‘Most capable farmers in SA are black people’: EFF’s Floyd Shivambu on calls for equal distribution of land

EFF deputy president Floyd Shivambu says black people should be given equal access to land as they are among the “most excellent farmers” in the country.

Shivambu was speaking at the annual Black Business Council summit in Midrand on Thursday.

He said the lack of land ownership by black people demonstrates the government is not committed to the empowerment of Africans.

Shivambu was responding to a question about what the EFF is doing to prepare black people for land ownership.

“The majority of capable farmers in SA are black people. The majority of supervisors are white people because they own the land. The most excellent farmers and miners in the entire value chain are black people, but they don’t have the land, they are not plugged into the entire food and economic value chain because of systematic exclusion,” he said.

He said among the challenges faced by black farmers is a lack of financial support from institutions like the Land Bank, which lends to white farmers at the exclusion of black farmers.

Shivambu said farming is a source of employment for black people and helps relieve the pressure of job creation from the private sector, which had shed millions of jobs since the pandemic hit in 2020. 

“We have to admit at the centre of our problems is a confused, directionless and captured former liberation movement that does not know what should happen moving forward.”

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