South Africa's land reform rises from 'the ashes of dispossession'

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Hectares upon hectares of luxuriant orchards cover the land from which Bernard Shabangu’s ancestors were once brutally evicted by South Africa’s apartheid government.

Thousands of families lived on these green hills near the Kruger National Park, 400km east of Johannesburg, until the early 1900s when colonial and subsequent apartheid regimes eroded the rights of black South Africans to own land.

‘Suffered brutal treatment’

“Our ancestors suffered brutal treatment at the hands of those that were taking the land,” Shabangu said. Some were tortured and killed by police, others were thrown into the crocodile-infested river, he said.

“But out of these ashes of dispossession and devastation, something positive must rise. And that’s the future we’re planting here,” he said, pointing to stretches of papaya, banana, lychee and citrus trees managed in a joint venture between black and white farmers.

The 48-year-old lawyer is from one of 1,850 black families from the Matsamo community who claimed the land in 1998, four years after the fall of apartheid.

When the government restituted the first plots in 2010, the community decided to consult with the former owners.

“We felt that chasing away the whites who used to run this farm would be counterproductive because we wouldn’t get to access the skills… and the capital that we need in order to farm,” Shabangu explained.

The Matsamo Communal Property Association (CPA) now owns more than 14 000 hectares (34,600 acres) which they manage in cooperation with white farmers in a rare model of successful land reform.

An example

In a new, state-of-the-art warehouse, dozens of workers in green uniforms pack fruit spat out by triaging machines for shipment to supermarkets across the world.

South Africa’s biggest lychee producer, the farm employs 5 000 locals and has sent several of the community’s children to university.

Deputy President Paul Mashatile in 2023 described it as “an example of what should be done”.

“One party’s got the skills, which they’re transferring, and the other party’s got the land,” said James Chance, a former farmer who is now managing director of Tomahawk, one of the CPA’s joint ventures.

“Put those hands together and suddenly land comes alive again, employment comes to the fore and everyone’s a winner.”

The thorny issue of land reform was thrust into the limelight in February when US President Donald Trump falsely accused Pretoria of expropriating white-owned farms and offered to take in the farmers as refugees.

But land restitution has not made much headway since apartheid ended in 1994. According to the most recent government figures, in 2017 white people – only 7.3 percent of the population – still held 72 percent of commercial farmland.

Last year, President Cyril Ramaphosa said 25 percent of land previously owned by white farmers had been returned to black South Africans.

This was “on a willing buyer, willing seller basis” in which the state buys land and gives or leases it to black farmers, and not through forced expropriation, says agricultural economist Wandile Sihlobo.

“All of the land that is here has been paid for – but when it was taken from us, it was taken for free,” said Matsamo CPA acting chairperson Mduduzi Shabangu.

Pointing at Chance, he joked: “They are saying Mr. Chance here must go and be a refugee. Look at him, he is happy here!”

Chance admits he was worried when apartheid ended and considered leaving to farm bananas in Uganda. But when the land claims came up, “we went along with it,” he said.

The government bought his farm for around R150 million.

“Luckily, the future was kind to us,” the 71-year-old said.

An exception

The success of the Matsamo community farms is an exception, Sihlobo said.

According to the historical opposition Democratic Alliance party, 75 percent of land reform farms have failed.

“It’s not that black farmers can’t farm but that they are given the farms with almost no capital backing them,” said Sihlobo.

To avoid farms being resold, the land is only leased. This means the new farmers “can’t borrow from the banks like white farmers, because they don’t have title deeds”.

In an illustration of the complexities, one farm owned by the Matsamo CPA had in 1996 been given in shares to the 600 labourers who had worked it during apartheid. It failed in 2008 amid allegations of corruption, and was included in the Matsamo restitution deal.

“We have no hope that we will one day own land,” sighed one of the former labourers, who would only give his name as Vuso.

“Maybe Donald Trump can give us something,” he added with a bitter laugh.