White PaperWhite Paper
2 LAND POLICY
Our land is a precious resource. We build our homes on it; it feeds us; it sustains animal and plant life and stores our water. It contains our mineral wealth and is an essential resource for investment in our country's economy. Land does not only form the basis of our wealth, but also our security, pride and history.
Land, its ownership and use, has always played an important role in shaping the political, economic and social processes in the country. Past land policies were a major cause of insecurity, landlessness, homelessness and poverty in South Africa. They also resulted in inefficient urban and rural land use patterns and a fragmented system of land administration. This has severely restricted effective resource utilisation and development.
Land is an important and sensitive issue to all South Africans. It is a finite resource which binds all together in a common destiny. As a cornerstone for reconstruction and development, a land policy for the country needs to deal effectively with:
the injustices of racially based land dispossession of the past;
the need for a more equitable distribution of land ownership;
the need for land reform to reduce poverty and contribute to economic growth;
Security of Tenure for all and;
a system of land management which will support sustainable land use patterns and rapid land release for development.
Land policy should ensure accessible means of recording and registering rights in property, establish broad norms and guidelines for land use planning, effectively manage public land and develop a responsive, client-friendly land administration service.
At present, the central thrust of land policy is the land reform programme. This has three aspects: land restitution, land redistribution and tenure reform. The success of these elements of the programme is dependent in the long run on more than merely access to land. The provision of support services, infrastructural and other development programmes, is essential to improve the quality of life and the employment opportunities resulting from land reform.
This necessitates a constructive partnership between national, provincial and local level administrations. The successful delivery of land reform depends not only on an integrated government policy and delivery systems, but also on the establishment of cooperative partnerships between the state and private and non-governmental sectors.
Our vision is of a land policy and land reform programme that contributes to reconciliation, stability, growth and development in an equitable and sustainable way. It presumes an active land market supported by an effective and accessible institutional framework. In an urban context our vision is one where the poor have secure access to well located land for the provision of shelter. The land reform programme's poverty focus is aimed at achieving a better quality of life for the most disadvantaged.
Land reform aims to contribute to economic development, both by giving households the opportunity to engage in productive land use and by increasing employment opportunities through encouraging greater investment. We envisage a land reform which results in a rural landscape consisting of small, medium and large farms; one which promotes both equity and efficiency through a combined agrarian and industrial strategy in which land reform is a spark to the engine of growth.
If these goals are to be realised, major constraints have to be overcome (see Box 2.1). The means by which government intends to achieve this is set out in subsequent sections of this White Paper.
The case for the government's rural land reform programme and its scope and content were clearly set out in the initial policy document of the RDP in 1994:
'Land is the most basic need for rural dwellers. Apartheid policies pushed millions of black South Africans into overcrowded and impoverished reserves, homelands and townships. In addition, capital intensive agricultural policies led to the large-scale eviction of farm dwellers from their land and homes. The abolition of the Land Acts cannot redress inequities in land distribution. Only a tiny minority of black people can afford land on the free market.
A national land reform programme is the central and driving force of a programme of rural development. Such a programme aims to redress effectively the injustices of forced removals and the historical denial of access to land. It aims to ensure security of tenure for rural dwellers. And in implementing the national land reform programme, and through the provision of support services, the democratic government will build the economy by generating large-scale employment increasing rural incomes and eliminating overcrowding.
The RDP must implement a fundamental land reform programme. This programme must be demand-driven and must aim to supply residential and productive land to the poorest section of the rural population and aspirant farmers. As part of a comprehensive rural development policy, it must raise rural incomes and productivity, and must encourage the use of land for agricultural, other productive or residential purposes.
The land policy must ensure security of tenure for all South Africans, regardless of their system of land-holding. It must remove all forms of discrimination in women's access to land.'
(Source: RDP: a policy framework, ANC, 1994, pages 19-20)
In urban areas, access to land is similarly a prerequisite for a successful urban development programme. Government at all levels, including local authorities, should strive to overcome all obstacles which may hamper equitable access to well located land. Implementation of appropriate urban and rural land policies and land management practices is required to overcome a primary cause of inequity and poverty. Realization of these policies is necessary to reduce living costs, occupation of unsafe land, environmental degradation and urban and rural vulnerability, affecting all people, especially the poor.
As anticipated in the 1994 RDP policy framework, government's response to land reform has three major elements:
Redistribution aims to provide the disadvantaged and the poor with access to land for residential and productive purposes. Its scope includes the urban and rural very poor, labour tenants, farm workers as well as new entrants to agriculture.
Land Restitution covers cases of forced removals which took place after 1913. They are being dealt with by a Land Claims Court and Commission, established under the Restitution of Land Rights Act, 22 of 1994.
Land tenure reform is being addressed through a review of present land policy, administration and legislation to improve the tenure security of all South Africans and to accommodate diverse forms of land tenure, including types of communal tenure.
The government has adopted a two-pronged approach. On the one hand it is striving to create an enabling policy environment and on the other hand it is providing direct financial and other support services.
In the 22 years since the current government came to power, much has been achieved, in terms of both policy development and land reform implementation
(see Box 2.2).
The importance of land reform in South Africa arises from the scale and scope of land dispossession of black people which has taken place at the hand of white colonisers. For most of this century, indeed since the Natives Land Act, 1913, rights to own, rent or even share-crop land in South Africa depended upon a person's racial classification.
Millions of black people were forced to leave their ancestral lands and resettle in what quickly became over-crowded and environmentally degraded reserves B pools of cheap migrant labour for white-owned farms and mines. Under the Native Trust and Land Act, 1936, black people lost even the right to purchase land in the reserves and were obliged to utilise land administered by tribal authorities appointed by the government.
Black families who owned land under freehold tenure outside the reserves before 1913 were initially exempted from the provisions of the Natives Land Act. The result was a number of so-called 'black-spot' communities in farming areas occupied by whites. These were the subject of a second wave of forced removals which took place from the 1950s through to the 1980s.
The government expelled most of these farmers to 'homelands', often without compensation for their lost land rights. Dispossession forced successful black farmers to seek employment as farm labourers.
Meanwhile, the South African government continued to intervene in the administration of land within the homelands, where tribal chiefs were accorded special land-ownership rights and far-reaching powers over land allocation, often beyond those normally sanctioned under customary law. Some blacks who were moved from freehold land, and others removed from outlying pockets of tribal lands, became tenants of the South African Development Trust (SADT), which bought up farm land occupied by whites for the consolidation and enlargement of the homelands.
Some 3.5 million people were removed from rural and urban areas between 1960 and 1980. It was only from 1978, with the introduction of the 99-year leasehold system and in the mid-1980s with the abolition of influx control, that the state acknowledged that black people should have permanent land rights in urban areas. Yet land rights in rural areas have remained tenuous.
The land reform programme addresses this legacy. It aims to create stability, provide resources for the creation of livelihoods, and contribute to the establishment of viable and well-located urban and rural settlements.
The principles on which the government's land reform policy is based are set out in Box 2.3. The following paragraphs highlight some key policy issues.
2.5.1 Undoing the injustices of the past
The primary reason for the government's land reform measures is to redress the injustices of apartheid and to alleviate the impoverishment and suffering that it caused. Because of the enormity of the injustices, the measures proposed can only go a small way to compensate people for the loss of their land, their homes and their capital assets. The primary focus of land reform is the 'historically disadvantaged' B those who have been denied access to land and have been disinherited of their land rights.
Land reform can make a significant contribution to the alleviation of poverty and injustice caused by past apartheid policies in both urban and rural areas. Given the poverty focus of the programme, it prioritises areas of greatest need. Much of the country's most severe poverty is located in rural areas, where the poorest ten per cent of the people are Africans and where women-headed households are particularly impoverished. Three-quarters of the children in rural areas are in households living below the minimum acceptable subsistence level. Land reform aims to help in redressing the appalling inequality of incomes and to provide the largely impoverished black rural population with basic needs and more secure livelihoods. For the urban poor, access to land, secure tenure and phased provision of services is a key means of avoiding land invasions and resultant instability.
2.5.2 National reconciliation and stability
The historical legacy of South Africa necessitates land reform. Resentment over land dispossession runs deep in our society. It threatens to boil over, causing social and economic dislocation through the illegal occupation of land B invasions of public and private land in both rural and urban areas.
Without a significant change in the racial distribution of land ownership, there can be no long-term political stability and therefore no economic prosperity.
In rural areas the vision of government encompasses both productive and residential land uses. It envisages a well-balanced mix of farming systems and rural enterprise (livestock, annual and perennial crops as well as farm-forestry) with land held under a variety of forms of tenure by individuals, companies and communities. The objective is a flourishing rural landscape consisting of large, medium and small farms and enterprises developed by full-time and part-time farmers. A more balanced allocation of land and resources, partnerships between farm workers and farm owners leading to increased productivity, as well as the provision of secure tenure for all rural people are all part of this vision.
In an urban landscape the objective is to address urban landlessness and homelessness by directing development of affordable housing and services to unused or under-used land within present urban boundaries and close to employment opportunities. The distortions which have resulted from planning according to apartheid and segregation policies have to be redressed. Land use fragmentation, according to race and income, entrench social divisions and potential conflict.
2.5.3 Economic arguments for land reform
Land reform is not only a means of correcting past injustices and bringing reconciliation and peace to the country. There are other vital economic benefits for society generated by land reform. For example:
Major cost savings resulting from a more rational use of urban land: Low density development makes inefficient use of investments in infrastructure and amenities and reduces accessibility to social and economic opportunities. It imposes high costs and time wastage on society in terms of journeys to work and amenities. Efficient and speedy release of suitably located land at the required rate and scale is a prerequisite for achieving the aims of the overall urban development strategy.
More households will be able to access sufficient food on a consistent basis: The absence of household-level food security has devastating consequences, most notably on the physical and mental development of children. Access to productive land will provide the opportunity for putting more food on the table and providing cash for the purchase of food items.
Opportunities for Small Scale Production: Comparative international research notes that smaller sized agricultural units are often farmed more intensively, and are more labour absorbing. There are over a hundred thousand small scale and subsistence farmers in South Africa who could be assisted by the land redistribution programme to expand their land resource base through purchase or lease. The land reform programme thus offers the potential for more intensive irrigated farming, for contract farming in important sectors of the agricultural economy such as cotton, timber and sugar, and the potential to intensify agricultural production in areas of high agricultural potential.
Land reform can make a major contribution towards addressing unemployment, particularly in rural areas and small towns: In rural areas, the rate of unemployment ranges from 40% among poor households to 58% among the poorest. This situation could deteriorate further as the number of young people entering the work force increases by over 2% every year. (Source: Rural Development Strategy of the Government of National Unity, October 1995.) Because the direct and indirect costs of creating jobs in urban areas are very high, innovative strategies are needed to help rural people find work where they live. It is generally accepted that per unit investment in agriculture and services has the potential to create many livelihoods. In international experience, an area of high potential arable farm land normally produces considerably more livelihoods, if divided into small family-operated farms. This also applies to off-farm employment through the multiplier effect on the local economy. Therefore, redistributive land reform and the provision of support services is central to the government's employment strategy and to reducing the mounting cost of the welfare budget.
Land reform will support business and entrepreneurial culture: Property rights are critical for gaining access to capital for investment in entrepreneurial activity - either through selling the asset or through getting finance on the strength of it. In developed economies, 70% of the credit which new businesses raise is secured by using formal titles as collateral for mortgages. The African population has been deprived of this economic opportunity, which stifled property and business related opportunities.
Land reform can have important favourable environmental impacts in both urban and rural areas: Tenure security is a precondition for people to invest in land improvements and encourages environmentally sustainable land use practices.
Redistributive land reform cannot in itself ensure national economic development, but it is a necessary condition for a more secure and balanced civil society. It is an essential precondition for the success of government's growth, employment and redistribution strategy. In contributing to conditions of stability and certainty, land reform is a necessary element of sustainable growth.