S.Africa farmers' union critices land reform plans

By Muchena Zigomo

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South Africa's biggest farmers' union on Friday criticised the government's plans to scrap a voluntary system of buying land from white farmers to give to poor blacks.

Johannes Moller, president of farmers union AgriSA said the move to scrap the willing-buyer, willing-seller model, under which the government negotiates with owners to buy land, would be unconstitutional unless the system were replaced with a similar one.

Land reform is a racially sensitive issue in South Africa, troubled by the decline in agriculture in neighbouring Zimbabwe where white farmers have often been forcibly evicted by President Robert Mugabe's government.

"If government really does go ahead and scrap the willing-buyer, willing-seller principle and not replace it with a system based on market value, we will see it as an infringement on property rights and a violation of the constitution," Moller told Reuters.

Rural Development and Land Reform Minister Gugile Nkwinti told parliament on Wednesday the government would scrap the system, which had been criticised for being too expensive and too slow in transferring land to blacks.

After the end of apartheid in 1994, the ruling African National Congress set itself a target of handing 30 percent of all agricultural land to the black majority by 2014.

Progress has been slow and only about 4 percent of land has been acquired from private owners amid funding problems that government officials say might prevent the government from meeting its goal.

"The department will have to investigate less costly alternative methods of land acquisition, by engaging with all stakeholders within the sector," Nkwinti said.