Planting seeds for successful land reform

The Birbury farmworkers in the Bathurst pineapple belt, between Grahamstown and Port Alfred, are on the cusp of having their poverty-stricken lives changed for the better now that the rural development department has rolled out its co-ownership land redistribution policy on the farm they have for than 40 years been working for slave salaries.

The 50/50 land redistribution policy is one of a raft of land reform and rural development measures Minister Gugile Nkwinti has, since he took over the new Department of Rural Development and Land Reform in 2009, instituted to address the skewed land ownership patterns in the country and to turn around the underdeveloped rural enclaves in order to drive away the frontiers of poverty.

The co-ownership policy makes provision for farmworkers to own half of the farm together with the farm owner and to share in the profits of the farming business.

This policy was severely maligned by the land owners when the department introduced it in 2014. Even black farmworkers and black farm owners alike were also skeptical about this government land reform initiative. Nobody gave it a chance of success.

Presently the 50/50 land redistribution policy and the One Hectare One Household policies have proved very successful and popular among the land-hungry previously dispossessed individuals.

However, there are still those who are hellbent on maintaining the status quo. This lobby group has incessantly criticised the government land reform initiatives in order to delegitimise the struggle of the indigenous people for land.

Several 50/50 farm schemes in various provinces across the country, including the Western Cape and KwaZulu-Natal, have proved successful and were also embraced by the previous farm owners.

The land reform doomsayers had all along maintained that the new 50/50 had further enriched the farm owners at the expense of farmworkers.

They also believed that it had also made the socioeconomic conditions of the farmworkers worse than before it was introduced.

This, of course, is further from the truth. Farmworkers now stand to share in the profits and dividends every time the farming businesses generated profits. They, too, are now land owners –something that did not exist before.

The Birbury farm project in Bathurst is a classic example of resounding success where this new land redistribution policy has proved skeptics wrong.

The Birbury farm is a 632 hectare property located in Ndlambe Local Municipality of the Sarah Baartman District Municipality, which is hardest hit by unemployment and poverty.

The farm was identified by Nkwinti in 2015 for the implementation of the 50/50 policy in order to turn around the lives of the poverty-stricken farmworkers.

The farm was acquired for R12826000 and was transferred to the State in February 2016.

The farming activities on this property is the growing of pineapples for export markets and livestock farming.

The pineapples are grown on the 208 hectares of the farm while the remaining portion is earmarked for grazing of the farmworkers’ livestock.

There are 29 farmworkers, some of who are members of the board of directors.

The farm manager, Bruce Thompson, is excited about the future prospects of the farm and its workers.

He said although the farm presently did not generate profit, he was optimistic that in about five years’ time the beneficiaries will be getting dividends, on top of their monthly salaries.

“My biggest aim is to prove that black people can do farming with the right guidance and adequate support from the government,” Thompson said.

He said the farmworkers owned 50% of the farming business while the Humansdorp Co-op owned 40% and the board chairman, George Ngesi, owned 10%.

Thompson said the farm had no equipment when he took up his position as a manager in 2015.

The farming business was subsequently given a R5.3-million grant from the NEF. That enabled the Birbury farm to purchase five tractors for operations.

The Humansdorp Co-op is helping the Birbury farm project with infrastructure funding and inputs.

It also provides or sources expert management services and ensures good corporate governance.

The Humansdorp Co-op also has a responsibility to facilitate access to markets.

The Birbury 50/50 farm presently produces, every 18 months, a turnover of 70 tons of pineapples which they market through Summerpride Company in East London.

Thompson disclosed that the Albany district pineapple producing belt was now safe from the fertiliser poison which once destroyed the pineapple business a few years ago when pineapple farmers used an imported toxic fertiliser from a foreign country.

That episode negatively affected the South African pineapple industry which has since recovered.

The present beneficiaries have previously worked on the same farm under the previous owner of the Birbury farm.

The farmworkers, who are now co-owners of the farm, revealed that the new 50/50 policy introduced on the farm has improved their socioeconomic conditions.

Two beneficiaries, Linda Abrahams and Ntombekhaya Vulindlu, who have worked on the farm for more than 40 years, said that they had previously been paid a meagre salary of R1000 a month until the government introduced the new dispensation on the Birbury farm.

Although things have since improved, relatively speaking, the farmworkers were yearning for the era when they would be sharing in the business dividends, which is expected to trigger in in five years’ time.

Their salaries have since increased since the advent of the 50/50 co-ownership of the Birbury farm project. These days they are guaranteed half their daily wages if inclement weather conditions prevented them from discharging their duties on the farm. The 50/50 land redistribution policy will go a long way in addressing the present land hunger in the country. This policy also ushers in an orderly and peaceful way of effecting land reform in the country without disrupting land markets and agriculture production.

Mxotwa is spokesman of the Ministry of Rural Development and Land Reform.