Govt lacks strategy to manage idle farms

MBABANE – Eswatini does not have a strategy to manage its idle farms.

What is compounding the problem is that government ministries and departments, alongside agencies, own farms over which the Ministry of Agriculture has no control. Minister for Agriculture Mandla Tshawuka confirmed in an interview with Eswatini News that his ministry has no comprehensive data on land controlled by other government bodies. These include the ministries of Natural Resources, Commerce, Defence, Housing and Home Affairs, as well as Tibiyo TakaNgwane, Tisuka and the King’s Office.

What this means, in essence, is that the ministry does not have full national data on idle land beyond what it directly controls, three years after the issue was first raised at Sibaya, the People’s Parliament, which mandated government to buy back idle farms.

Another problem is that other farms are owned by churches and here, too, there is no data on whether they are being used for commercial purposes. There are reports, additionally, that vast tracts of land are owned by foreigners who left the country some five decades ago. Others have since passed away, with descendants unaware that their forebears own land in Eswatini.

Strikingly, government has not conducted a study on how many farms, public or private, exist in the country, or on whether they are generating an income or contributing to the gross domestic product (GDP).

This is despite Eswatini being an agricultural economy. It must be said that the scale of the loss was laid bare recently when the National Maize Corporation released a report indicating that the country has spent E1.9 billion importing cereals, maize and vegetables.

On what may come as a positive sign, though, the minister encouraged anyone aspiring to access leased State land to approach the Department of Land Use Planning, where there is an available process in place, which runs through the department.

Again, it must be said that even that route sits against an unfulfilled mandate. It has been established that Sibaya’s recommendation that government must purchase both State and idle private farms has not been implemented.

Since Eswatini is an agricultural economy, emaSwati who gathered at the cattle byre three years ago directed government to turn these idle farms into commercial plants. Eswatini News can reveal, however, that the Ministry of Agriculture does not have a budget to buy the farms and, as a result, has also not promulgated a land policy.

Minister Tshawuka, responding to questions from this publication on progress made since the 2023 Sibaya submissions, said his ministry never had a dedicated budget to identify, acquire, rehabilitate or develop such land. “There has been none hitherto,” he said plainly when asked whether a dedicated budget exists for identifying, acquiring, rehabilitating and developing idle agricultural land.

During the week-long People’s Parliament, many emaSwati called for State, as well as private idle farmland to be redistributed to ordinary citizens, particularly unemployed youth and co-operatives.

Sibaya is traditionally convened by the King to allow the nation to deliberate on pressing national issues, spanning socio-economic and developmental matters. Despite the resounding calls, which at the time received wide public support, government is yet to pass the land policy it says is needed to act on that demand.

The minister did share that a land policy was being developed, one which will eventually lead to a land Bill, though he offered no timeline for either. Until that legislation exists, he said, government has no legal mechanism to compel private landowners to put idle or underutilised farms to productive use.

He added that the idea needed to be explored going forward, possibly as part of implementing the Sibaya recommendations, and that it should include funding for infrastructure such as fencing, irrigation, farm roads, storage facilities and farming equipment once idle land is identified.

Land featured among the most pressing concerns raised at the Sibaya gathering at Ludzidzini Cattle Byre, where thousands of emaSwati attended. According to the subsequent report compiled after the event, speakers called for insecure land rights to be addressed and for a moratorium on evictions affecting farm dwellers.

One speaker, Fikile Mbuyisa, submitted during the proceedings that there would be no peace in the country until the land issue was resolved, blaming chiefs and inner councils for allocating farms to people only to later reclaim that land, often from orphans after the death of their parents. The call for idle State and private land to be made available to unemployed youth and co-operatives was among the recommendations to emerge from those submissions, forming part of a broader push to turn agriculture into a source of jobs rather than a subsistence activity.

On that front, Tshawuka’s response suggests a mixed record. On the State side, he explained that of the 105 000 hectares under his ministry’s control, 85 000 hectares are under active production, while 27 000 hectares have been leased to individuals and entities through the ministry’s existing application system.

A further estimated 10 000 hectares have been earmarked for the Hamba Ubuye programme, the Youth Project and the European Union (EU) Livestock Project – initiatives the minister said would begin rolling out in the coming months. Roughly 58 000 hectares, he stated, are being used for livestock ranching, including sisa, fattening and breeding ranches, while an estimated 10 000 hectares remain occupied by farm dwellers and squatters whose status remains unresolved.

Specifically on idle private land, Tshawuka confirmed that while the Deeds Office, under the Ministry of Natural Resources and Energy, holds data indicating whether private farms are idle, underutilised or fully utilised, his ministry has no power to act on that information beyond encouraging owners to use their land productively.

Asked whether government had investigated reports of unused land belonging to churches and other institutions, he said plainly that this had ‘not yet’ happened, again citing the absence of a budget to carry out such an exercise.

He pointed out instead that any person or business can apply for a farm on a lease arrangement – a system he offered as evidence that redistribution was already under way, noting that a number of people and entities have successfully leased land through it.

What remains unclear, however, and what the minister’s response did not address, is how many of those successful applicants are young people or co-operatives specifically, as opposed to established commercial operators better placed to navigate an application process that still requires the land use and planning knowledge and paperwork many rural youth may not have.

Critically, too, the 10 000 hectares occupied by farm dwellers and squatters presents its own unresolved question. This is because submissions made at the last Sibaya specifically called for a moratorium, a temporary official suspension of an activity on evictions affecting people in this position.

In this case, the speakers were asking government to temporarily halt all evictions of farm dwellers rather than outlaw evictions permanently. The minister’s response offered no update on their security of tenure, only that the land remains counted within the ministry’s total holdings.

The urgency of these unanswered questions is thrown into sharper relief by the country’s jobs and food security figures. The minister was contacted as recently revealed statistics showed that youth unemployment remains severe in the country, easing only from 56 per cent to 52.2 per cent according to the latest labour force data.

This essentially means that roughly one in two young jobseekers aged 15 to 24 is still without work. The national unemployment rate has eased more broadly too, from 35.4 per cent in 2023 to 33.5 per cent in 2025, with the number of employed people rising from 260 356 to 271 227 over the period.

Moreover, Eswatini’s food import bill adds further weight to the argument for urgency. According to information released by the NMC, maize demand in the country is estimated at around 140 000 tonnes a year against local supply of only about 75 000 tonnes, a shortfall of roughly 65 000 tonnes, imported almost entirely from South Africa.

Demand for beans and other legumes follows a similar pattern, with more than 3 276 tonnes imported annually to cover the gap between demand and local production. Cereal, vegetable and meat imports together cost the country well over E1.9 billion in 2023 alone.

Every hectare of land sitting idle, whether through absentee private ownership or unresolved bureaucratic limbo, is, therefore, land that could, in theory, be reducing that bill.

Meanwhile, Tshawuka has insisted the intent behind government’s response remains genuine, stating that as a ministry, they want to move from the perception of agriculture as a subsistence activity to agriculture as a profession, a business and an investment opportunity for young emaSwati.

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