Debating South Africa's Land Policies

Writing at the Council on Foreign Relations’ “Africa in Transition” blog, John Campbell notes that South Africa’s land “issue” is not so simple. How true. Back in 1994 the ANC pledged to transfer ownership and control of 30% of white-owned farmlands to black South Africans by 2014. The process, based on a “willing buyer/willing seller” model has been halting at best and too often communities and farmers that did benefit from a redistribution of land lacked the background or capital to develop sustainable commercial entities. This, in part, because the government has never devoted significant resources to the effort. Now, after years of sluggish progress the ANC Youth League is suggesting that expropriation and nationalization of land, mines, and some businesses are better paths forward. See here also. South Africa’s Agriculture Minister, Tina Joematt Pettersson, recently said: “the willing buyer-willing seller principle of land reform must go.” An alternative to nationalization and expropriation is offered in this South African study from 2008.