LETTER: Teach the people how to farm
Agricultural colleges should teach as well as offer monitoring and support to guide new farmers
The government’s latest madness, changing the law to allow the confiscation of farms, is of great concern. It indicates that the essence the problems of SA today, and how to solve them, is far from being understood. For ownership to be effective, a system that is lawful and works is essential. The first thing to do is fix the schooling system which is broken. Modern farming is technically demanding and requires educated people with a high level of skills. The government should open a string of agricultural colleges to teach people how to farm. It should set up monitoring and support structures to help and guide new farmers. It should sell to graduates the vast amount of idle government-owned land, with soft loans. It should also sell the hundreds of thousands of hectares of prime Transkei and Ciskei land, some of the best in the country, currently hopelessly underused and farmed by a feudal system in a modern world. The government should buy or expropriate at market value white-owne...
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