Host Gareth Cliff argues that South Africa’s land reform machinery can place black farmers on productive land while withholding the ownership, finance and decision-making power required to make a commercial farm work. Land access is not the same as ownership The promise of land reform is economic agency: people dispossessed by racial law should gain a durable stake in the country’s productive assets. Cliff’s charge is that the state often delivers something weaker. A farmer may occupy land, plant crops and carry operational risk while the title remains elsewhere and the most important financial decisions remain beyond the farmer’s control. That distinction is not semantic. A title deed can turn land into collateral, give a farmer a longer investment horizon and reduce the risk that an administrative decision will undo years of work. A lease can provide meaningful security, particularly when it is long and enforceable, but it is not automatically equivalent to ownership and may not satisfy a lender assessing a capital-intensive business. The African Farmers’ Association of South Africa, or AFASA, has repeatedly argued that black farmers need access to finance, infrastructure, training and markets as well as land. Its complaint, as relayed by Cliff, is more pointed: some beneficiaries have not received promised title deeds, while state-appointed mentors allegedly control bank accounts, procurement and development funding. If accurate, that arrangement leaves the farmer accountable for results without command of the inputs. Farming exposes every weakness in the model Commercial farming consumes cash before it produces a return. Seed, feed, fertiliser, machinery, labour, insurance and electricity must often be paid for months before a crop or animal generates revenue. Forestry can demand an investment horizon measured in decades. Uncertain tenure therefore compounds ordinary agricultural risk rather than replacing it. Cliff’s argument is strongest at this practical level. A beneficiary who cannot pledge land as security must find another route to working capital, while a farmer who does not control spending cannot reliably manage costs. If the enterprise later collapses, the public sees a failed black farmer, not the structure that limited the farmer’s ability to act. The consequences stretch beyond one balance sheet. Every failed project can reinforce the racist claim that black farmers are inherently incapable, even when tenure insecurity, poor support or administrative interference helped produce the failure. A reform programme intended to correct exclusion can therefore reproduce it in a new form, with beneficiaries present on the land but still dependent on official discretion. Government has begun transferring title The picture is not one of total refusal. In May 2024, the government announced the first transfer of title deeds to 100 farmers who had been leasing state land. It said Cabinet had resolved to transfer ownership after consultations with lessees, explicitly linking title to stronger tenure security. That move is an important acknowledgement of the problem, but the description of it as a first set also exposes how much remained unfinished. The state’s own language has continued to recognise the wider implementation gap. At a February 2026 title-deed handover in Bethlehem, the government said post-settlement support, governance, finance, infrastructure and market access still required urgent attention. AFASA made a similar point in 2025 when it called for mentorship, training, market access and support that would turn access to land into sustainable success. Those developments complicate the claim that nothing is changing, but they do not answer the central question: how many viable farmers remain on insecure terms, for how long, and under whose control? The answer also requires precision about programmes. Restitution, redistribution and the leasing of state-owned land create different legal relationships, so a disputed case cannot safely stand in for every beneficiary. The unresolved test is control The department has accused some beneficiaries of breaching leases through unauthorised subletting or failing to account for funds. Those are serious allegations and, where proven, government has a duty to protect public assets. AFASA’s response, as presented by Cliff, is that officials cannot fairly blame farmers for financial failures when mentors or administrators controlled the money. Both propositions can be true in different cases. Some beneficiaries may breach valid conditions, while some projects may be damaged by poor state design or compromised oversight. What separates administration from a patronage system is transparent evidence: published allocation criteria, clear lease and transfer terms, auditable control of development funds, competent support and a credible appeal process when land is reallocated. South Africa’s history makes the ownership question especially charged. Land reform mu