Farmers disgruntled over land reform programme

Small scale farmers from the Northern and Western Cape have converged in Cape Town to voice their anger over the government's slow land reform programme, saying the willing buyer willing seller principle has not worked.

The farmers say that only 4% of agricultural land has been transferred to black farmers over the past 14 years. They also raised scepticism that the government will not reach its target of transferring 30% of land by the year 2014.

Danie Engelbrecht, a small scale farmer from the Northern Cape, says the willing buyer, willing seller principle has favoured commercial farmers.

He says that in the surrounding communities of his home town, Steinkopf, white commercial farmers overpriced farms in order for the black small scale farmers and the government not to afford to buy them.

He says the principle does not force the farmers to sell the farms, which is why they support expropriation. He has urged the government to value the farms independently in order to establish their market price.

The farmers plan to march to Parliament tomorrow to hand over a memorandum of grievances to the Minister of Land Affairs and Agriculture, Lulu Xingwana.