’Land for Peace’ – A Submission to the South African Portfolio Committee on Agriculture and Land Affairs

June 2003
Roger Roman

Argues the need for landowners in South Africa to draw lessons from events in Zimbabwe and to be much more radical, proactive and imaginative in promoting needed changes in land reform, failing which they will have no future, as pressures from the landless intensify. The current status quo is unsustainable and the national effort inadequate. The private sector has a key role to play to break the current logjam. Increasing number of landowners are beginning to see the light and accept political realities. Calls for a land summit to negotiate a comprehensive agrarian transformation. The entire meaning and exercising of landownership needs to be creatively revisited and redefined. Soon to launch a Land for Peace initiative to push forward these ideas.