The research shows that only 11% of South Africa’s commercial farmland has been transferred through land reform since the 1990s, far from the original 30% target set in 1994. It could take another 48 years to meet this target if current trends continue.
The national budget was announced on 12 March 2025, where 0.4% was budgeted for land reform. The analysis reveals that while land reform funding has always been below 1%, the 2025 planned national expenditure for it is still lower than pre-COVID numbers. The highest amount apportioned to the intervention was from 2007 to 2009, when it was at 1.09%.
Regarding land redistribution, the total number of hectares acquired by the government has dramatically decreased from 392,000 hectares in 2011/12 to just over 67,000 (67,376) hectares in 2023/24. Overall, 9.5 million hectares have been transferred through all land reform efforts since 1996, constituting 11% of commercial farmland.
The land restitution budget, which funds the return of ancestral land and financial compensation for displaced communities, has shrunk considerably — now at less than half of its 2007/08 peak.
PLAAS researchers argued that rather than buying large farms at market prices, the government should prioritise looking at strategically located land for urban agriculture, small businesses, and urban and rural communities in need. Hectares don’t always translate into real social value for citizens.
“With the constrained budget, the government should re-orient itself to buying, negotiating for, and where necessary, expropriating properties in the places where land is urgently needed - in and around towns and cities to underpin urban agriculture, small business and other livelihood opportunities; around the communal areas where livestock owners and small farmers need more land; and, in those parts of the country where farm workers and dwellers need land of their own, especially those who have been evicted.”
“This budget allocation does not reflect a serious commitment to meaningful land reform,” says PLAAS researcher, Nkanyiso Gumede. “Without bold policy shifts, South Africa risks failing its land redistribution goals.”
PLAAS also highlighted that from their studies, an entire area of a farm would be cited as ‘transferred’ if a worker trust acquired a minority share in it. This means figures could be drastically misleading, inflating the amount of land counted as transferred, which was never transferred.
There are further grey areas as land is often transferred, but the claimants or beneficiaries cannot move on to the land or make land use decisions. The only outcome then is that people get rental income, often along with displacement of farm jobs to some of the claimants. PLAAS also noted gaps for double-counting and land reform reversals as other reasons why statistics do not provide the full picture.
The full policy statement is available HERE
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