top of page

Climate Change Driving Grain to New Areas, Move Meeting Resistance

South Africa's largest grain producers' group would challenge government efforts to expropriate land for redistribution to blacks if the compensation offered falls below market prices, its chief executive said on Tuesday.

The ruling African National Congress (ANC) has brought an expropriation bill to parliament to let the state make compulsory purchases of land to redress racial disparities in land ownership. The bill has yet to be passed into law.

De Villiers said climate change and the loss of cropland to coal mining operations in the eastern Mpumalanga province was forcing the industry to try to expand production of maize, South Africa's staple crop, to new areas."If you look at climate change it is wetter along the coast and drier in the north west," De Villiers said.

Nick Vidal-Hall

bottom of page