FROM THE UNION BUILDINGS
A message from President Cyril Ramaphosa
Transforming the agricultural landscape
R
ecently, the
use of farmland to grow
scarcity and urban
has resulted in more
Department of
crops and for animal
encroachment. We are
land being restored and
Agriculture, Land
husbandry is key to our
also losing prime agri-
restituted to black South
very survival.
cultural land through
Africans, the pernicious
land-use changes.
effects of the 1913 Na-
Reform and Rural Development (DALRRD) an-
South Africa has vast
nounced that members
tracts of land suitable for
of the public will be able
agricultural production,
broadening access to
to be in patterns of farm-
to apply to lease 700 000
with 37.9 percent of our
agricultural land for
land ownership.
hectares of underutilised
total land area currently
commercial production
The Act went far be-
or vacant State land in
being used for commer-
and subsistence farming
yond dispossessing mil-
seven of the provinces.
cial agriculture.
is a national priority.
lions of people of their
Agricultural land is the
Like many other coun-
tives Land Act continue
Given our history,
ancestral land.
mainstay of our natural
tries, our arable land is
Great injustice
resource base. The avail-
under threat from land
Although the post-1994
ple of their right to own
ability and sustainable
degradation, water
land reform process
and work the land on
10
By depriving our peo-
Public Sector Manager • October 2020
