WHITE South African farmers are watching with mounting unease as the Government finalises plans to take over a white-owned farm and hand the land to descendants of its original black owners.

The seizure, which follows the failure of talks lasting more than two years between the authorities and an Afrikaner family, will signal the end of the willing seller/willing buyer policy. Other white farmers fear that it could mark the start of a far more aggressive land redistribution programme.

Land ownership is a sensitive issue in a country that has been spared the violent seizures without compensation of neighbouring Zimbabwe, where more than 4,000 white-owned farms have been taken over since 2000. The Government has faced growing criticism of foot-dragging over the politically explosive issues and recently changed the law to allow expropriation to take place without court approval. Most of South Africa ’s 40 million people live in rural areas, and they are overwhelmingly black and poor.

Eleven years after the end of apartheid, the Government has transferred slightly more than 3 per cent of agricultural land previously reserved for whites to black owners. Another 27 per cent must follow to meet the official target of 30 per cent black ownership by 2014.

Thoko Didiza, the Land Affairs Minister, said at the weekend that she would submit plans to the Cabinet next month to make the pace of land reform ten times faster.

She said: “The quicker we deal with this land issue, the better for all of us. It creates an uncertainty, not just for South Africans, but for others who want to develop partnerships with us and who keep asking when this will end.” She added that the target was not negotiable and that “policy, not the deadline, will have to change”.

The compulsory purchase of Leeuwsprit Farm in Lichtenburg, about 160 miles west of Johannesburg, which reignited the debate, was approved by Blessing Mphela, the North West Land Claims Com- missioner. He said that it was the last option after negotiations with Frans Visser, 82, and his son, Hannes, 47, had failed.

The Government had offered 1.75 million rands (£154,000) but the Visser family was holding out for R3 million for two adjacent farms totalling 500 hectares (1,235 acres).

The Vissers, who bought the land from other Afrikaner farmers in 1968, maintain that they should also be compen- sated for improvements that they have made. They argue that the Government is offering them only the value of the land rather than the value of the entire venture.

The family has pledged to fight the order. Lizanne Burger, 51, Mr Visser’s daughter, said: “We have yet to receive the papers, but we have been told they are on the way.” Her brother, Hannes, said that he would appeal against the order and fight it in the courts. He said: “I do not recognise the claim and cannot be forced to sell at the Government’s price.” He added that he had invested R3.4 million in the cattle and sheep farm as recently as 1994-98, for which he should also be compensated.

Thousands of black families were forcibly removed from their land during white minority rule. Some sold under pressure, but title deeds show voluntary sales. Others were forced out of areas that were suddenly designated for whites only.

Mr Visser’s black neighbours successfully argued before the Land Commission that the land on which Leeuwsprit Farm is located had been taken from them against their will in 1939.

WHO OWNS WHAT

1 white-owned farm has been seized in Namibia

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