While seemingly insurmountable challenges continue to face the equitable ownership of agricultural land in South Africa, land reform expert, Jimmy Lonsdale is now calling on commercial farmers in the country to up their efforts to step in and assist the largely failed government transformation programmes.

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Lonsdale, who has worked for 20 years on various agriculture transformation programmes in KwaZulu-Natal, says massive gaps and opportunities exist where commercial growers can step in and combine forces with the government in a bid to bring vast tracts of failed land reform projects back into production.

“Firstly, there is so much vacant government land, also you will see farms that were handed to black farmers in the land reform process that have either collapsed, or the land is under-stocked. Secondly, equipment such as irrigation systems require maintenance or are not working at all. Production on these farms has often ground to a halt,” Lonsdale said.

However, he said, both the mindsets of the farmers, the state, the private sector and the rural communities had to change for his ideas to bear fruit. “I have worked extensively with mentorship programmes where commercial growers have assisted rural communities to farm. Unfortunately, many farmers think that being a mentor means actually doing the work themselves. A mentor is someone who sits down with the community and helps them to set goals, draw up weekly plans, encourage and deliver feedback to the people. To be a mentor requires very special skills, they require intensive assistance,” he said.

On the other hand, Lonsdale said many rural communities suffered from what he called “deprivation syndrome”. “It is what some experts called learned hopelessness. We also have to really understand what the Nguni word ubuntu means. Ubuntu at its most fundamental means if you are a member of a community and you have something that the rest don’t, you owe it to them to share. And that is why we need a mindset change among commercial farmers. It is critically important for any investor to understand this concept and to work with the communities to achieve success,” he said.

In his prepared address for the Ethiopia conference, Lonsdale has a raft of suggestions which he believes can transform agriculture in South Africa.

For example, he suggets organised agriculture and business chambers assist by educating their members on how to generate revenue from rural development, while farmers’ unions should make staff available for education on socio-economic sustainability for communities in their various districts.

We must also make farmers aware of the benefits of selling equity to workers. I believe this could reduce fears of losing a farm by expropriation without compensation. The end result is increased productivity, increased investment, as well as the required socio-economic transformation of the agricultural labour force, – he said.

Finally, Lonsdale said the attitude of commercial banks to smallscale growers without equity partners represented opportunities for commercial growers to assist their neighbours.

“I think we need to stop talking about the failures of the past and look to the opportunities that can build a better future for agriculture. The opportunities are there, they are immense, all we need is a mindset change and a commitment to make it work mainly from commercial farmers and the private sector in partnership with the state,” he said.

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