Ido Lekota is a former Sowetan political editor. 

Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development Minister Thoko Didiza tabled a R17, 3 billion budget in the past week to help support food security in the country.

Didiza said the money will be distributed through a range of programmes, including the commercialisation of black farmers through land development support.

"If you look at the R17.3bn of our budget, the majority of that is transferred to provinces dealing with food security," she said.

Maize is a key global cash crop, produced in every continent except Antarctica. As a flex crop, it has multiple uses including for direct human consumption, as an ingredient for animal feed, as a key component in processed foods, or in ethanol production. According to figures from FAOSTAT, global production increased from 0.2 to 1.2 billion tons between 1961 and 2020.

Nick Vink and Johann Kirsten

Most countries in both the rich and the developing world have some sort of programme to help early career farmers (mostly, but not exclusively young people) to get established in a farming or agribusiness enterprise. South Africa sticks out like a sore thumb, even against many African countries, in not having such a programme.

In our view, subsidies for black farmers in South Africa are justified. This is because they would help deliver a more inclusive agricultural sector and correct past racial biases.

Daily Maverick Our Burning Planet: Op Ed by Malik Dasoo

Regenerative agriculture, which involves special techniques to cultivate nurture-rich soils that also trap greenhouse gases, can initially be time and labour intensive. But farmers who stick with it are witnessing enormous returns.

Colonial and apartheid land dispossession in South Africa was the most extensive of any country in sub-saharan Africa. Despite a land reform programme initiated after the transition to democracy in 1994, equitable access to land remains an unresolved question in both urban and rural areas.

Over the last 20 years in Tanzania, conflict has escalated between communities and foreign investors over land rights and land-based investments. Here, Masalu Luhula discusses how the use of simplified legal guides is helping to empower communities to engage in dialogue and negotiations with government authorities and investors – and to promote socially responsible land-based investment.

USAID is supporting the government with a strategy to create municipal land offices that manage local land administration campaigns and deliver land titles to rural Colombians

This is our former Country Insights digest, now re-branded What to Read to make justice to its content.

The Land Portal published a new country portfolio for Tajikistan as part of our Country Insights initiative.  The initiative seeks to expand knowledge about how countries govern their land, the challenges they face, and the innovative solutions they find to manage land tenure issues.