Poor land policy feeds insecurity

IN HIS new guise as an academic, former Reserve Bank governor Tito Mboweni offered some pithy comments on the economy this week and had some trenchant things to say about SA’s land and agriculture policies. Mr Mboweni, who has tried his hand at farming in Limpopo, said poor policy alignment and the poor relationship between land restitution and agricultural performance would haunt SA for a long time.

 
He laid into Land Reform Minister Gugile Nkwinti after the African National Congress’s (ANC’s) national general council at the weekend endorsed his idea that commercial farmers hand over 50% of their farms to workers. As economists do, Mr Mboweni pointed to the fact that in effect, the incentives for the land reform minister were wrong — the key performance indicator was how much land is taken away from commercial farmers and given to disadvantaged communities. “He does not think what is the likely impact of this on food production,” Mr Mboweni lamented.

 
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