Securing food production is more needed than land distributions

Jacob Zuma claims that "We resolved in Polokwane to redistribute 30% of the land by 2014 and to provide subsistence farming and food security, while maintaining a productive agricultural sector." This all sounds great, but I hope that he will listen less to communist idealists and more to does that actually have some knowledge about food security.

If South Africa is going to withstand the growing pressure from the food insecurity that currently swipe (and probably will swipe for years on) the world there has to be some structural change of the agricultural sector among the poorest communities. Although old traditions should be respected and cherished one can now see, in for example in KZN, how the old farming methods are crippling the food production and forcing people to seek jobs in town because they can not survive on their land. And this is NOT a exclusive question of land distribution, but rather a question of old tribal laws and rules that inhibits a sound agricultural development in South Africa.

The population density in parts of South Africa are not the same as they were in those days the current agricultural traditions were introduced. Putting it a bit dramatically we have the choice to keep up the old fashion traditions, or we can modify and modernise them, and hence survive.

Mail & Guardian
Mail & Guardian