Water Bill threatens food security - IRR
‘Under the draft National Water Amendment Bill of 2023 (the Water Bill)’, says the IRR, ‘the government aims to transfer many of the water-use rights vital to commercial agriculture to emergent farmers lacking title to land, working capital, and a host of other vital inputs. The Bill is thus likely to curtail production, push up food prices, and terminate many thousands of farming jobs, even as it brings few gains to new farmers.’
The Water Bill was gazetted in November 2023 with a deadline for public comment set at 16th January 2024. Much of this eight-week period was taken up by school holidays and the festive season, when most South Africans are focused on family and friends. The time allowed for comment was therefore far too short.
In 2022 South Africa’s agricultural output, thanks mainly to new production technologies and better farming skills, was twice its 1994 total. In 2022 farming jobs numbered some 956 000, while agricultural exports rose to a record $12.8bn (roughly R225bn). In addition, the country ranked 59th out of 113 nations on the Global Food Security Index, making it the most food-secure country in sub-Saharan Africa.
At the same time, South Africa still has two largely separate farming spheres. As Wandile Sihlobo, chief economist of the Agricultural Business Chamber of South Africa, writes in his recent book A Country of Two Agricultures: ‘On the one hand, we have a subsistence, primarily non-commercial and black farming segment; and, on the other, we have predominantly commercial and white farmers.’
Says the IRR’s head of policy research, Dr Anthea Jeffery: ‘This situation calls for innovative initiatives to grow the agricultural sector and expand the number of successful commercial farmers of all races. Instead, the government wants to take away large amounts of land – and now also water – from experienced farmers and give both instead to mainly subsistence producers.’
However, having access to land and water is not nearly enough for successful commercial production. Notes Jeffery: ‘No less vital are ownership, working capital, know-how, managerial skills, labour, electricity, diesel, infrastructure, and markets. Unless these essential inputs are first put in place, new farmers will simply be set up to fail – as between 50% and 90% of land reform beneficiaries have already done.’
The Water Bill ignores all this. Instead, it seeks damaging amendments to the National Water Act of 1998, under which the government has already taken ‘trusteeship’ or ‘custodianship’ of all water resources and introduced a state-controlled system of water-use licensing.
Since this Act took effect, most commercial farmers have relied on their ‘existing lawful water use’ to keep using the water they need. However, once the Bill is made law, many could instead be compelled to obtain new ‘water-use licences’.
Says Jeffery: ‘At present, the Water Act lists 11 factors, all of which must be taken into account in assessing applications for water-use licences. These factors include the need “to redress past racial and gender discrimination”, along with the “efficient and beneficial use of water in the public interest” and “investments already made by the water user”.
‘Under the Bill, by contrast, the state must “prioritise the redress of past racial and gender discrimination” and “set aside a certain volume of water in each water management area to achieve this redress”.
‘The other ten factors will still be relevant, but will count less than racial identity. This is likely to prevent many white commercial farmers from obtaining the water-use licences they need.
‘In addition, the Water Bill gives the minister of water and sanitation vague new regulatory powers to “prescribe criteria to be considered” when providing redress. This could herald the return of the 2023 draft regulations that effectively required all large water users to enter into 75% BEE ownership deals (even though the usual BEE ownership target is 25%).’
Agriculture, though badly affected in recent years by loadshedding, water supply disruptions, sewage spills into rivers, and the rapid erosion of rail and port services, has been a rare bright spot in a sea of economic gloom.
Adds Jeffery: ‘Now the government, having denied South Africans a reasonable opportunity to comment on the Water Bill, is aiming at a forced racial redistribution of water usage which will bring great harm to the country and the great majority of disadvantaged South Africans.
‘Far from providing redress for past wrongs, the Water Bill will set emergent farmers up for failure, even as it reduces investment, production, and food security. The Bill will also curtail the agricultural exports needed to pay for oil and other imports, push up food prices and the consumer inflation rate, and worsen unemployment, poverty, and hunger.’
In its submission on the Water Bill, the IRR recommends that this draft law be scrapped.
Media Contact: Anthea Jeffery, IRR Head of Policy Research Tel: 084 827 3872 Email: ajj@irr.org.za
Media enquiries: Michael Morris Tel: 066 302 1968 Email: michael@irr.org.za
Sinalo Thuku, Tel: 073 932 8506 Email: sinalo@irr.org.za