The president’s advisory panel on land reform and agriculture was never going to have an easy job. It was tasked, from the outset, with delving into the complexities of land in a country where the issue is directly linked to the oppression and economic injustice that resulted from colonialism and, later, from "colonialism of a special kind" — apartheid.

In 1955 the Freedom Charter underscored the importance of land, noting that "the land shall be shared among those who work it". Almost 65 years later, and 25 years into constitutional democracy, land is still a burning issue in SA...