Farmers’ unions on Monday said they want Minister of Land Affairs Lulu Xingwana to clarify remarks that farmers had six months to agree on a selling price before their farms would be seized.
Xingwana’s statements seem to be in direct conflict with land-reform laws that set out procedures for expropriation, said Hans Van der Merwe, executive director of South African farming organisation AgriSA.
”Her statements are creating unnecessary confusion and tension.”
The union will try to get clarification on the minister’s remarks.
”We never asked to be paid more than a reasonable commercial price for our properties,” Van der Merwe added.
The South African Broadcasting Corporation reported on Friday that Xingwana said her department will now negotiate for six months only with land owners whose property prices were inflated.
If the negotiations failed, the land would be expropriated in order to reach the settlement target date of December 2008.
”At least now we have … expropriation. Therefore, we will no longer waste time negotiating with people who are not committed to transformation,” she reportedly said.
Chris Jordaan, manager of property rights at the Transvaal Agricultural Union South Africa, said they were trying to arrange a meeting with the minister.
”How are we going to keep farmers on their land and produce food for the country with these continuous remarks against them?”
He pointed out that his farming union handed a document with suggestions on fast-tracking land restitution to chief Land Claims Commissioner Tozi Gwanya on the day the minister made her remarks.
”We met on a regular basis with the previous minister on the issue. We are part of a task team looking at land restitution. We are informing our members on how to handle the whole process. What more can farmers do?”
He said South Africa has about 43 000 commercial farmers, 12 000 of who will not be farming after the restitution and other land-reform processes are finalised.
”That is a massive amount of farming ability that’s being lost. The government’s whole approach will have great consequences for commercial farming,” he said.
Jordaan said statements like those made by the minister are forcing more farmers to consider leaving their properties.
”It’s in our interest to see the land-reform programme finalised because a farmer can do very little with his land when it’s under claim. Why would we try and stall the process? It’s unfair for government to blame farmers for lack of progress,” he said.
He pointed out that some farmers who had agreed to sell their farms four to five years ago were still waiting for their money.
The National African Farmers’ Union did not want to comment on the issue immediately. — Sapa