Written by Wandile Sihlobo and Johann Kirsten
In his speech at the 5th National General Council of the African National Congress on December 8, 2025, President Cyril Ramaphosa highlighted, amongst other things, the progress the country is making in land reform.
He stated that:
“Land reform remains one of the most urgent tasks of the National Democratic Revolution. Some economists estimate that almost 25% of all farm land previously owned by white land owners has been restored, redistributed or moved to state ownership.
But there is still a greater hunger for land, and much work remains to be done to give effect to the Constitutional requirement that all citizens have equitable access to land.
Key tasks ahead include improving support systems for beneficiaries of land reform. We need to accelerate the processing of outstanding restitution claims and resolve disputes more
efficiently. Equally important is addressing urban land reform, as most South Africans now live in cities where access to well-located land and housing remains deeply unequal.”
This figure is based on my collaborative work with Professor Johann Kirsten and Johann Bornman.
Below, we provide a detailed explanation of how we arrived at this figure. We also highlight policies the government can use to fast-track the land reform programme, ensuring that black farmers become central to a growing, inclusive agricultural sector.
Land reform data
In reviewing the progress of land reform, we should be mindful that the land reform programme consists of three elements (refer to Section 25 of the Constitution): redistribution, restitution, and tenure reform.
Substantive progress has only been made in the land redistribution space and through the process of land restitution managed by the Land Claims Commission.
The progress of land reform can only be tracked where we have surveyed land, and land with title deeds registered. Even then, it is tricky as the title deeds do not record the “race” of the registered owner.
To understand the progress with land reform, it is essential to start from the correct base. How much farm land is in question here?
In 1994, total farm land with title deeds (thus outside what the apartheid government set aside for black people) covered 77.58 million hectares of South Africa’s total surface area of 122 million hectares. It is assumed, merely by the fact that black ownership of farm land in South Africa was not possible before 1991, that all 77.58 million hectares were owned by white farmers when land reform was initiated in 1994.
Let us now unpack the progress on land reform using the various data sources.
Land restitution
The land restitution process involves the restoration of land rights to black communities who lost their (registered and legally owned) farm land as a result of various forms of dispossession introduced by the apartheid-era governments after 1913.
Through the land claims process, the Land Claims Commission has transferred 4 million hectares back to communities that were previously dispossessed (Source: various annual reports of the Land Claims Commission).
What’s missing from this calculation is that communities have also been able to elect to receive financial compensation instead of obtaining formal rights to the land.
Over the years, a total of R22 billion (about US$1.1 billion) in financial compensation was paid out (Source: various annual reports of the Land Claims Commission). The commission never reported the number of hectares for which financial compensation was paid out. It took some work by us to get the number of hectares of farmland involved in financial compensation from the commission, and it has now been confirmed that a total of 2.68 million hectares have been restored in this way.
That means the restitution programme restored the land rights of black communities equivalent to 6.68 million hectares.
Land redistribution
For the first 10 years of the land reform programme, the government applied a market-assisted programme of land redistribution based on the willing-buyer-willing-seller principle. Government grants assisted the purchase of the land by groups or individual beneficiaries.
These initiatives resulted in the transfer of 7.55 million hectares of farmland to black South Africans (Source: Various annual reports by the Department of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development to Parliament). This is probably where the stubbornness of the 10% figure came from. People have focused only on one dimension of the land reform programme.
One element of redistributive land reform that is usually ignored is the private acquisition of farmland by Black South Africans outside the formal government-assisted processes. Here, individuals have used their own resources or financial arrangements with commercial banks or the Land Bank to fund the purchase of farm land.
The only way you can find the exact number of these deals is to comb through every land transaction and, based on the surnames of the seller and buyer, confirm that the land was transferred from White to Black.
The Bureau of Economic Research at Stellenbosch University estimated that since 1994, a total of 1.9 million hectares of farmland were acquired by black South Africans without the assistance of the state. This might even be an undercount because some surnames, such as Van Wyk, Van Rooyen, and even Schoeman, do not necessarily belong to white South Africans, and then there are many transactions to proprietary limited companies that are majority black owned but with typical names that would resemble an Afrikaans name, such as Sandrift Boerdery. These are not picked up in these searches.
Government acquisition
Our final source of the data is the farmland acquired by the state. The first is via the Proactive Land Acquisition Strategy (PLAS) that was introduced in 2006 after dissatisfaction with the earlier land reform efforts.
By August 2023, the state had acquired 2.54 million hectares of productive farmland through the programme and was leasing it out to beneficiaries. The State Land Holding Account Entity is the custodian of this land.
Most of the roughly 2500 beneficiaries have a 30-year lease agreement with the state.
In addition, state-owned enterprises and provincial governments have also acquired farmland, which is now used for non-agricultural purposes. A total of 630,000 hectares have been acquired over the last 30 years.
Getting to 25%
If we now add all the numbers together:
- Restitution: 6.68 million ha
- Government Land redistribution: 7.55 million ha
- Private transactions: 1.9 million ha
- Proactive Land Acquisition Strategy programme: 2.54 million ha
- Government acquisition for non-agricultural use: 0.63 million ha
This gives a total of 19.3 million ha or 24.9% of the total of all freehold farmland in South Africa. The correct way to word the statement on the progress of land reform since 1994 is therefore as follows:
Almost 25% of all farm land previously owned by white land owners has been restored, redistributed to black South Africans or moved away to state ownership.
This does not address the financial and commercial viability of the land transferred, nor does it speak to the fast-tracking of the land reform programme to bring about a just, equitable and inclusive commercial agricultural sector. Here, we need more specific policy interventions.
Policy considerations
There are vast tracts of land in government records that could be transferred to black South Africans to advance agricultural progress and land reform.
The Proactive Land Acquisition Strategy programme has about 2.54 million hectares of land. This land must be transferred to black South Africans with title deeds.
The process can be done collaboratively with the Land Bank for financing, and organised agriculture for training, amongst others.
This article originally appeared at https://wandile.substack.com/p/progress-of-land-reform-in-south
Photo by Joshua Gaunt on Unsplash
