Farmers have warned that converting productive agricultural land into commercial developments could threaten jobs and food security.
The expropriation of agricultural land for shopping malls and mining activities poses a serious risk to food security, according to one of the country’s most influential farmers’ organisations, TLU.
TLU reacted to news that the Mpumalanga government was planning to develop a portion of the Tekwane citrus farm near Mbombela as a shopping centre.
According to the Mpumalanga Economic Growth Agency‘s (Mega’s) first-quarter report for 2026-27, the entity has been approached regarding a proposed smart city development on the farm and agreed to pursue the concept under a strategic partnership framework.
The report says there were certain issues that needed to be resolved before any formal agreement could be reached.
“Mega appointed a strategic development partner to develop certain strategically located vacant land parcels that were not required for farming on the citrus farm,” it says.
“The strategic development partner proposed a shopping centre as a catalyst for other development that may take place on the farm,” the report reads.
It added Mega had recently been approached by relevant authorities to jointly develop a smart city on the Tekwane farmland and Mega had, in principle, agreed to jointly pursue the Tekwane smart city development concept under a strategic partnership framework.
The Citizen has established that the Tekwane citrus farm comprises 118 hectares of cultivated land, has more than 40 000 citrus trees, provides permanent employment to dozens of workers and supports hundreds of seasonal jobs.
In an interview with The Citizen yesterday, TUL chair Bennie van Zyl said: “From our side, we have great concern about this approach. If it’s not this type of development, it’s about mining and the utilisation of agricultural land for other than producing food for our country.
“For us, that is a great concern, as we have experienced that something is wrong in the approach of how we handle and utilise the available agricultural land in South Africa.”
Van Zyl said if South Africa was compared to other countries, it would be evident that it is actually a marginal country for agricultural production.
He said even though some parts of the country were very productive, about 65% of the land gets less than 200 millimetres of rain a year.
These areas are less useful for agriculture and cannot positively contribute to the economy of the country.
“We are not against development and new approaches to the development of infrastructure, but it should be done after intensive study.
“The farming agricultural union should be also involved and they should also ask us what is our viewpoint about taking a high-level unit out of production to create the type of system that they want there.”
He added that these days, a lot of things that made it complicated for farming in specific areas, such as the changeover of agricultural land for shopping malls and mining, including illegal mining.
DA member of the provincial legislature Trudie Grove-Morgan said she would demand transparency over the intended development.
“The DA calls for full transparency, public consultation and accountability regarding plans to develop portions of the state-owned farm near Mbombela,” she said.
“The future of strategic public assets cannot be decided behind closed doors. Any proposal that could affect jobs, food production, land use and local economic activity must be subjected to thorough public scrutiny and all required regulatory processes.”
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