AfriForum would like to respond to a recent New York Times article (“In South Africa’s Fabled Wine Country, White and Black Battle Over Land”, 9 March 2019) in which the civil rights organisation is mentioned. The organisation would also like to point out some of the glaring falsehoods that the article injects into an already volatile land debate.
“The New York Times article, as well as another New York Times article that it links to, contain falsehoods and rely greatly on a false narrative that is attributed to AfriForum. AfriForum is the largest civil rights group in Africa, with more than 218 000 members who contribute monthly to its efforts. Despite various campaigns by AfriForum to also protect the rights of black communities and individuals in South Africa and despite the organisation’s repeated condemnation of white racism and racist groups, the New York Times persists in describing AfriForum as a ‘far-right’ group,” says Ernst Roets, Deputy CEO of AfriForum.
Obtaining a clear picture of land ownership in South Africa is not straightforward. The New York Times article cites a statistic that “nearly 70% of farms held by individual owners in South Africa are controlled by whites”. Roets says that this statistic is misleading and creates a false perception. Although a land audit conducted in 2014 by South Africa’s Department of Rural Development and Land Reform shows that 79% of the country’s land may still be in private hands, it does not reveal the races of the owners of this land.
According to a 2017 land audit by AgriSA, black South Africans own more than or almost half of all agricultural land in three of South Africa’s most fertile provinces: the Eastern Cape, Limpopo and KwaZulu-Natal. Furthermore, landowners who are not white control more than 46% of South Africa’s agricultural potential. In KwaZulu-Natal alone, 45,4% of agricultural land (surface area) is owned by black people. This represents 73,5% of the agricultural potential of the province.
The full AgriSA report can be viewed here:
A special report by the Centre for Development and Enterprise states that since 1994 a total of 17,44 million hectares have been transferred from white ownership, which is equal to 21% of the 82,76 million hectares of farmland in freehold in South Africa. It is quite disheartening that the motion to review Section 25 of the Constitution disregarded the facts about the real progress that has already been made with land redistribution and restitution, and ignored some of the financial realities of farming.