Sugar farmers seek assurances over land

Image: GCIS

Fifteen years since the land claims process was closed in 1998, the industry has bemoaned the lack of progress in the settling of outstanding gazetted claims. On the other hand, the state is steaming ahead with plans to reopen the land claims process in June or July, fuelling fears that the system is likely to create further bottlenecks and stall the settlement programmes even further.

This has forced the sugar sector to approach the Land Claims Commission and help it by developing structures and annual plans with time frames to manage the settlement process and accelerate the transfer of land to communities.

Anwhar Madhanpall, general manager for land reform and rural development at Sasa, says the industry has assembled data on gazetted claims in KwaZulu-Natal, which revealed that the disposal of 130,400ha of commercial, productive cane area, representing 39% of such land in the province, is yet to be resolved by the state or the Commission on Restitution of Land Rights.

Of the gazetted and unresolved land, owners of 29,000ha are willing sellers awaiting final payments. Owners of an additional 24,000ha are in final negotiations with the state. Only 13% of the outstanding gazetted land is actually in dispute and under validation processes.

Restitution problems

Mtobeli Mxotwa, spokesman for Rural Development and Land Reform Minister Gugile Nkwinti, says the department is aware of the restitution problems and the challenges they have brought to many agricultural sectors.

"We have learned from the shortcomings of the restitution process and the department has revised the systems to ensure that the new legislation comes with practical manuals to address these problems," Mxotwa says.

He says since agricultural production is the key to food supply, the department is co-operating with all sectors to understand their immediate and long-term goals.

"Sasa is our partner in land reform and we are working closely to get their concerns dealt with as soon as possible to unlock agricultural growth and development," he says.

Madhanpall says that the lack of clear processes and time-frames to address these outstanding claims have reduced production levels, directly affecting the sugar cane supply.

"This also has an impact on job opportunities and on community stability in the affected rural areas," he says.

"As a result, the industry has developed a comprehensive status report on all outstanding gazetted claims and presented a proposal to the department to help manage the settlement process and to kick-start mentoring and training for new land owners", he says.

Outstanding claims

Sasa executive director Trix Trikam says the outstanding claims have had several unintended consequences, such as discouraging landowners from making major investments on their farms, resulting in declining yields.

"The process has effectively strangled the market, leaving very limited land for private transactions," he says.

Also, the claimant communities have become increasingly impatient with landowners, creating perceptions that landowners are delaying the settlement of claims, he says.

Madhanpall says cane farmers and the milling sugar estates had developed and implemented their own redistribution models before the inception of the land reform programme. Millers redistributed 18,789ha to 170 black farmers, using a loan financing model with Ithala Bank.

This initiative reduced millers' ownership of land from 22% of total sugar plantations in the late 1990s to 10% in 2000, which will decrease even further as restitution claims are settled.

Freehold land under sugar cane under black ownership has increased from 5% in 1994 to 21%. This translates to more than 70,626ha under cane farmed by land reform beneficiaries.

Black growers produced more than 3.5m tons of sugar cane in the 2011/12 season - the only commodity sector to achieve production levels on this scale.

"We are confident that as the pace of the settlement of gazetted restitution claims in the sugar industry gains momentum, we will achieve the target of 30% by 2014," Madhanpall says.

"We believe that once claims are settled in the sugar growing regions, over 50% of land ownership will rest in the hands of black cane growers," he added.

Source: Business Day via I-Net Bridge