Feet on the Earth or Head in the Clouds? The State Plans Our Agricultural Future: Part I - What is Agricultural Land?
The first brief, in this series, sets out the definitions of agricultural land and outlines the regulatory framework contained in the Preservation and Development of Agricultural Land Framework Bill.
The story goes back to the Subdivision of Agricultural Land Act 70 of 1970, as amended. In that Act, agricultural land was defined as a residual category. Excluded was:
- land situated in the area of jurisdiction of a municipal council, city council, town council, village council, village management board, village management council, local board, health board or health committee;
- land of which the State is the owner or which is held in trust by the State or any Minister for any person;
- land which the Minister after consultation with the executive committee [of a province]; concerned and by notice in the Government Gazette excludes from the provisions of the Act;
- a number of other categories of land, often specific to individual provinces.
What happened when wall to wall local authorities were introduced? That threatened to create a situation in which no land was agricultural land, so a proviso was added by proclamation which said that any land classified as agricultural immediately prior to the first election of the members of a transitional local council would remain classified as such. The issue of what would happen once the new local authority system was finalized was tested in the courts, with the Constitutional Court ruling that the proviso would continue to apply.
Much, though not all, of the land in the former homelands was, and continues to be, state trust land.
The draft Preservation and Development of Agricultural Land Framework Bill proposes to update the definition. Agricultural land is again defined as a residual category. This time the exclusions are: