Maravi

(ANC) Land reform

Land reform
Together we can climb the hills that still lie ahead
by Dina Pule
Mar20-26 2009

Among the achievements of the last 15 years, one of the starkest challenges that remain is the condition of people living in rural areas.

Great strides have been made in other areas. We have managed to usher in a new age of democracy and peace. We have reduced poverty, grown the economy, created jobs, facilitated the development of a thriving private sector, and built sustainable settlements and houses for the poor. While these achievements are to be celebrated, much more still needs to be done.

Over the next five years the ANC will focus on creating decent work, education, health care, dealing with crime decisively and rural development. While all these are important, the last of these - rural development -requires particular attention

South Africa is still emerging from a divided past. Such a divide had been entrenched through systematic deprivation of the majority of the benefits derived from the country's abundant natural resources. A central piece of this was the dispossession of land, which would later take the form of bantustan system. The African majority was sandwiched in a mere 13% of the total land cover, while the white settlers took the remaining rich 87%.

The black majority never enjoyed security of tenure and their areas were often neglected and underdeveloped. African areas and rural African settlements have the highest backlog of both social and economic infrastructure. As a result there is a high incidence of poverty, major health problems, high unemployment and widespread malnutrition. These problems have been highlighted in the recent cholera outbreaks and other water quality related problems like typhoid and diarrhoea. These areas have not been spared other health challenges such as high prevalence of HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis.

Top of the rural development agenda is the issue of access to land for agriculture, food security and economic development. History has it that agriculture has always been a springboard for development in all countries. Reform of land use, access and ownership is at the core of achieving a united, non-racial, non-sexist and prosperous South Africa. The slow pace of land redistribution creates the threat of all sorts of instability.

The experiences of the past 15 years teach us that access to land alone, without adequate support, leads to the collapse of productivity of once highly productive land. In the past ten years we have witnessed how tracts of land have been taken over for non food production purposes, such as golf estates, game lodges and to expand settlements, compromising the food security situation of the country.

On the other hand, greed has led to the destruction of farmer support collectives organised in the form of cooperatives. The advent of high-tech mechanisation has led to a reduction in employment in agriculture. It has also led to environmental degradation owing to deep tillage that puts a strain on our water resources and energy. Agrarian transformation talks to these issues.

We therefore need to move immediately to speed up land and agrarian reform to allow for access to land for both economic and food production.

We should pursue mass food production programmes that are driven by government through the provision of tractors, implements and seeds. No land should be left fallow. Government should also provide technical support through advice by well-equipped extension workers and by broadening access to markets.

It should also provide access to finance through grants and microfinance through structures like the Micro-Agricultural Finance Initiative of South Africa (MAFISA) and provincial agricultural development agencies. Government should support the establishment of community or cooperative banks.

We need to fast track the upgrade of tenure through proclamation of most rural settlements into sustainable settlements with necessary roads, water, sanitation, electricity and communication infrastructure.

Social infrastructure like health and education facilities has to be in place. Efforts should be made to resuscitate agricultural cooperatives to provide peer support and reduce cost of inputs through collective bulk buying.

The ANC understands that societal challenges are more diverse and complex in their nature. Former President Nelson Mandela said that, "after climbing a great hill, one finds that there are many more hills to climb". More hills lie ahead, but working together we can do more.

Labels: ANC, LAND REFORM, SOUTH AFRICA

posted by MrK @ 9:13 PM