Africa to limit farm sizes to speed land redistribution

KRUGER NATIONAL PARK, South Africa: South Africa´s government is planning to impose limits on farm sizes to free up parcels of land to hand over to blacks, a minister said on Saturday, giving an insight into the workings of a divisive redistribution scheme.

Gugile Nkwinti, the minister of rural development and land reform, told Reuters the government was planning to set a range of limits - from a 1,000-hectare (2,470-acre) "small-scale" farm, up to the largest allowed, at 12,000 hectares.

"If you are a small-scale farm and have 1,400 HA, we will buy the 400, and leave you with your 1,000. We will buy the extra and redistribute it to black people," the minister said.

South Africa´s ruling African National Congress (ANC), facing local elections in August, has promised to speed up plans to redistribute land which remains predominantly in white hands two decades after the end of apartheid.

Some economists and farming groups have said the proposals could hit investment and production at a time when South Africa is emerging from a major drought - pointing to the economic damage linked to farm seizures in neighbouring Zimbabwe.

They have also complained about a lack of clarity on how it will all work.

Setting out the farm sizes and specifically linking them to the redistribution scheme may further alarm owners, particularly of smaller plots.

But the government says the redistribution process needs to be accelerated, to rectify past wrongs and provide opportunities to the previously excluded, and has repeatedly said it will not follow the Zimbabwe example and stick to the law.

"In South Africa you have a concentration of land ownership in the hands of a few people.

That is something we have to correct," Nkwinti said before a ceremony in Kruger National Park where officials will hand over compensation to black communities evicted decades ago.

Experts have estimated about 8 million hectares of farmland have been transferred to black owners since the end of apartheid, 8 to 10 percent of the land in white hands in 1994 and only a third of the ANC´s long-running 30 percent target.

The party has said it will speed up the process with a bill going through parliament allowing the state to expropriate land without the owner´s consent.

Nkwinti said there would be four broad limits: 1,000 HA for a "small-scale" commercial farm, 2,500 HA for a medium-scale one, 5,000 for large-scale operations, and a 12,000 HA special category including game farms, forestry operations and renewable energy projects such as wind farms.

Nkwinti also said the government was planning to introduce a scheme for black farmers who work communal land but lack title deeds to the plots they plough - a situation that prevents them from using the land to obtain finance.

"We are introducing a ´use-rights certificate. ´ It´s a lesser right than a title deed but it is a more secure right than they have now, " he said.