AGRICULTURAL unions warned that calls made last week by Rural Development and Land Reform Minister Gugile Nkwinti for an overhaul of the willing buyer, willing seller model were harming investment prospects in the sector.

Theo de Jager, of farmers' union AgriSA, told Business Day on Friday he had been inundated with calls from members who had shelved investment plans until the government clarified whether it meant to expropriate farms at prices below market value.

The Transvaal Agricultural Union issued a statement expressing alarm at Nkwinti's "attack on the principle of a willing seller, willing buyer concept that does not mean any good to agriculture, especially as the expropriation option has been mentioned several times".

The Democratic Alliance (DA) also issued a statement on Friday expressing "disappointment" that Nkwinti chose to use this model as a "scapegoat for his department and his government's own failings".

"Successful economies are built on the bedrock of the protection of property rights and there is a strong symbiotic relationship between property rights and positive economic growth," the DA's shadow rural development and land reform minister Mpowele Swathe said. "The real problem is that more than 50% of farms redistributed have collapsed and are no longer productive because the department has managed the process so badly."

Nkwinti told Parliament last week that "significant changes" were needed to the willing buyer, willing seller model because the government could not afford to fund its land reform targets.

"The department will have to investigate less costly alternative methods of land acquisition," he said in his budget vote speech.

Also that day, Agriculture Minister Tina Joemat-Peterson said partnerships with organised agriculture were crucial if SA wanted to become a net food exporter again.

Spokesman Eddie Mohoebi declined to clarify if Nkwinti's comments signalled the government planned to revive the Expropriation Bill shelved last year. This law would have made it easier for the government to cap the amount of compensation paid for expropriated farms. Representatives of both farmers' unions said they had been promised a clarification meeting with Nkwinti within weeks.

Nkwinti has raised the issue of unaffordable land prices retarding land reforms several times since his appointment last month , and is unlikely to back down on the issue. Sapa reported that he also told the National Assembly last week that foreigners buying golf estates and game farms were making land unaffordable for South Africans, who could not be expected to wait much longer for land redress .

Just 6% of white-owned farmland has been distributed since 1994 , which means the government is hopelessly off track to meet its target of transferring 30% of farmland by 2014.

Stephan Hofstatter