Understanding the need for land reform in South Africa requires an understanding of the country’s history, says Dr Siphe Zantsi, agricultural economist at the Agricultural Research Council (ARC). 

According to Zantsi, there are two important pieces of legislation that inform the basis for understanding why land reform is necessary. 

The first is the 1913 Natives Land Act, which was later updated in 1936.

“They stipulated that 87% of the country would be occupied by whites and natives would occupy the remaining 13%,” says Zantsi, in reference to the 1936 legislation. 

But there was no form of title deed that gave black people ownership over the land where they were allowed to live, says Zantsi.

“The land [belonged] to the government, but traditional leaders would be custodians of that land,” he says. 

According to Zantsi, black people were given what was called “Permission to Occupy” instead of title deeds. This law ensured that they could not secure tenure or simply did not have the right to own property. 

The second important piece of legislation, according to Zantsi, was the Bantu Homelands Citizenship Act of 1970, which effectively made black people citizens of their respective homelands. 

“If you look at the structure of the country, Xhosas are in one place, Vendas are in one place, Basotho are in one place. That wasn’t naturally created in South Africa, it was forcefully created,” he says. 

The mammoth task left for the post-apartheid government was the improvement of agriculture in the former homelands, says Zantsi. 

“There were commissions that were delegated by the government,” he says. “One of them was the Tomlinson [Report] – it found that in the former homelands the land is too small to make a living… no one can derive a livelihood from the land.”

Zantsi explains that there are effectively three pillars of land reform policy in South Africa, as laid out in the 1997 White Paper on South African Land Policy. These are: land restitution, which aims to restore land that was forcefully taken; tenure reform, which seeks to provide security to farm workers and dwellers; and lastly land redistribution, which aims to correct the skewed ownership of land along racial lines. 

“The fact is that whites still own most of the agricultural land,” says Zantsi.

While farmland ownership is still skewed along racial lines, there are numerous laws and government programmes in place to ensure equitable redistribution of land, says Zantsi. 

Zantsi acknowledges that while extensive land reform legislation exists, the issues that continue to arise are linked to the poor implementation thereof and a lack of capacity within the government. 

“In terms of capacity, I’m not talking about the numbers only, but the expertise,” says Zantsi. “And then, also, if you look at the structure of implementing land reform, you will find that there is no coordination between government departments.”

Furthermore, a piece of legislation does not achieve anything on its own, says professor Johann Kirsten, director of the Bureau for Economic Research at SU. 

“Legislation only creates a framework and a legal frame for the plan of action and also then allows budget to be allocated to the specific law and its implementation,” he says. 

There are a wide range of factors that contribute to the inefficiency of South Africa’s land reform process, including incompetency and corruption, according to Kirsten. 

“One can say that because of the systemic problems of the land reform process, we have set up black farmers to fail,” says Kirsten.

Farming is also a tough business, says Willem de Chavonnes Vrugt, a livestock farmer from the North West and vice president of AgriSA, an organisation that represents farmers’ interests in South Africa.

“The reality is that not all businesses make it in the long run,” says De Chavonnes Vrugt. “It’s just the nature of the free market and that the free market discriminates against how productive you are.” 

Furthermore, much more than a piece of land is needed.

“Land is one part of the puzzle,” says Kirsten. “If you don’t have expertise, capital, labour, inputs, the land is not going to produce anything.”

While Zantsi acknowledges that land reform is not where it should be, he is optimistic. 

“I think we are still far behind, but I’m optimistic that we have the right policies in place […] it’s not going to be a simple thing, you know, because farming is not really an easy profession,” he says. 

Sufficient legislation seeking to address land reform issues already exists, with at least 16 laws related to farmland restitution and redistribution. 

This is according to an article by Kirsten and Wandile Sihlobo, chief economist at the Agricultural Business Chamber of South Africa.

In 1994, SA’s total farmland with title deeds, thus owned solely by white farmers, amounted to 77.5 million hectares, according to Sihlobo and Kirsten. 

They argue that since 1994, the government has addressed a quarter of the total farmland in the country which it set out to redistribute. Their research suggests that 19.5 million hectares of land has been restored through the various government programmes.

Furthermore, 2.5 million hectares of land acquired since 2006 are currently owned by the state in the State Land Holding Account, which the government has been slow to redistribute, says Kirsten. 

“The landholding account was formed back in the 60s and the 70s when they acquired land from white farmers to enlarge the former homeland areas,” says Kirsten. “Then the state formed a Land Holding Account, whereby the land was then given to communities, but it’s state land.”

In 2006, the Proactive Land Acquisition Strategy (PLAS) was implemented, whereby the government acquired land on the open market and put it into the same Land Holding Account, according to Kirsten. 

“But these new farms, the 2.5 million hectares that were acquired since 2006, are all well-listed and they are all defined as Proactive Land Acquisition [Strategy] farms […] they are rented out or leased out to farmers,” says Kirsten. 

However, leases to farms in this account are not guaranteed, are not long term and there is no possibility of farmers acquiring a title deed to the land, according to Kirsten.

De Chavonnes Vrugt echoes his frustrations with the Land Holdings Account. 

“What saddens me is that then you’ll find that there might be properties close by that [are] sitting in this Land Holdings Account that can bring a solution for everybody involved,” he says. 

Back in the Overberg, the community took ownership of the land reform process themselves. Vywer believes his grandfather would be pleased to know he is working on the farm today. 

“I think he would be proud of me today… About everything I’ve achieved so far,” he says.