Changing the Constitution to accelerate land reform is unnecessary and threatens property rights for no good reason, says the Centre for Development and Enterprise (CDE) in its latest report ‘Agriculture, Land Reform and Jobs: Can South Africa make this work?’.

The CDE said that while it opposed changing the Constitution, it was not opposed to land reform.

“We strongly support a version of accelerated land reform that boosts rather than threatens agricultural growth and jobs, that draws on the strengths of the private sector and that secures and expands property rights. Such a programme must be implemented to serve social justice and must ensure that millions of South Africans can access the opportunities generated by a growing, urbanising economy,” said the organisation.

In its report, the CDE makes recommendations, which it believes must be implemented for the country to have a thriving agricultural sector that generates employment and redistributes land to black farmers.

CDE says the country needs a more labour intensive economy and that agriculture could play a part, if restitution claims are resolved.

Agriculture has not make the contribution to job creation that experts believe it could have because of the way in which the land reform programme has been implemented to date, says the CDE.

“The biggest challenge is the way in which the restitution programme has put large tracts of potentially productive land in limbo and discouraged long term investments, as unresolved claims drag on for years and years,” it said.

Another recommendation is for an accelerated, realistic and effective approach to restitution, redistribution and security of tenure, especially urban land reform that “does not extend the apartheid city with all its disadvantages for the poor”.

The CDE says land reform needs to be sufficiently large to genuinely reform the sector, and well-designed and well-resourced enough to ensure beneficiaries are better off.

The organisation warns against transferring risks to other parts of the economy, such as banks, in the form of impaired loans and households with higher food prices.

The CDE also recommended drawing on the strengths of the private sector, which it says has a wealth of experience and expertise in agri-business and -processing, and, increasingly, in making land reform work.

Private-sector-led initiatives to support land reform and new black farmers are evident across agricultural subsectors, it says.

“Across the agricultural sector large producers, voluntary organisations and other private sector actors have initiated schemes to provide resources, access to finance and shared know-how for new black farmers. These initiatives, if properly supported, could enhance the capacity of new farmers and unleash real potential for growth, to the advantage of land reform beneficiaries and their local economies,” it said.

In its report the CDE says higher investment rates are needed to make land more productive, and create the possibility of an increased demand for labour.

The organisation says new jobs will not be created unless the productivity of the land is improved, and added that productivity will not improve unless investments into agriculture continue to increase. Government cannot generate such investments, so growth and jobs in agriculture can only be produced by the private sector, it stated.

Its final recommendation is to formulate a rural development strategy.

The CDE claims that the country has never had a properly conceived strategy and added that a rural development strategy should recognise that almost 70% of the country is urbanised and that people need secure living areas.

It suggests that opportunities for the poor and unemployed are best created in well-managed, enterprise-friendly cities that move away from the apartheid spatial segregation.