• Deputy President David Mabuza condemned rural murders.
• He said an assessment would be done on land reform projects that have failed.
• He said nothing outside the law would be done in terms of land reform.

Deputy President David Mabuza condemned the killing of farmers and farm workers.

Mabuza, who was recently booked off sick, was back at the salt mines on Thursday, answering questions in the National Council of Provinces.

One of the questions put to him dealt with land reform.

Before he dealt with this topic, he said: "I condemn the killings of farmers and farm workers. Farmers are a very important resource to our country and citizens."

He said government would ensure the criminal justice system functioned properly.

Turning to land reform, Mabuza said they were taking it seriously to assess existing land reform farms that are not productive.

"It is important to take a view of what went wrong at these farms," he said.

"Some of the farms are productive, some are lying fallow. That is why government is going to do an assessment."

He said these farmers would receive support from a district level. He said the poor performance of some of these farms did not mean that government shouldn't broaden access to the farming sector.

"The willing buyer, willing seller approach was found to be very limiting," he said.

He said the problems affecting farms dwellers, who were mainly black, went very deep, and the process to address this had been a "long journey".

He said they wanted to open up access to land to young people and women.

He said gender-based violence was something that was "not good in our society".

"Instruments to empower women must be put in place."

He said a place must be found for farm workers and subsistence farmers must be helped.

"We must allay fears that government wants to take land from one sector of people and give it to another group of people."

He said while working towards redress, care should be taken not to create another problem, and it should aid in nation-building.

"Nothing outside the law is going to be done."