Agri SA comments on draft Land Tenure Security Bill

In its commentary on the draft Land Tenure Security Bill, Agri SA says although the bill has praiseworthy objectives, the measures proposed therein will have the opposite effect and will be extremely disruptive for commercial agricultural production. It also places unacceptable pressure on land owners who are expected to use their own resources to provide services that are normally functions of the government.

On 17 March 2011 this organisation submitted its comments on the draft legislation to the Department of Rural Development and Land Reform. Copies were also sent to the Minister of Rural Development and Land Reform, Mr Gugile Nkwinti, and his cabinet colleagues responsible for Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, Trade and Industry, and Economic Development.  The commentary covers 47 pages and is available on Agri SA's website (www.agrisa.co.za). 

According to the current wording of the draft legislation, any person who lives legally or illegally on a farm will be able to exercise all kinds of rights on the land, in competition with the owner. Moreover, in terms of the draft legislation such occupiers may demand various goods and services on the farm.

According to Agri SA, this will be the outcome of the unlimited and comprehensive rights proposed for farm dwellers and their dependants in the draft legislation, including economic rights (e.g. stock farming and cropping), rights to services (water, electricity and general development), social rights (burials, farming skills and training) and infrastructure (houses and roads).

Agri SA states clearly that the organisation supports the broad objectives of production discipline, greater access to land for the previously disadvantaged and the promotion of harmonious relations on farms. However, it is of the opinion that the bill will not achieve these objectives but could instead give rise to increased conflict on farms, with many negative implications for food production and exports.

In its commentary, Agri SA explains why the organisation believes the unlimited and comprehensive rights proposed for farm dwellers in relation to those of farmers would be extremely problematic. According to Agri SA, it has the potential for irreconcilable and conflicting farming practices on virtually all farms.

Subsistence and small-scale farming operations are mostly not subject to the production and market requirements of the formal national and export market, and such farmers follow practices that meet their own local needs. When these practices - due to a lack of production discipline - infringe upon the production systems of the larger commercial units from where they derive their unlimited rights, it could affect the high standards which, for example, apply to export contracts, and could give rise to an increase in the spread of animal and plant diseases and a decline in commercial agricultural production.

Agri SA argues that various aspects of the draft legislation are probably unconstitutional. The organisation has serious objections to the proposed eviction procedure and indicated, by way of a hypothetical case, that an (legal) eviction would take at least 30 months to be finalised. During that time the land owner must continue to provide housing and services to the relevant farm dweller, while he/she may continue to exercise all kinds of rights on the farm, including the right to operate his/her own farming operation.

Agri SA concluded that it would have been better to simply effect a few changes to the existing legislation (Extension of Security of Tenure Act and the Labour Tenants Act) and that there was no real justification for the drastic changes to existing rights of land owners, which in any case appear to be unconstitutional.

Statement issued by Hans van der Merwe, Agri SA Executive Director, March 23 2011

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