H. Motivation
2.7 The Acquisition of Land
There are three ways land can be acquired and these are through, (i) the Extension of Security of Tenure Act (ESTA) which allows the long-term occupiers the privileges- of,farming the land, (ii) the willing-buyer-willing-seller system whereby the government on behalf of the community buys the land from the landowners through negotiating the market value price of the land, and
(iii) the disposing of state owned land where the state gives away its land for the sake of agricultural development.
(i) The Extension ofSecurity of Tenure Act System (Security of Tenure Act62of1997)
The South African government through ESTA has gIven special rights to long-term land occupiers (such as farm workers) who are 60 years and older and have lived on the land for ten years or longer. The same rights are given to disabled people who were employed by the owner, and who lived on the land for ten years or longer. Such people are called long term occupiers.
According to ESTA (1997:8,11):
Long term occupiers can live on and use the land for the rest of their lives as long as they do not do anything seriously wrong such as damaging the owner's property, harming people living on that property, threatening other lawful occupiers, and assisting land invaders to settle.
This enables the farm workers over sixty years old to become landowners of small pieces of land that they have been occupying for the past ten years. However, can this be regarded as land ownership when the landowner will never have any title deeds to the piece of land? How viable will this system be, given the fact that many people will retire as farm workers nearly every year? Will the landowners be able to offer them big portions ofland for agricultural development programmes?
(ii) The Willing-Buyer-Willing-Seller System
This system of acquiring land is achieved when the agricultural and ~and officials provide the government with information of different forms about the agricultural programmes. In cases where farms have not been adequately utilized they will be listed for land redistribution programme. The government or the communities will enter into price negotiations with the landowner concerned. This means that land is acquired through buying from landowners by a system of bargaining for the land prices. The 'willing-buyer-willing-seller' system is the acceptable way of land acquisition. According to the LRAD Document Version 3 (2000: 10):
The agricultural land officers provide technical information on the proposed farm plan, land- use and environmental assessment and contribute to the quality of proposals. They assist in identifying land. They certify the accuracy of the sellers' title and make a preliminary check to see that the land price is reasonable.
The land beneficiaries will either have their own money or they must be benefactors of the -government grants to buy the land from the sellers at the actual price rate. This system helps the seller to benefit from the land that he/she had acquired and developed. Italso benefits the buyer because as soon as he acquires the land it becomes his/her piece of land with title deeds. In this system the buyer becomes an owner of title deeds, unlike the ESTA system which only allows the occupier to use but not own the land. The willing-buyer-willing-seller system allows the communities to bargain the price of land with the buyer. Lebow (1996: 1) understands bargaining as: "communication which is designed to promote satisfactory exchange".12It allows the people to negotiate the price with an understanding that the seller wants to survive and the buyers want to have sustainable livelihoods.
(iii) Disposing
0/
State Owned LandThe national government possesses land that was forcefully taken away from the people during
,.
the previous regimes and was used for army training or for other purposes.Ifsuch land has been claimed through restitution the government can settle the claim by giving back the land. For instance Walker (1996-97:62) argues that:
In 1958 a section of the land on which the Mbila tribe lived was proclaimed state land. The people were removed between 1974 and 1979 when the land was declared a military area for the establishment of a missile testing area. When the SADF vacated the land in the mid- 1980s, it was later designated to the Natal Parks Board by the province [ofKwaZulu-Natal]
for nature conservation.
12For further reading on bargaining see Lebow, RN 1996. The Art o/Bargaining.London. The Johns Hopkins University Press.
If the state decides to give back such land to the communities it has to publicly announce its intention to dispose of its land so that it can invite bids for the purchase of such land. In this regard the state will be a seller of agricultural land. At the same time the land that is free of claims can be offered to the general public through land redistribution for agricultural development. It should therefore be understood that state land is one prime resource that the government has at its disposal to contribute to the success of the land redistribution programme.