Feet on the Earth or Head in the Clouds? The State Plans Our Agricultural Future: Part V - The Two Departments - Overlapping Jurisdictions and the Coherence of Legislative Proposals
The final Brief in the series focuses on the interactions between the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries and the Department of Rural Development and Land Reform.
The previous four briefs have dealt with the Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (DAFF) and its Draft Preservation of Agricultural Land Framework Bill. But there is a second player in the field: the Department of Rural Development and Land Reform (DRDLR). Their purposes and programmes overlap. The purposes and programmes specified in Budget 2015: Estimates of National Expenditure are as follows:
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Agriculture, Forestry and FIsheries |
Rural Development and Land Reform --> |
Purpose |
Lead, support and promote agriculutral, foresty and fisheries resources managment through policies, strategies and programmes to enhance sustainable use, and achieve economic growth, job creation, food security, rural development and transformation. |
Create and maintain an equitable and sustainable land dispenation to ensure and act as a catalyst in rural development to ensure sustainable rural livelihoods, decent work and continued social and economic advancement for all South Africans. |
Programmes --> |
1.Administration |
1. Administration |
The Department of Rural Development and Land Reform intends to introduce five bills in parliament by the end of the year. None has been published yet, but their names and purposes are set out in the Department’s Strategic Plan for 2015 to 2020. They are:
- The Communal Land Bill, designed to transfer communal land to communities and to members of communities and to provide for the administration of communal land.
- The Regulation of Land Holdings Bill, which will require disclosure by land owners of their nationality, race and gender, the circumstances under which foreigners may own or have access to land, the establishment of a register of land ownership and the resolution over conflicts when two or more deeds have been issued in respect of the same land.
- The Communal Property Associations Amendment Bill, designed to redefine the communities to whom the provision of the Act apply.
- The Extension of Security Tenure Amendment Bill, which aims to find lasting solutions to tenure insecurity on commercial farms by combining land redistribution measures within effective legal protection and dispute mechanisms.
- The Electronic Deeds Registration Bill, which will provide for an electronic deeds registration system.
Also relevant is the Spatial Planning and Land Use Management Act, passed last year.
While detailed comment must await publication of the Bills, some questions are already apparent.