Real Estate Investor Magazine South Africa November 2014 | Page 17

upfront

agriculture turns its back on Nkwinti’s proposals:
“AgriSA favours market-related compensation to the
farmer. Farming is a long-term investment. Farmers
borrow money with land as collateral. At this stage,
agricultural land is worth R155 billion nationally and
agriculture debt stands at R89 billion. To lose 50% of
their collateral will be a disaster to farmers.”
Grain SA says: “We are convinced such a decision
will immediately, not only put food security at risk, but
lead to massive food price increases, higher inflation,
increase in interest rates and eventually manifest
in slower economic growth... South Africa can ill
afford to destroy wealth by irresponsible government
intervention into a free-market system which has
produced cheap food and fibre for consumption of its
people.”
In October, the African Farmers’ Association of
South Africa (AFASA); representing around 3,000
established and new farmers countrywide, rejected the
‘shocking’ 50%-land restitution proposal in its entirety.
Another development that has sparked grave
concern is the Restitution of Land Rights Amendment
Act, which amongst other changes, provides for
re-opening the lodgement of land claims between
June 2014 and June 2019, while about 10,000 of the
80,000 land claims from the previous 1999 deadline
still remain unsettled. An estimated further 397,000
valid restitution claims can cost R179 billion, and the
means of funding remains unknown. The amendment
bill will allow for exceptional claims by the Khoi and
San people for the dispossession of land before the
promulgation of the 1913 Native Land Act.
It can literally open a Pandora’s Box – or perhaps it
is open already. In May, Landbouweekblad reported on
a judgement by the Grahamstown Land Claims Court,
which ruled in favour of the claimants, the community
of Salem, who allege