our people, although they have the basic knowledge, have not viewed these as potential growth businesses. With the right training and financing these can propel our people into entrepreneurs, whilst also taking advantage of the full value chain including agro processing.
Finally, the path you advise on land and agrarian reform must also modify “the existing institutional arrangements governing the possession and use of land… [so as to] strengthen land rights, enhance productivity, secure livelihoods of all citizens and ensure political stability”.[3] This will require an interrelated and integrated system which pays greater attention to:
- Land restitution, to provide for a process of restitution arising from the past land injustices, we have referred to;
- Land tenure reform, to provide for improved and diverse forms of tenure security for all, especially those who have previously been marginalised such as women; AND
- Land redistribution, to provide the disadvantaged and poor with access to land for beneficial use and occupation; and
Programme Director, We look to the outcomes of this colloquium to guide our young democracy on the emotive matter of land reform. We embark on this reform journey not because we seek to further polarize our society, but because we seek to advance our constitutional democracy which seeks to build a South Africa for all where all our people can be prosperous and treated equally with dignity.
I wish you well in your deliberations and our Cabinet Committee under the leadership of Deputy President DD Mabuza looks forward to your final report sometime next month.
I thank you
