NATIONAL ASSEMBLY
WRITTEN REPLY
QUESTION 977

DATE OF PUBLICATION: FRIDAY 18 MARCH 2011 [IQP No 8-2011] SECOND SESSION, FOURTH PARLIAMENT

Question 977 for written reply: National Assembly, Mr J H van der Merwe (IFP) to ask the Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries:

(a) What percentage of land (i) in total and (ii) in each province is agriculturally regarded as (aa) high production land, (bb) marginal land and (cc) low production land, including arid land, and

(b) what percentage of the specified categories of land is in the possession of (i)(aa) white persons and (bb) juristic persons under the control of white persons, (ii)(aa) black persons and (bb) juristic persons under the control of black persons, (iii)(aa) brown persons and (bb) juristic persons under the control of brown persons, (iv)(aa) persons of Indian origin and (bb) juristic persons under control of persons of Indian origin, (v) non-South African citizens and (vi) juristic persons under the control of diverse racial groups?

REPLY:

(a) The percentage of land regarded as agricultural land, as defined under Act 70 of 1970 is:

(i) As a total for South Africa - 77.4%

(ii) Percentages per province:

i. Eastern Cape: 68.8%
ii. Free State: 94.6%
iii. Gauteng: 53.6%
iv. KwaZulu-Natal: 54.7%
v. Mpumalanga: 65.4%
vi. Northwest: 67.1%
vii. Northern Cape: 88.8%
viii. Limpopo: 58.4%
ix. Western Cape: 92.7%

The definition of agricultural land as used in Act 70 of 1970 is restricted to land in private ownership. The former self governing territories and homeland are thus excluded in the aforementioned percentages. The Department is currently in the process of compiling a policy aimed at the protection of agricultural land that will include all agricultural land in South Africa.

(aa -cc) The percentage of land per potential class is indicated in the table below using land capability as the determining factor. The land capability assessment methodology interprets soil, terrain and agro-climatic data to provide an indication of the dry-land agricultural potential for a specific area.

The assessment was based on the Land Type data and is therefore only suitable for national level assessments. Land capability order A (Classes I and II) is suitable for intensive crop production, order B have a moderate (Class III) to marginal (Class IV) potential for crop production, order C (Classes V-VII) is suitable for grazing and forestry while order D normally includes very steep areas that is not suitable for agricultural purposes.

The current refinement of the land capability database to render the scale of data suitable for application at local municipal level is of the utmost importance to assist municipalities in the daunting task of proper land use planning and to ensure that land that is worthwhile to be protected for agricultural purposes are protected.

The area of crop land already converted through major urban and mining developments almost equals the size of the Kruger National Park as indicated in the table below. This assessment is based on the recently completed Land Cover change project (based on the 2005 Land Cover data) that formed part of the Land Assessment in Dry-land Areas (LADA) programme and the National Land Capability geo-referenced database.

The methodology applied in the land cover change project used 500m x 500m cells that equal an area of 25ha per cell and the dominant land use (>50%) per cell. This implies that all irrevocable transformed areas smaller than 13 ha were excluded in the results. Permanently transformed area smaller the 13 ha includes features such as roads, rural dwellings, open cast mining, small residential and industrial developments which will increase the irrevocable transformed area significantly. Further studies to quantify the extent of these areas are needed.

(b) No information for the second part of the question

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

Table below show the statistics on land delivery per province from 1994 to January 2011 for Restitution and Redistribution and Tenure Programmes: Total hectares transferred since 1994: 6 063 687ha. Details are below.

Table 1: Land Delivery: 1994 to January 2011 for Redistribution and Tenure Reform

Source: DRDLR, Redistribution and Tenure Reform Programme

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Table 2: Land Delivery: 1994 to January 2011 for Restitution Programme

Issued by Parliament, June 7 2011

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