In a David and Goliath-like battle, three farmers have been successful in their bid to halt the Department of Rural Development and Land Reform (DALRRD) from allocating portions of a Beaufort West farm to any other person pending the approval of a 30-year farming lease they are to be granted.
The Legal Resources Centre (LRC) represented Johannes Bezuidenhout, Herold Bezuidenhout and Jan Berg –three beneficiaries of the state’s land redistribution programme – in their recent Western Cape High Court battle.
This declaratory relief will help others in the same position to better understand and navigate the department’s redistribution programmes and compel the department to amend its processes to create a more transparent system, said LRC attorney Cecile van Schalkwyk.
The LRC said the farmers became beneficiaries as the department’s land redistribution programme gave access to them “as a means to eradicate the discriminatory land ownership patterns that prevailed under apartheid”.
“The applicants, who had formed a farming entity called Nuveld, applied, (were) interviewed, and were recommended by the National Land Acquisition and Allocation Control Committee (NLAACC) as the preferred candidates for the lease.
“Despite this recommendation, in September 2020 the acting chief director: Western Cape Provincial Shared Services decided not to award the lease to Nuveld, for reasons that the department refused to disclose to the three.
On April 4 last year, the farmers filed an application in the Western Cape High Court to review and set aside the decision.”
Despite this ongoing litigation, officials from the department recently decided to “unlawfully, and without following any of the department’s policies and procedures for land allocation”, allocate two portions of Plateau Farm to two former beneficiaries despite them never even applying for such access, the LRC said.
“On January 17, 2024 and February 7, 2024, an official accompanied the two former beneficiaries to the farm, cut off Nuveld’s locks on the gates to the farm and forcibly took possession of the land.
“The court found that these actions amounted to the unlawful dispossession of the land and immediately restored the farmers’ possession,” the LRC said.
Bezuidenhout, who is now the chief director of Nuveld Farming Empowerment operating at Plateau Farm in Beaufort West in the Central Karoo, said they were elated by the outcome.
“Our 30-year-lease agreement is yet to be finalised at the same court in which we made an application to the department. Our main concern going into this legal battle was that we may have people sitting without jobs if we then had to scale down our farming to accommodate other farmers on the portions of land that we have been using since 2017.
“Our sheep farming business started in earnest after we applied for the land redistribution programme offered by the department. We started with only 50 sheep on the farm but this has grown over the years and currently we have 1 900 sheep.
“While farming privately for about seven years and having won big accolades against larger commercial farmers, we are on the verge of going commercial but this is dependent on the lease agreement. The litigation process was gruelling and at times very traumatising but we are happy at the outcome,” he said.
The farmers’ sheep farming operations became highly successful, and in 2020 as well as 2023 their wool obtained the highest average price for the Beaufort West region at the national wool auction in Gqeberha. Herold said he looked forward to the next step in their plans to trade commercially.
“We are happy with the court outcome which will see our business stand a greater chance for job creation and business growth. Though at times it seemed like we were in a battle, we have thankfully made it through.
“While we have been successful at a number of competitions and have won prize money for it, that funding went straight back into the business,” said Herold.
DALRRD spokesperson Vuyani Nkasayi said the department would abide by the court order.
“The department will respect the decision of the court and is in the process to give effect to the court order.”
Cape Times