Dr Theo de Jager, Executive Director of SAAI, explored the specific Implications of the Expropriation Bill for Agriculture and Food Security at the FW de Klerk Foundation's Conference on Property Rights for ALL South Africans, which was co-hosted with the Konrad Adenauer Foundation last month.
Dr De Jager explains: “This whole conference was actually about threats to ownership, to private property rights. From a farmer’s perspective, to have a title, to have secure ownership, is much more than just a contract which shows that you own property - it’s the very foundation of a free market, it’s the cornerstone of capital. It is the reason why we have access to production loans, it serves as collateral. We looked at all these countries north of us - 50 of them on the African continent - that do not have free hold of farmland, which is the reason why we cannot unlock the wealth of agriculture on this continent. And we drew all these pointers back home to say, what should we do differently here? How must we make sure that the threats to property rights do not also become a threat to food security?”
Watch the full conference: bit.ly/44blLkC
