Zuma values white farmers - Mulder
August 31, 2009
By Donwald Pressly
Deputy Agriculture Minister Pieter Mulder last week said that his appointment sent an important signal to white farmers - Afrikaners in particular - that President Jacob Zuma's government was serious about them.
He believed this was a significant shift from being viewed as "settlers" as former president Thabo Mbeki had done. "A message of hope is worth more than anything else," he said.
The conservative Freedom Front Plus leader, appointed by Zuma in May, said while he had not yet identified legislative mechanisms to protect commercial farmers, it was important that ways were found for black and white farmers to work together to establish farming operations and economic models that work.
Farming had become more technical and the support structures, such as marketing boards and subsidies, had fallen away. But he said the notion that land given to the poor would do away with poverty was wrong.
He believed the government, particularly former minister Lulu Xingwana, had placed too much emphasis on emerging farmers and there was now a better sense of balance. Yet he was still worried that many in the government believed that "if you give everyone land you solve the poverty problem".
While there was an argument that the farming mix should include subsistence farming, access to "land doesn't necessarily equal wealth", he said.
The number of commercial farms had halved from 70 000 10 years ago to 35 000 today, amid increased competition. Production remained roughly the same, but farms were being farmed more efficiently.
It was imperative that food production stayed strong and that commercial farmers were welcomed, especially in the context of invasions of white-owned farms in Zimbabwe.
On the wall in Mulder's office hangs a picture of former South African Republic president Paul Kruger's letter of appointment to his grandfather, also Pieter Mulder, to the top judicial post in the Transvaal government. There are also many cartoons of his father, Connie, an information minister under former prime minister BJ Vorster.
Now Mulder finds himself in the somewhat awkward position of being the only opposition member in the national executive in a post that is fraught with dangers. He plays second fiddle to the ANC's Tina Joemat-Pettersson and many white commercial farmers are uneasy about their future.
He admits he has a 50 percent chance of success - of being both an opposition member and part of government - and does not want to be seen to be co-opted by the governing party. "I will never join the ANC," he said emphatically.
He already finds himself in some choppy water as he bitterly opposes the idea that the constitutionally entrenched clause protecting the willing buyer, willing seller concept should be done away with.
Mulder said this should only take place as "the very last option", noting that other choices should be explored.
There were, he said, thousands of hectares of state land that could be put to good use. Much of the land which had been transferred had not been successfully farmed and this needed sorting out.
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