Parliament, Cape Town - The government will introduce strict limits for the amount of land that small, medium and large-scale farmers are allowed to own, and expropriate the rest, Rural Development and Land Reform Minister Gugile Nkwinti announced on Friday.
Speaking during his budget vote address in the National Assembly, Nkwinti told MPs that farmers in the three categories will respectively be allowed to own 1 000 hectares, 2 500 hectares and 5 000 hectares of land. The state plans to expropriate the remainder.
“Any excess land portions between each of these categories – small scale and medium scale; medium scale and large scale; and, above the 12 000-hectare maximum, shall be expropriated and redistributed; and compensation will be on the basis of the ‘just and equitable’ principle enshrined in section 25(3) of our Constitution,” the minister said.
Nkwinti said the limit of 12 000 hectares mooted by President Jacob Zuma in his State of the Nation Address (SONA) will apply not to agricultural land, but to the forestry sector, game farms and renewable energy farms.
“We have come up with a special category to address the 12 000-hectare maximum announced by the president during his SONA. We are proposing that this maximum applies only to three categories of land use: forestry, game farms and renewable energy farms, especially wind energy.”
Nkwinti said objections to the government’s ban on foreign ownership of farm land, confirmed by Zuma in his February address, were ill-founded.
“The basis of their rejection is that it will drive away foreign investment, not only in the agricultural sector, but in the economy as a whole. We certainly do not agree with this view. Our conviction is that any investor, whether foreign or national, wants policy certainty. Once they understand what the policy is, they adapt accordingly.”
ANA