It appears now that the South African government will follow the Zimbabwean project of confiscating white owned farms and distributing them to political cronies who don’t know the first thing about farming (they’re not advertising that but I’m pretty sure that’s how it will go given the realities of third world politics).
The inevitable crash and food shortages will possibly be blamed on the seizures, but I think that might be wrong. My take is that the government already knows the economy is in the toilet and about to bust and they’re doing this to distract attention.
To be clear, it’s not that land seizures are a cause of agricultural failure and economic collapse (though they often enough are) but land seizures are something corrupt governments do when they realize the whole system is about to crash around their ears and they’re looking to cash out.
We’ll see.
