The concept of willing-buyer, willing-seller has been underscored by Minister of Agriculture and Land Thoko Didiza in reply to a question about government’s target of 30% of white agricultural land being redistributed to black farmers by 2015.
Asked by a colleague from the ruling African National Congress, MP Manie Schoeman — who is a former Eastern Cape leader of the New National Party — how many farmers would be settled on “this land”, she said: “The White Paper on South African land policy clearly stipulates the principles on which the government’s land reform policy is based”.
“Relevant to the question is the “needs based” principle. It is clear then that the land reform policy allows self-selection by beneficiaries. It is not [the] government that selects farmers to be settled in terms of the land redistribution programme.
“This principle is further elaborated on in the government’s approach to land redistribution which states that the redistribution mechanism depends largely upon voluntary transactions betweens willing-buyers and willing-sellers, which should result in dispersed land acquisition and settlement, as against black settlement in designated areas’,” said the minister.
“The 30% of white-owned agricultural land to be redistributed by 2015 should be seen in the above explained policy context,” the minister added. ‒ I-Net Bridge