Sheep farmers deal the state a blow in court

13 March 2024

Court rules Beaufort West farmers must get their land back.

Three emerging Beaufort West farmers have obtained an interdict to prevent portions of their farms from being allocated to land reform beneficiaries. 

The farmers, previous beneficiaries of the state’s redistribution programme, filed an application in the Western Cape High Court for an interdict against the Department of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development.

The application was recently granted and prohibits the department from entering into a 30-year lease agreement with any person on portions of their farm.

Farm children become farmers 

In 2009, the department allocated five farms in the district, collectively known as Plateau Farm, to more than 80 beneficiaries as part of its land reform project. The applicants were among these beneficiaries. All three were children of former farmworkers in the Beaufort West area and viewed access to the land as a way to erase the discriminatory land ownership patterns that prevailed under apartheid.

Their sheep-farming enterprise became successful and their wool achieved the highest average price for the Beaufort West region at the national wool auction in Gqeberha in both 2020 and 2023.

Interdict 

In December 2019, the department placed a newspaper advertisement inviting applications for a 30-year lease for portions of Plateau Farm.

The three farmers, who formed an entity called Nuveld, applied and were recommended by the National Land Acquisition and Allocation Control Committee as the preferred candidates for the lease agreement.

Despite this recommendation, they were notified in September 2020 that their application was unsuccessful, for reasons the department refused to disclose. In April 2023, the farmers asked the Western Cape High Court to review and set aside the decision.

The court heard that despite this ongoing litigation, officials of the department earlier this year decided to unlawfully allocate two portions of Plateau Farm to two disgruntled former beneficiaries, even though they had not applied for such access. 

On 17 January and 7 February this year, an official accompanied the two former beneficiaries to the farm, cut Nuveld’s locks on the access gates and forcibly took possession of the land.

The court found that this action amounted to unlawful expropriation and immediately restored ownership to the farmers.