South Africa must move beyond unproductive dialogue, says Wandile Sihlobo.
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A year after calling for the release of 2.5 million hectares of state-held land, Wandile Sihlobo says South Africa must move beyond unproductive dialogue and urgently establish a dedicated agency to empower a new cohort of commercial black farmers.
Exactly a year ago, I published an essay calling for an end to inertia in the implementation of the land reform process in South Africa. At the time, I urged the government to release the 2.5 million hectares of land acquired over the years through its Proactive Land Acquisition Strategy.
Much of this land was previously utilised for various farming activities. Currently, some of the land is underutilised, and some is under short-term leases to farmers who struggle to access the capital needed to unlock its potential. A year on, there has been little progress on this process.
The lack of progress on this counter to the country’s ambition to boost agricultural growth and job creation in rural South Africa. When I make an assessment of long-term growth prospects for agriculture, I assume this land will be fully utilised to boost agricultural output and create jobs.
President Cyril Ramaphosa and the former Minister of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development, Ms Thoko Didiza, have in the past pushed for the establishment of the Land Reform and Agricultural Development Agency, which would be at the centre of driving the release of the land to appropriately selected beneficiaries with title deeds, address finance challenges, and lean on organised agriculture and private sector skills.
The process to set up the agency has taken a long time, and now momentum has waned with no clear direction for the path ahead. This Agency idea must be revived, as it aligns with the Presidency’s priorities on land reform and promises to be inclusive, with involvement from the private sector and organised agriculture.
In his Opening of Parliament Address in July 2024, President Ramaphosa stressed the importance of this process when he stated: “We will increase funding to land reform, prioritise the transfer of state land and improve post-settlement support by strengthening the institutional capacity of responsible structures.”
Thus, I believe that the Department of Land Reform and Rural Development (DLRRD) should accelerate the establishment of the Land Reform and Rural Development Agency and ensure it begins its work this year.
There is always the temptation to have elaborate consultations and dialogues about land matters. In fact, over the past three decades, South Africa has spent more time on such dialogues than on policy implementation.
This year, the DLRRD should avoid the allure of these elaborate and unproductive meetings and consultations, but instead move ahead with the current programmes established in the previous administration, tweak and improve as they implement.
Failure to implement only prolongs the suffering for farmers on the ground. Importantly, it also makes it hard to believe the government is committed to the transformation agenda if land hoarding continues while black farmers are on the side.
If the government cannot move ahead with releasing more land and supporting farmers, it risks the long-term growth prospects of South Africa’s agriculture and rural economy. The success of other government programmes, such as the Agriculture and Agro-processing Master Plan, hinges on the progress of the land release.
When the work begins, the approach should not follow the practice of the past few years, which has allocated a land parcel to numerous beneficiaries. The policy focus should be a deliberate attempt to support and nurture a new cohort of individual commercial farmers, not groups. This entails selecting a few and a better new cohort of commercial farmers to support.
Indeed, focusing on creating and nurturing a new cohort of farmers does not mean the South African government must ignore the smallholder farmers. They should continue to receive the necessary support, as they play a vital role in household food security.
The deliberate support of commercial farming will also ensure that there are anchors of farmers in each region, which can also serve as aggregators for surrounding smallholder farmers who wish to access commercial value chains.
2026 should be a period of implementation and progress in land reform and agriculture.
Sihlobo is the chief economist of the Agricultural Business Chamber of South Africa. He is also a senior research fellow in the Department of Agricultural Economics at Stellenbosch University.
Wandile Sihlobo is the chief economist of the Agricultural Business Chamber of South Africa. He writes the AgriView newsletter.
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