CP- AGRICULTURE POLICY

AGRICULTURE AND LAND REFORM
Introduction
The Bible indicates the great importance of agriculture in the economy of a country and also how
God uses the harvests of a country to bless His children. The example of Joseph in Egypt and its abundant crops still serves as a guideline in the modern times.
It has enabled us to be a net exporter of food, and it has the potential to be a vibrant area of opportunity creation for many disadvantaged South Africans. Food security underpins the sustainability of any democracy.
The recent chaos in Zimbabwe has shown what can happen to a country when government intervenes in the agricultural sector of its economy for purely political purposes. This is the one scenario which we as South Africans must learn from and avoid at all costs.
Agriculture is one of the mother industries of South Africa which forms the basis for economic growth in many other sectors of our economy. Rural development is dependent on the sustainability of the agriculture sector.
Agriculture has become a political battlefield during the past decade with the constant political intervention by different political parties for their own benefit. In the process agriculture as a sector has been neglected and the land reform program grinded to a virtual standstill bogged down by mismanagement and corruption. Balancing the rights of owners, tenants, workers and claimants is proving to be more complex and challenging than anticipated.
The Christian Party will stimulate agricultural production and remove the obstacles holding up land distribution and restitution. We will ensure that South Africa can once more become self-sufficient in food, and that many more people can benefit from the life changing opportunities of a successful land reform program.
The Christian Party identified the following building blocks to ensure a vibrant agricultural sector in
South Africa. They should be regarded as intertwined and not viewed in isolation:
1. Commercial Agriculture
The Christian Party would review government policy on agriculture to create an enabling environment where commercial farmers can maximize their production and sustainability to ensure the long-term viability of our rural development. This enabling environment that must be created includes the rural infrastructure development and its maintenance. This will also entail reversing the current situation where farmers must cope with exorbitantly high prices on the input side and collusion on the processing side that keeps the prices of agricultural produce low while the prices that consumers pay are constantly being increased. There is very little protection in the way of tariffs or subsidies for farmers and they are often unable to compete against the price of the dumped products from the heavily subsidized markets of the EU and other countries.
The recognition of the importance and the role of the commercial farming sector will be paramount to ensure stability and enhanced investment in this sector. This recognition will also alleviate the pressure on our urban environments with the reduction of people seeking employment in our cities. We should involve the commercial sector in mentoring and training new entrants to farming.
2. Developmental Agriculture
The Christian Party would review the current policy and strategies implemented to settle emerging farmers on the land. The sector is currently viewed as in opposition to commercial farmers and are also treated as such. The Christian Party would provide an enabling environment that would include greater financial and technical support for both land reform recipients and current small scale farmers so that they can create a viable livelihood from farming and move towards becoming fully fledged commercial farmers.
This ideal can only be achieved when we view the farming sector as inclusive and consisting of farmers at different stages of development. There must be a partnership between the State and the farming sector on the needs of the sector to be sustainable. There has been widespread failure to support beneficiaries who wish to farm commercially and the maximal economic benefits of redress are not being realized. The slow pace of change has resulted in growing frustrations of the landless coupled to threats of Zimbabwe-styled invasions.
3. Research and Extension Services
The Christian Party will ensure that there is adequate funding for agricultural research in South Africa, we question the reliance on failed models of industrial agriculture that have damaged our soils, rivers and the sustainability of farming.
The CP will revitalize all the different research institutions and experimental farms to ensure adequate support to the whole agricultural sector. We will make the provision of extension services to the farming sector the cornerstone of the developmental agriculture strategy.
We would put in place greater measures to protect our biodiversity. We believe that greater access to information should be afforded to the public with regards to both GMO products and the labeling of food products.
4. Rural Development
The Christian Party regards the lack of rural development as one of the greatest tragedies of the past decades; we believe that a paradigm shift is needed in our approach to our rural areas.
The priorities for development must include the establishment of agri-villages, the urgent provision of quality services such as schools, clinics, electricity, water and sanitation, road infrastructure and local economic development initiatives.
The Christian Party would therefore institute a comprehensive rural development program that would include research, land reform and economic development of our rural areas to turn these areas in self sustaining vibrant economic units. We will look at countries like South Korea who have successfully achieved this.

5. Natural Resources
a) Land care and usage
The Christian Party will ensure that enough resources are available to ensure proper land care and will strictly enforce legislation and regulations to ensure compliance. We will also institute comprehensive training and education in all our communities to change the current attitudes towards land care.
The State needs to secure land for the purpose of ensuring the long-term security of tenure for poor communities. Prime agricultural land should not be allowed to be used for permanent housing. We need to ensure the continued productive use of agricultural land. Provinces should have greater powers to address the land issues; this will promote locally-acceptable solutions.
b) Soil conservation
The Christian Party will make soil conservation one of our national priorities and will also ensure sufficient funding towards it. Programs will be instituted making use of the extended public works program to construct proper drainage ditches, contours to ensure that we combat soil erosion. Declining soil quality is found to be having a huge impact on the profitability of our agricultural sector. The Christian Party believes that we should aim to increase the land set aside for conservation to meet the international standard of 10 percent. It is also important for the surrounding communities to be more involved in decision making and sharing of the benefits from national parks as past policy excluded them and generated animosity towards conservation ideals.
c) Water
The Christian Party recognizes the importance of water in agriculture and that South Africa is a water scarce country. Our environmental policy deals with the matter.
d) Food Security
The Christian Party will promote food security and will encourage households to produce the maximum food for their own consumption. We will also encourage a “Joseph Policy” to ensure enough maize reserves to make provision for adverse climate conditions. The current government has placed most of its emphasis on the large scale farming sector while neglecting the needs of small scale producers.
We believe a central component of increasing household food security and building self-reliant communities is through the propagation of food gardens. In order to encourage such a practice we would be in favour of establishing a large scale permaculture centre of excellence that could train agricultural extension workers to empower rural households to use the resources of their land optimally.

e) Markets
We will create an environment which will enable our farmers to compete with the rest of the world and to explore new markets. We will also encourage them to produce food in ways that is environmentally friendly like organic farming.
6. Land Reform
Here we must distinguish between land distribution and land restitution in our agricultural policy:
a) Land distribution
The Christian Party will speed up the pace of land reform, by increasing the land reform budget to an amount that can realistically allow targets to be reached.
Government must budget sufficient funds for the reform programs and commit to fair market value and to providing adequately for post-settlement costs.
The Christian Party would conduct land audits in all municipalities to see what land is held by what entities, public and private. The IDP would then be used as the basis in procuring land that is needed for specific purposes.
The Christian Party will conduct an audit of the land held by the state, with a view to make the millions of hectares of un-surveyed state-owned land, available for redistribution. Where possible all unproductive State land that is not being used for a certain purpose, must be transferred to communities.
The Christian Party believes that the State should also look at the land market to buy land, as this can accelerate the redistribution of land. We need to be more proactive while still adhering to the constitutional provision that appropriate compensation must be paid.
Although a legal framework governing land redress is necessary, underpinning it should be a search for common solutions. Policy should as far as is possible, be developed in a manner that builds common purpose rather than provokes division.
Local forums should be established in rural areas to identify available land, identify potential trouble spots and to find proactive solutions. Claimants, tenants, workers and owners have genuine concerns which need to be respected and dealt with and all stakeholders must be seen as part of the solution.
The Christian Party would together with the Houses of Traditional Leaders, review all policy and legislation pertaining to communal land.
The Christian Party would place a much greater emphasis on the post-distribution phase of the process.
b) Land restitution
Returning the land appropriated under apartheid laws is central to healing the divisions of South Africa’s past. Land reform constitutes one of the most contested of the post-1994 government transformational programs, pitting against each other black claimants and white farmers, land owners and tenants, successful claimants and government, traditional communities and government, homeless persons and municipalities.
Indeed, dealing with the complex issues surrounding land reform has enormous consequences for the country in respect of agricultural production, economic opportunity, race relations, black socio-economic advancement and human dignity. The status quo, despite being the centerpiece of government policy for well over a decade, is unfortunately less than ideal. Thus: The manner in which the historical legacy has been addressed has unnecessarily fuelled tensions and conflicts.
Government has failed to successfully implement its own policies and has transferred the blame to others. Government has set unattainable objectives, resulting in both failure and the invocation of unnecessary and counter-productive measures such as expropriation and threats to amend the Constitution. In addition to addressing funding short-falls that plague the restitution program,
The Christian Party will:
•Help to build skills-transfer partnerships between beneficiaries, farmers and rural industries, while building on successful partnerships already in place.
•Ensure that the Land Bank is professionally managed and free of corruption, so that emerging farmers can get all the help they require to become productive.
The Christian Party would ensure that land reform recipients actually stay on the land rather than only farm on it periodically.
Agriculture will form the basis of the Christian Party’s rural economic policy.

http://www.cp.org.za/images/CP_Agriculture_Policy_2008.pdf