South African Land Group Rejects 'Use It Or Lose It' Policy

South African Minister of Land Affairs, Ms. Lulama Xingwana, who faces the monumental task of redistribution in the former apartheid state.
Originally uploaded by Pan-African News Wire File Photos

CAPE TOWN 17 March 2009 Sapa

LAND GROUP REJECTS 'USE IT OR LOSE IT'

A land rights group has rejected Land Affairs Minister Lulu
Xingwana's "use it or lose it" hard line on land redistribution.

The Right to Agrarian Reform for Food Sovereignty Campaign on
Tuesday demanded an immediate halt to the process of taking land away from historically disadvantaged farmers.

It said in a statement that it was market-based land reform policies which were responsible for failures, not farmers who were not passionate about farming.

It said it intended to resist actions that would "further dispossess and disempower the landless".

The campaign said it represented farm workers, small scale farmers and other interest groups in the land rights sector in the Western and Northern Cape.

Xingwana last week put the "use it or lose it" principle to action when she ordered the seizure of an ostrich farm from land reform beneficiaries.

She said those who were not committed to farming had to be removed from the land and replaced "by those who have a passion for farming".