Land Reform and Rural Development Minister Mzwanele Nyhontso has maintained that there will never be any compromise on the question of land, describing it as central to the ongoing struggle for genuine social and economic development, and the restoration of dignity to millions of people.
Addressing delegates at the International Conference on Agrarian Reform and Rural Development (ICARRD+20), currently underway in Cartagena de Indias, Colombia, Nyhontso said land remains at the core of South Africa’s democratic project and its unfinished liberation struggle.
“There can simply be no compromise on the question of redress for the atrocious legacies of the colonial and past regimes which continue to linger. If we do not resolve the land question, we will never resolve the climate question, let alone the hunger question,” the Minister said.
The conference attended by global stakeholders, including the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), is taking place as South Africa prepares to mark the 49th anniversary of the death of a leader of the liberation struggle Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe on 27 February 2026.
Nyhontso invoked Sobukwe’s legacy, saying land dispossession is central to the oppression of the African majority and national self-determination.
He placed South Africa’s experience within a broader Global South struggle, warning that two decades after the original ICARRD conference in Porto Alegre affirmed that equitable access to land is a prerequisite for peace and food security, land concentration has intensified and marginalisation persists.
“We are here in Cartagena to declare that land should not be allowed to be hoarded by a few as it is the foundation of life, the cradle of societies, and the ultimate guarantor of the collective survival of humankind,” the Minister said.
Nyhontso also used the platform to criticise “distortions” surrounding South Africa’s land reform and state-led land-related developments, particularly narratives alleging a so-called “white genocide.”
He disputed the claims as deliberate misinformation aimed at undermining legitimate redress measures, including expropriation in the public interest.
In Africa, Asia and Latin America, he said, forests are being enclosed and, in some instances, literally alienated for private use, and water sources are being privatised, while small-scale food producers and fishers are being pushed further to the margins of society.
“There can be no ‘just transition’ if it is associated with the displacement of small-scale producers. There can be no ‘food security’ if land and agriculture continue to be controlled by a handful of multinational corporations,” the Minister said.
Nyhontso highlighted more than three centuries of dispossession, culminating in the 1913 Natives Land Act and the aggressive institutionalisation of the oppressive machinery of apartheid from 1948 to 1993, which confined the African majority to just 13 % of the land.
“The quality of this land remains marginal, and the territories that today we refer to as communal areas, which constitute much of this land, remain overcrowded and underdeveloped.”
The ICARRD+20 conference, taking place from 24 to 28 February 2026, provides a strategic platform for governments, social movements, and international organisations to deliberate on pressing global challenges, including land and water grabbing, climate change vulnerabilities, and the need for redistributive land reform. – SAnews.gov.za
