On Thursday 24 November, the South African Land Observatory was launched at a workshop in Pretoria. The SA Land Observatory was developed by the University of Pretoria’s Post-Graduate School of Agriculture and Rural Development, the Department of Agricultural Economics and the Centre for the Study of Governance Innovations. The Observatory is an independent instrument used to collect, map and monitor land-related processes and activities in South Africa, including the right to land, agricultural production and aspects of food security.

Interactive data, research and publications on, amongst others, land use, farm size and land capability are made publicly available through a portal which is based on the principles of open data and open source. The idea is that the “land community” will further build the data thereby increasing and enriching the available information.

The SA Land Observatory will bring together a broad network of institutions and stakeholders from both the public and the private sector (academia, government, farmers’ organisations, civil society…). In so doing, the Observatory aims to promote evidence-based, inclusive and transparent decision-making over land resources in South Africa.

The Government of Flanders has committed to supporting the SA Land Observatory commencing October 2014 for a period of 3 years.
More information on the SA Land Observatory can be found here: http://salandobservatory.org/