The Preservation and Development of Agricultural Land Act

The Preservation and Development of Agricultural Land Act, 2024 Act 39 of 2024 was published in the Government Gazette (52009) on 29 January 2025. The Act was assented to by the President on 20 December 2024 but has not yet commenced. We await further directions from the Government on when exactly the Act will be promulgated and come into operation.

This Act can be seen as a positive step forward on the part of the Government in:

“RECOGNISING that it is in the national interest to preserve and promote the sustainable development of agricultural land for the production of food and other agricultural products for the primary purpose of sustaining and enhancing human life for the benefit of present and future generations.

RECOGNISING FURTHER the need for a national regulatory framework to coordinate the preservation and development of agricultural land in a proactive manner, to prevent the fragmentation of agricultural land, to minimise the loss of agricultural land, to promote viable farming units, to encourage the optimal use of agricultural land and to provide for food security; ACKNOWLEDGING that high value agricultural land is a scarce and non-renewable resource and that the pressures exerted on agricultural land make it increasingly difficult to effectively and sustainably produce sufficient food;” [Preamble to the Act].

The Act also arises out of the State’s appreciation that it is a constitutional imperative to protect the environment, secure the sustainable development of natural resources, and ensure that everyone has access to food by preserving and ensuring the optimal use of agricultural land. Time will tell whether this Act is a tool for the greater good.

Objects of the Act
The objects of this Act are to—

(a) promote the preservation and sustainable development of agricultural land;

(b) establish evaluation and classification systems for agricultural land;

(c) demarcate protected agricultural areas to ensure that agricultural land is preserved and protected against non-agricultural uses in order to promote long-term agricultural production;

(d) implement a coordinated national framework, including norms, standards and authorisations for the use of agricultural land to —

(i) promote and encourage viable farming units from a long-term economic, environmental and social perspective;

(ii) discourage land use changes from agricultural to non-agricultural uses to prevent the fragmentation of the agro-ecosystems; and

(iii) facilitate concurrent land uses on agricultural land without jeopardising long term food security;

(e) provide for mitigating measures to counteract the loss of agricultural land and the impact of non-agricultural developments on agricultural production capacity; and

(f) establish a national agro-eco information system with geo-referenced information to support the objects of this Act.

The Act recognises and entrenches principles such as agro-ecosystem management; productivity, stability, resiliency, viability, and equitability.

These principles, so the Act goes on to record, apply to all agricultural land within the Republic and must be applied when:

“(a) assessing applications for agro-ecosystem authorisations; (b) determining norms and standards; (c) developing provincial agricultural sector plans; (d) declaring protected agricultural areas; and (e) all actions and decisions made in respect of agricultural land.”

Importantly, this Act expressly includes Forestry and covers the forestry and logging industry.

“Agricultural purposes” is defined in the Act as meaning practices associated with the use of agricultural land for crop and animal production, keeping of animals, including wild animals, forestry and logging, fishing and aquaculture, including the use of land for structures, buildings and dwelling units reasonably necessary for, or related to, the agricultural use of land.

“Agriculture” is further defined in the Act as meaning the science, practice, occupation or economic activity in all its aspects concerned with the keeping or active production of useful plants, fungi or animals for— (a) bio-fuel; (b) fibre; (c) food; or (d) other agricultural goods or services, and includes, in varying degrees, the preparation or marketing of the resulting products.

This bodes well for challenging and objecting to any developments, project and/or mining and prospecting applications on farms, for example, where the intended land use does not comply with the principles set out above, or where the ultimate result will be a destruction of the land or undermining of the sustainability of the environment.

The Act further mandates Government to develop Provincial agricultural sector plans which, inter alia, “coordinate and harmonise agricultural land use policies, plans, programmes and decisions of organs of state aimed at promoting, achieving and preserving a sustainable agricultural environment”. Government further has the ability under the Act to declare nationally and provincially protected agricultural areas and to ensure that only approved activities for “agricultural purposes” takes place in such areas.

The reactions to the Act have been quite mixed with a number of political parties and stakeholders being quite disparaging of the Act, believing it to be open to exploitation.

Several agricultural organisations are concerned that these provisions could give government the power to prescribe to individual enterprises what they should do regarding production; for example, prescribe which crops to plant. It may therefore have the potential to limit the landowner’s ability to determine how the land they own should be utilised and what is the most appropriate use of such land. Agriculture union TLU SA says “the Preservation and Development of Agricultural Land Act is nothing more than a veil for greater state control, and a direct threat to the future of agriculture in South Africa. The law signed by President Cyril Ramaphosa on Monday, aims to support long-term food production. TLU SA’s, Bennie Van Zyl, says the law runs almost parallel to the Expropriation Act and signals a planned attack on farmers’ independence and decision- making ability” [Bulletin, 30 January 2025, Thuso Mokoena]

However, on a positive note the objective of the law is to protect agricultural land against short-sighted residential, industrial and especially mining development. Strip mining removes the arable topsoil to exploit the minerals deeper down. Sometimes, the consequences are irreversible. The law determines principles that need to be implemented when using agricultural land for other purposes. It also stipulates lists of impermissible activities as well as activities that may continue without obtaining permission have to be compiled. This can provide greater direction for land use and sustainable activities.

AgriSA, Kwanalu and its members have actively engaged in shaping this legislation and they believe that it “provides significant protection for South African agriculture by strengthening land-use limitations and ensuring a stable, thriving agricultural sector. The Act’s effective future implementation relies heavily on the creation of further regulations and norms and standards”.

They go on to state that “we will continue to engage with government to support effective implementation and safeguard the interests of our members.

As recorded at the outset, time will tell whether this Act will be deployed for the benefit of farmers and the environment, or it will be exploited and abused and used to control the use of agriculture according to someone’s agenda. It may be that like other legislation, it becomes a white elephant or relic that is very seldom used if at all.

Watch this space!

Source: NCT

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