90% of land reform projects in South Africa have failed
Theo de Jager, executive director at Southern African Agri Initiative (SAAI), said that very few land reform projects have been successful.
He added that politicians confuse unused land with operational farms, which require complex business models, continuous capital, and market access to survive.
De Jager shared his views during a panel discussion at the Expropriation Conference held in June 2026.
He explained that one of the key issues for farmers is the difference between raw land and an operational farm.
“Not all land is a farm. A farm is a piece of land, but it is much more than that. It requires a business plan, capital investment, and active management,” he said.
This is the issue which Zimbabwe is grappling with. They took the land and now want to compensate the former farm owners for the improvements.
However, those improvements are long gone. “That infrastructure is what turned raw land into a farm,” he said.
A similar situation is playing out in South Africa through land reform projects, where productive farms are given to black beneficiaries.
De Jager highlighted that 90% of land reform projects have failed on a business level. However, this is a best-case scenario.
“I still want to see the remaining 10%. While there are successful farms out there, they are few and far between,” he said.
He said the main reason for the failure isn’t that beneficiaries don’t know how to farm, as the majority do.
“The issue is that they cannot do so profitably. The business model simply doesn’t add up,” De Jager said.
“They lose connection to mainstream commercial markets and end up producing solely for their own subsistence.”
He said that the situation means that commercial agriculture degrades into smallholder operations and subsistence farming.
“Unfortunately, this dismantles our greatest economic asset in rural areas: the commercial businesses, the job creators, and the exporters,” he said.
He said that the land reform projects destroy successful commercial farms, which generate foreign currency in the country’s poorest regions.
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Take the emotions and racially loaded bias out of the land reform matter and this is logic that Mr de Jager states.
What presently happens that more people loose out in the mainstream agriculture due to lack of knowledge and capital .
The, taxpayer pays for this more than once.
When reform of working farms are done … let existing business experts …please not government employees …and existing successfully farmers approve of the model that is going to be followed.
Nothing beats experience and mentorship.
Finally there must be proof of Financials and capital to carry this for first few years .
If no commercial institutions is willing to finance this.. the red lights are screaming STOP.
THE LANDBANK is not a viable option …it loses taxpayer money .
Guess logic will be lost on the decision makers