Government
Fiji's Worst Political Dilemma
How to solve the expiring land lease issue?
Thousands of Fiji’s mainly Indian tenant farmers are making a bleak entry into the 21st century. They are tearing down the houses their families have occupied for up to seventy years or more. These and their farms occupy land leased from indigenous Fijian tribes.
At midnight, as 2000 gave way to 2001, 1789 leases expired. About 1500 will expire this year. At this stage few will be renewed either because the indigenous Fijian owners want the land for their own use or because of anti-Indian feeling that culminated last May when the country’s first Indian prime minister, Mahendra Chaudhry, lost his one-year-old government to a coup by a mixed bunch of Fijian nationalists and a few renegade soldiers.
- ADVERTISEMENT -
Embittered farmers are demolishing houses rather than let them be taken over by landowners. Some are illegally firing their crop, in breach of their tenancy agreement, rather than let it be harvested for the landowners’ benefit.
 |
|
|
A government committee claims it is close to solving one of the country’s greatest challenges. But that claim has been made before.
Leases of land used mainly to grow sugar cane began expiring in 1997 when 107 were terminated. However, nearly half were renewed and the government found alternative land for most other farmers.
But the problem faced by tenant farmers obliged to leave land occupied by them for up to three quarters of a century is a snowballing one and probably beyond the ability of the government to accommodate the numbers of people who will be left landless with no alternative livelihood. Between 1997 and 2026 about 13,112 leases will expire, including 11,782 sugar farm leases, according to the Native Land Trust Board (NLTB), a statutory authority responsible for managing the tribal land.
Although some Fijian chiefs have offered to make tracts totalling several thousand hectares available to displaced farmers, it appears at this stage that the majority of farms will revert to tribal owners. Past experience shows that few have any real inclination to carry on farming themselves.
The government controlled (68.1%) Fiji Sugar Corporation, owner of the industry’s four sugar mills, says it is worried that so many productive farms will go out of production and that annual output present of around four million tonnes of sugarcane by 23,000 smallholder farms could be severely eroded. This would have severe national economic repercussions since sugar is one of the country’s core industries. About 75 percent of cane growers are Indians and grow about 88 percent of the harvest.
According to the chief executive of the Fiji Sugar Cane Growers’ Council, Jagannath Sami, the industry could collapse.
According to Mahendra Reddy, of the University of the South Pacific, by 2005 29,578 hectares would have reverted, so pushing sugar cane production to a crisis point. Most reverted land is not cultivated, he says.
The growing human problem of landless farmers is one Fiji’s worst political dilemma. Eighty three percent of land is owned by Fijian clans. With only about seven percent available to be bought and sold as freehold and the balance owned by the government, many displaced farmers have little prospect of finding alternative land.
Under the Agricultural Landlord and Tenant Act (ALTA) farmers are entitled to a minimum of 30 years tenancy with the possibility of extensions. Part of the cause of the May 2000 coup was Chaudhry’s attempt to extend the life of leases of Fijian land under ALTA provisions against Fijian wishes.
Since May the NLTB has announced that expiring leases of Fijian tribal land will be renewed only under the Native Lands Trust Act and that it is prepared to extend leases by up to 99 years for rents higher than the previous limit of six percent of unimproved capital value rate. That limit has restricted rent for sugar cane land to around $F65 ($US29) or less a hectare which according to a study by a Canadian economist, John Davies, of Acadia University, Nova Scotia, far below the fair market rate of around $F300 ($US135) and a contributing cause of Fijian dissatisfaction.
Before the May coup years of political wrangling and unwillingness to face up to the time bomb problem presented by expiring leases boiled up to produce a legacy that greatly complicates the tensions and political intricacies Fiji’s divided political leaders must contend with as the attempt to restore democratic government lost last May.
There are various estimates the number of farmers who will need resettlement, ranging from 70% to a Chaudhry government estimate of about 30%. Given the current antagonistic political climate current estimates are far higher.
Until the end of 2000 the interim government, formed after the coup, continued the deposed government’s policy of giving some evictees $F28,000 ($US12,600) resettlement grants. Seventy-one farmers received grants last December. But now qualified evictees can claim only $F10,000 ($US4500), while landowners can claim $F10,000 worth of agricultural input material provided that they keep their former tenant’s farms in production.
Jagannath Sami, who as chief executive of the Cane Growers’ Council represents 22,000 growers, says that 4083 cane farm leases are due to expire between 1997 and 2003. In the first two years 80 percent of leases were renewed.
Since then, many native landowners were signalling their desire to renew and pressing for premiums. The NLTB has delayed renewal decisions. “The NLTB says (under NLTA) it will renew most leases. Then the mood changed. It is more of a political backlash. I may be crucified for saying that,” Sami says.
“A lot of confidence will have to be restored to the tenants. I believe 90 percent of the problem emanates from lack of clear policy and procedures; a lot of administrative problems and a lot of pain and suffering for tenants.”
Goodwill payments, which landowners can’t legally demand as the price renewal of a lease, are being paid and average $F1000 ($US450) an acre. But since many growers can’t afford to pay upfront they are being granted 10-year loans from a sugar cane growers industry fund to do so.
Sami says while the NLTB says leases will be renewed at the market rent, “I don’t know what they mean by market rent. At the moment it is six percent of Unimproved Capital Value.”
Sami says the days of once economic 10-acre sugar cane farms, the traditional size, are over. For the 2000 harvest growers would get about $F40 a tonne, half the 1999 price, and their costs would be about $F36.60 a tonne. “So we are getting close to production costs. I maintain that ALTA has served this country well by bringing farmers security of tenure. Before it we were producing only 2 million tonnes of cane; we have doubled the harvest and built a very vibrant industry of 23,000 growers and 14,000 cane cutters.
“My fear is that since land is the monopoly of one group, tenants become very vulnerable. What can they do but accept the terms? If survival become impossible they will start leaving.
“The sugar industry will stay alive, but whether it will remain vibrant and viable is another question. You may have an industry just limping.” Sami says a question is whether Fijians “really wish to get into the sugar industry or are their leaders pushing them into it?
“A 10-acre farm must now supply cane with other crops. Already many farmers are surviving only on contributions from their kids working in towns. This is what is not appreciated.”
