Agriculture lease to be addressed

The soon-to-be introduced amendment to the Land Act bill will address some of the recommendations of the National Land Summit, including the special business agriculture lease (SABL), an official says.
Department of Lands and Physical Planning secretary Benjamin Samson told The National that once the amendment to the Land Act bill was passed, the SABLs would be reintroduced in a different form.
“We are looking at amending the Land Act so that some of those resolutions from the land summit will be catered for under the Land Act,” he said.
“The challenge for us is to encourage our landowners to free up their land and we issue bankable titles that the land they have can benefit them.
“It’s only beneficial to them when they use it for gardening and hunting and other activities.
“To include in the amendment to the Act, I want to do away with SABL and come up with something similar but we control the land size and we issue State leases for cocoa blocks, coffee blocks, for grazing so we encourage people to go into business.”