#SouthAfrica Farms in Death Spiral: #AgriNorthWest Boeta du Toit warns : "Of the 276,000 farming units in Gauteng, 70% lie unused as farms. Most are fallow or used as scrapyards; car-dealerships etc. This warning was raised by Bota du Toit, Agri-North West’s CEO. "Since 2000, farmers decreased from 65,000 to 34,000. He said that "emerging farmers"-- (#ANCcode for #BlackFarmers who received small parcels of formerly white-owned farms) -- are among the most squeezed: hundreds are quitting, claiming the government has abandoned them, "with no skills and little access to markets."
This news arrives hot on the heels of publication of controversial land-occupation proposals by Gugile Nkwinti, minister of Rural Development and Land Reform. He demands that commercial farmers must hand over half of all their land to farmworkers.
Agri-Gauteng CEO Derrick Hanekom also warned that "Gauteng was in big trouble with abandoned land. Land carryover from old (i.e. white) to new (black) owners was done haphazardly… land was given to the (black) communities who are not farmers and who, because of a lack of skills, are unable to farm… http://www.agrisa.co.za/
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