The infernal. Sipho Ngwenya, a 48 -year -old black farmer from Free State province, a South African corn belt, wheat and beef, wants to voluntarily and temporarily yield their rights over water to a white South African farmer in exchange for economic aid, agricultural equipment and advice to access agricultural products markets. “They told me ‘is not allowed and period,” Ngwenya tells El País.
The South African government blocked its application for transfer of water rights in January because, as a black farmer, considered “previously disadvantaged”, it is not allowed to transfer their rights over water to a white farmer, because he is considered “historically privileged.” According to those of the World Bank, it is the country of the world with the greatest economic inequality.
Although the Constitutional Court of South Africa ruled in 2023 that, explains Camile Habib, lawyer of Sipho Ngwenya, the decision faces a hard political and bureaucratic opposition within the Ministry of Water of the State. “Sipho is not the only one. I represent eight other black farmers who are stopped by the irrational opposition to the trade of water rights, ”says the lawyer.
The water after the ‘apartheid’
After, the new government, chaired by Nelson Mandela, declared access to water as a right. At the end of that decade, it was issued ”, which regulates its handling, uses and licenses, in order to promote just access to the resource, explains Godfrey Sozwana, responsible for land and riverside licenses in the Ministry of Water South African. The objective, he says, was to correct the historical racial discrimination in relation to water and create a new class of black farmers.
“Our evaluation shows that of the 400 million cubic meters of water available and assigned in South Africa since 1998, more than 70%,” says Sozwana. Times have evolved, but water -owned models do not add.
Since 1998, more than 70% of the available water has been assigned to White South Africans. It is a historical injustice
Godfrey Sozwana, responsible for riverside lands and licenses in the South African Ministry of Agua
Determined to correct what he considers a colonial grievance, the leftist, who governs South Africa since 1994 and who fought a fierce anticolonial insurgency in the 1980s, has gone beyond and: Every white South African farmer who wishes to acquire new water licenses Blacks The law is called “Water Law”, and affects any exploitation that has 250,000 hectares or more. This has caused concern in the western right -western press, which considers that South Africa is “limiting” water to whites. The Democratic Alliance Party, led by Blancos and whose leader is now the Minister of Agriculture of the South African Coalition Government, states that the proposed water rules constitute racial discrimination on an unprecedented scale.
Even the president of the United States. Although it has not specifically pronounced on water rights, it has criticized a new agricultural policy that facilitates expropriating private properties in public interest. The measure also seeks to stop some of the inequalities left by the apartheid. For these and other disagreements, Trump suspended Washington’s financial assistance to South Africa, which amounted to 440 million dollars (404 million euros) per year. In addition, he ordered to implement a plan to host White farmers and their families as refugees in the United States.
The Government, on the other hand, has defended the new regulation and recalled that, currently ,. So this new standard would apply only to the remaining 1.5%.
However, some farmers claim that, in a time of water, these breed -based laws are outdated and are counterproductive. “They denote narrowness of sights,” says Ngwenya.
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Several South African cities have faced the shortage of water and cuts in recent years. Cape Town, the South African metropolis of the Atlantic Ocean, of the water, the day the city would run out of supply, in 2018. In 2024, Johanesburg and Durban have also faced restrictions and its citizens have been forced to buy the resource of private tank trucks.
As black farmers with little experience we are historically at a disadvantage when it comes to obtaining bank loans and advice
Sipho Ngwenya, AgricultRORTOR SUDAFFICANO
“South Africa has already become a country with water shortage years ago, not to mention with water stress,” Neil Macleod, former head of the Water Department of the municipality of Durban (the third largest city in South Africa), tells El País.
For the farmer Ngwenya, the regulations are a bad solution that aims to be universal, but ignores the past and present reality. “As black farmers with little experience we are historically at a disadvantage when it comes to obtaining bank loans and advice. We depend on our white colleagues to advise us, provide us with equipment and facilitate access to the market, ”he explains. Temporarily exchanging their water licenses with richer white farmers in exchange for financing, advice and access to the agricultural market is key to succeed in the sector, rivet.
According to Kevin Winter, a geographical scientist of the Institute of the Future of Water of the University of Cape, the laws on water proposed by the Government will not necessarily bring equity. Only 10% of South African agricultural lands are irrigated; The rest depends on natural rainfall, he says. Since irrigation supplies a lower amount of culture lands, water laws will not make black South Africans have more rights over it. “This is political, but the urgent thing about climate change is to use each drop of water from South Africa more productively,” he says.
Marais de Vaal, responsible for Environmental Affairs of Afriforum, the Pressure Group directed by White that supports black farmers such as Sipho Ngwenya to oppose the rules on water, goes further and affirms that “government politician” could harm food security. “We have received consultations from foreign agricultural investors who wonder if it is sustainable to buy farms in South Africa,” he says.
However, Jabu Nkosana, president of a Black Farmers pressure group in the province of Free State and commissioner of the youth wing of the ruling party, states that the laws on water based on the breed must be intensified. “What will happen if we allow black farmers to briefly transfer water rights to white farmers, they are ruined later and the rights disappear forever?” He asks.
