Didiza spoke during a media briefing on Tuesday where she also announced progress made regarding the release of Agricultural State Land. The briefing comes after Didiza announced the availability of 896 farms, measuring more than 529 000 hectares to residents in seven provinces. Here is Didiza…

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Didiza says land forms an important economic base for agricultural development, industrialisation and human settlement. Therefore, land reform plays a critical role in enabling those who have been historically disadvantaged, to have an asset that can give them a foothold in economic participation. She adds that the process of land reform is to ensure social cohesion and inclusion amongst society.

According to Didiza, it is important to emphasise that the main purpose of this process of land verification is not to destabilise farmers who have been farming on this land but to put in place a state land administration and management system that ensures the security of land tenure stability. This is also to provide an opportunity for sustainable food security and economic growth, as well as enable government to develop and implement targeted and sustainable support to small, emerging and commercial farmers.

She says questions regarding the advertised state land have been raised by individuals in political parties and the academic sector, among others. 

The advertisement of properties, including those that have communities, is to ensure that there is transparency, and that government is able to address the legal issues that are necessary to confirm the rights from a process that was left unfinished. Didiza says some of the examples of these unfinished processes are that there are farms that were abandoned and farm dwellers as well as farmworkers, amongst others, invaded these lands and nothing was done to ensure that their security is clearly defined.

The land rights enquiry has commenced and a number of farm dwellers, farmers and communities have been visited by the department’s officials. “The process will continue until such a time that all state-owned land has been recorded and accounted for,” she adds.

Another issue that Didiza highlighted are allegations about government officials who have allegedly written eviction letters to individuals and communities on state land. She says there have also been allegations of officials demanding bribes amounting to hundreds of thousands of rands to access such land. The minister condemns this conduct and deems it as criminal. She says the department has advised the public to report such cases to the police and the office of the Acting Director-General.

Didiza explains that the land refers to land that the then government, prior to 1994, earmarked for the consolidation of homelands which was then held by the South African Development Trust.  

She clarifies that on some of this land, farmers have been allocated hectares of land in different sizes depending on the agricultural availability of the land. She says that some of this was used by communities for grazing, even though no formal consolidation had been done. “I must say that in a sense this is the legacy of our past as a country where some of these processes were left unfinished,” adds Didiza.

An attempt was made after 1994 to transfer some of these farmlands to farmers, but this process was not concluded. She says that in order to address the land rights of these various communities, a land rights enquiry is critical.

The department has thus far received about 5 838 online applications, which includes applications from cooperatives as well as individual farmers. She adds that the department has also received physical applications which will be consolidated after the closing date.

The Free State was allocated 8 333 hectares of state land, while the Northern Cape was allocated 12 224 hectares. The North West province received the most hectares as 300 000 hectares of land was allocated to this province.

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