SAfrica wants to speed land distribution to black farmers

AP ^ | February 14, 2008

[Tailgunner Joe]

South Africa may force more white farmers to sell in order to speed up the transfer of land into nonwhite hands, the agriculture minister said Thursday.

Lulu Xingwana also said the government was considering new regulations for foreign land ownership.

She said that black South Africans, who make up nearly 80 percent of the population, currently own just 4.7 percent of the land — even though land reform has been a key part of government policy since 1994 to right the wrongs of apartheid.

Xingwana and other officials have repeatedly ruled out Zimbabwe-style land grabs, but the public's patience is growing thin.

The government has set a target of 30 percent of the country's land in black hands by 2014 to ease the crushing rural poverty that causes a constant exodus into the cities.

"We are saying that if we acquire 5 million hectares (12 million acres) by next year, we will be on target," Xingwana told journalists.

She said the government was considering a package of measures, including a land tax and absolute limits on the size of farms to speed up change. Legislation is due to be introduced this year which would give the government more powers of compulsory purchase if this was in the public interest.

At the moment, the government has the power to force owners to sell at government-determined prices so that land can be returned to nonwhites forced out during apartheid.

Under land reform legislation, some 79,000 families and communities evicted from their ancestral lands have lodged claims since 1994, the year apartheid ended with the first multiracial elections. Of the 79,000 claims, 6,000 of the most contentious remain to be settled and the government has accused farm owners of dragging their feet in the hope market values will rise.

[GeronL]

Zimbabwe was a fine example to follow

[Southack]

...because it’s worked so *well* for Zimbabwe...

rolls eyes

[Chode]

africawinsagain...

[SandRat]

and famine, starvation, hyper inflation, and economic ruin will soon start.

[freeangel]

Oh, go ahead, let all the africans starve. I’m sick of this stuff.

[Cecily]

Speaking of which, can’t South Africa come up with a better reparations plan than this? People never learn.

[Cicero]

South Africa has kept going much longer than I expected. Looks as if the Communist-fed greed and envy are finally going to do them in.

A lot of mines are working part time now, because of rolling power shortages, caused by government mismanagement of the power company (much like California). If they go ahead with this land redistribution, it will finish them off in a few years, I expect.

[Southack]

The madness is that there is a large amount of unused, arable land in South Africa...so taking over productive farms after the massive failure of such in neighboring Zimbabwe just goes to show how ignorance and greed will gleefully beat down logic and law.

[SWAMPSNIPER]

How do you spell starvation in Swahili?

[QBFimi]

One man, one vote, one time.

[gathersnomoss]

All has been going so will since the Brits have left them to their own resources.

[aruanan]

SAfrica wants to speed land distribution to black farmers

In other words, South Africa wants to ignore all economic history and destroy its agricultural base in favor of political ideology and cut itself off at the knees as every other totalist regime has done in the history of the world. Blacks migrated into the region now known as South Africa about the same time that it was being settled by European whites. The blacks were herders living in a tribal society. The whites were farmers and, later, industrialists coming from an advanced society with a well-developed division of labor. Economic growth was favored by efficient farming and industry. Herding cattle in the context of tribal society was already near maximum sustained levels. It was the growth of the mechanized agricultural/industrial society that made it possible for black tribal society to increase in numbers. The mechanized agricultural/industrial society effectively increased the carrying capacity of the region. Now the ideologists are getting ready to kneecap the whole complex. Of course, when it all crashes and burns, it will be blamed on the high tech society imported from Europe.

[crghill]

NOW HEAR THIS....South Africa to be renamed South Zimbabwe. Poverty ruin and despots coming to a village near you. Dang I hate this as I really love SA and have many friends there.

[dennisw]

South Africa pulls in lots of money from the gold and diamonds it produces and sells on the world markets. This allows them more leeway to ruin its farming base than does Zimbabwe

[dynachrome]

“We wanna be just like Zimbabwe” ping.

[rbg81]

Public patience is wearing thin, eh? How thin will it be when they have no food? This is almost right out of “Atlas Shrugged”.

[CGTRWK]

Switch ‘black’ and ‘white’ in this story and there would be a UN army on the ground and show trials going on at The Hague.

[debboo]

Agree! Hey why hasn’t the illustrious Oprah moved to Africa and become president yet? That would work out real well for everyone, especially us.

[popdonnelly]

A better historical example to follow would be Levittown.