South Africa’s slow land-reform programme is forcing commercial farmers out of the agricultural sector, leading to food production that fails to meet the population’s demands, according to the Transvaal Agricultural Union (TAU).
In a memorandum sent to Minister of Agriculture and Land Affairs Lulu Xingwana — and distributed to the press — the TAU said that the agricultural industry in most African states has slumped because governments are conducting their agricultural policy on ”a political-ideological basis rather than [on] sound economic principles”.
”Land-reform programmes and agricultural production do not mix. The evidence is spread over more than fifty years of independence,” union president Paul van der Walt said.
The union said that ongoing food shortages and increase of man-made droughts, malnutrition and underfeeding have made the Africa population dependent on foreign food-aid programmes.
”Irrespective of the agricultural potential of Southern Africa, not much is left. More and more countries around South Africa are becoming dependent [on] the provision of food from South African agriculture.”
According to TAU, AgriBEE still remains the political and policy element ”that will have the most serious impact on the agricultural sector. The enforced transformation of the sector to relieve poverty in rural areas, prevention of urbanisation and acceleration of economical growth can only happen if expertise and financial capacity exists. The low growth rate within the agricultural sector cannot support the additional financial and management requirements of AgriBEE.”
Against this background, the role of the African National Congress government in the restructuring of agriculture cannot be advantageous to food security and food safety, the union maintains.
TAU’s demands include the protection and development of the right to land by the transfer of communal land to individual landowners and new entrants and the protection of free-market principles by restricting state interference in processes and practices within the agricultural sector. — I-Net Bridge