Farmers, government must work together: Mantashe

Addressing the Agri SA Congress in Muldersdrift‚ west of Johannesburg‚ he said that if farmers' organisations found minister's and MEC's doors closed they should "kick them down" so they could talk about transformation.

He said the ANC would side with them in this regard and ensure they get proper responses.

He said he was aware that Agri SA was providing valuable input on the Land Reform Green Paper discussions.

He said land reform was being thoroughly re-examined because the willing-seller willing-buyer strategy was slowing down the land reform process.

Mantashe said this was exacerbated by the fact that land reform through the willing-buyer willing-seller process had become a source of corruption between some government officials and private or independent land evaluators who were increasing the land value and forcing government to pay more than double the price asked by farmers.

"That is why the green paper has called for the establishment of new bodies such as the Land Valuer General to ensure that prices are not inflated and fair compensation is paid to individual land owners."

The paper also proposes the establishment of the Land Management Commission (LMC) with autonomous powers‚ but not independent of the ministry and department, to regulate land use in a manner that safeguards food security and safety.

Mantashe bemoaned the delays in the completion of the land audit saying there has been too much speculation over who owns land and whether or not the government was ignoring land owned by black entrepreneurs who had bought it without state assistance.

He said for too long every organisation has quoted figures that were disputed by others and the land audit would settle these discrepancies.

Mantashe urged experienced commercial farmers to continue voluntarily giving support, training and mentorship to emerging black farmers. He said the Land Act of 1913 not only dispossessed people of land but led to the loss of farming skills among many black farmers.

Mantashe said farmers should strategically engage the ANC at all times‚ especially during periods of policy debates and conferences‚ to make sure that they could express their perspective on various issues.

"We now know there is no one-size-fits-all solution for farms that could be distributed because certain crops and livestock do better on different types and sizes of land.

"So if you do not engage us‚ wrong decisions could be taken and many farmers would negatively be affected and food security threatened‚" he said.

Louw Steytler‚ Agri SA commercial policy committee chairman‚ said he was encouraged by the ANC's willingness to open doors to the farmers as many farming organisations felt these doors had been closed.