The letter “Lure youth to agriculture” (26 April) is typical of hundreds of others that promote the idea that land equals employment. It doesn’t and the argument is flawed in several respects.
Modern farming, which aims to supply food at affordable prices at scale and which can compete in export markets is a hi-tech, capital-intensive business. The US farming sector, which feeds itself and much of the world, employs just over 1% of its population.
Our obsession with land redistribution focuses on land that is productive due to years of investment and ignores state-owned land that the government can’t audit and doesn’t know what is arable and what isn’t.
There is nothing wrong with educating youngsters in agriculture as they are tomorrow’s farmers, but present ANC policy will simply create an underclass of agrarian peasantry unable to feed themselves, let alone generate a surplus.
Previous attempts to promote black farmers have failed due to corruption, lack of support mechanisms, the inability of the ANC to do anything properly (for which it is world famous), and the perennial problems of droughts and floods.
It’s absurd to suggest that it’s OK for me buy food at the local supermarket, but real Africans should toil all year in the field to grow theirs. The majority in this country need well-paid jobs, not a piece of land they can watch while it reverts to the bush.
Bernard Benson
Parklands