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South African farmers called for compromise Tuesday after the
lands commissioner said that large-scale expropriation of farms would
start next month.

"It is in everyone's interest that land claims be completed as
soon as possible but it needs to take place in a fair manner," said
Annelize Crosby, land affairs adviser at Agri South Africa, the biggest
organisation representing white farmers.

"You cannot go around taking land left, right and centre. It
would be wrong to penalise farmers because they want fair prices for
their properties," she told AFP.

South Africa's chief land claims commissioner Tozi Gwanya said
Monday that the "willing buyer, willing seller" model would no
longer apply to land restitution because many white farmers wanted more
money than the government was prepared to pay.

"There are in excess of 7,000 claims that have been
outstanding," he said, referring to efforts by the government to redress
apartheid-era land grabs in which many members of the black majority
lost ancestral holdings.

"We have been negotiating with some white farmers for two or
three years especially in four provinces - Limpopo, Mpumalanga, North
West and KwaZulu Natal - and this has to stop," he said.

"From March, we will begin expropriating land for which
negotiations have gone on for that period or more," he said,
explaining that a six-month deadline would be imposed on new cases.

But Crosby said the land claims commission needed to keep the
complexity of the process in mind.

"The process started in 1994 and we are now in 2006 but there
are many reasons why it is taking so long.

"In some cases we are dealing with really big land claims that
stretch across many farms. This involves many farmers and also
whole communities instead of only individuals claiming back their land.
It makes the process very complicated," said Crosby.

She acknowledged that there might be some farmers trying to take
advantage of the situation.

"But one should also keep in mind that the value of land has
been on the increase in the past few years. We need to find a
middle ground here. It is unfair to lay all the blame at the
farmers' doors."

The willing buyer-willing seller principle has been at the core of the
post-apartheid land drive, guaranteeing that land will be acquired by
the state at fair prices.

South Africa has said that it will not follow the path of
Zimbabwe where thousands of white-owned farms have been seized by
President Robert Mugabe's government since 2000 and given to landless
blacks.

Black ownership of land in South Africa has increased from 13
percent at the end of apartheid in 1994 to 16 percent.