The South African government has conceded that 30% of land it has bought since the end of apartheid for redistribution to black farmers has been resold by the beneficiaries, often to the original owners

The admission by Land Reform Minister Gugile Nkwinti came as his long-delayed green paper on the controversial issue was met with scepticism, both by commercial farmers and pro-poor campaigners. All, however, agree that the agricultural system that was put in place under apartheid earns valuable export income for the country, but that it risks imploding if it is not tackled. The various groups worry that the situation could eventually replicate that of Zimbabwe, when the implementation of land reform policy was met with widespread violence and economic meltdown. Eighty per cent of South African produce still comes from 15% of its farms, most of them large-scale and white-owned. Clear figures are not available showing how much land is owned by different groups in South Africa. The government claims that 7% has passed to black farmers but Agri SA puts the figure at 15%, claiming that the government itself owns up to a third. The 12-page green paper on land reform proposes replacing the existing Land Claims Commission with two new bodies that would have the controversial power to invalidate deeds and set values. This would abolish the willing-buyer, willing-seller principle, which requires the government to pay market rates. Nkwinti said that principle "distorts the markets", adding that the government has already spent 40 billion rands (£3.4 billion) on land purchases. In future, he said, it would buy land at fair rates and lease it to black farmers. Commercial farmers and the opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) claim that abolishing the existing system would violate the constitutional principle of property rights. "Appointing a non-independent body to determine compensation is open to abuse," said DA spokeswoman Lindiwe Mazibuko. But the government faces powerful internal and grassroots pressures to redress racial and economic imbalances in farming and land ownership. Ever since the founding of the African National Congress in 1912, the land question has been at the core of the South African black struggle. The system put in place after the first all-race elections in 1994 has moved slowly to redress the imbalances in land ownership in South Africa. Nkwinti admitted that the government no longer expected to reach its target of redistributing 30% of farmland to black farmers by 2014. After several big resettlement failures it then stopped handing out any acquired land in 2008. But many think that the framework proposed in the green paper – under which the government would lease land to black farmers – was unlikely to succeed either. Pro-poor activist Andile Mngxitama said that the green paper's proposal to create two new bodies to administer land distribution just appeared to replace one layer of ineffective bureaucracy with another.