White farmers must now pull out all the stops and come to the land reform party.
This was the message from organised agriculture on Saturday after a push for a constitutional amendment that could have resulted in land being expropriated without compensation was narrowly defeated at the ANC’s policy conference in Midrand this week.
After heated debates in the ANC’s land reform policy commission, chaired by Agriculture Minister Tina Joemat-Pettersson, it was agreed that land reform should continue within the confines of the constitution, which requires landowners to be compensated.
But it was a close run thing.
According to sources who attended the meetings, there was a determined campaign, led mainly by the ANC Youth League but including delegates from Limpopo, North West and Eastern Cape, to do away with the constitutional provision on compensation. Joemat-Pettersson and others had argued that this could lead to a collapse of the economy, and would have devastating consequences for food security.
Agri SA president Johannes Möller conceded on Saturday that commercial farmers had “got off quite lightly” at the gathering, “given the sentiments that were expressed in the months leading up to the conference”. But he hastened to add that the policies proposed this week were not set in stone, as they would have to be ratified at the ANC’s national conference in Mangaung in December.
And seemingly aware of the narrow bridgehead held against unfettered expropriation, Möller said commercial farmers would now have to do “a lot of work” so that those in the ANC who “defended the constitution” would be able to go to Mangaung with “tangible proof of the bona fides of white commercial farmers”.
Joemat-Pettersson told Independent Newspapers on Saturday that the ANC would not “collapse” the economy with an “irresponsible” approach to the vexing and emotive issue of land reform.
In closing on Friday, President Jacob Zuma said the “willing buyer-willing” seller policy would be replaced by the “just and equitable” principle in section 25 of the constitution.
Political Bureau