Most highly productive farmland in South Africa is still in the hands of white farmers. While the government has enacted a "restitution" policy of handing plots to blacks under a willing buyer, willing seller system, critics have said progress has been too slow.
While the situation is far from that witnessed in neighbouring Zimbabwe, tensions have soared recently over alleged illegal lay-offs of workers and mistreatment by farm owners.
Lulu Xingwana, the agriculture and land affairs minister, said at the weekend that some farmers could face tough punishment.
"We are obviously disturbed by the persistent reports of abuses on farms," she said. "For those people who are not keeping [within] the law, the government has the right to expropriate."
Mrs Xingwana was reacting to claims on Wednesday by Dirk du Toit, her deputy minister, that white farmers had a lingering feudal attitude towards their staff.
In response to a question about farmers who lay off and evict workers unlawfully, Mr Du Toit told MPs: "Those people who don’t want to hear, we are not only going to take them to court, we are going to also take their land away from them."
The leading opposition party, the Democratic Alliance, called Mr Du Toit’s statement racist. "As a senior member of the ANC, he [is] insinuating that all of [white farmers] assault their farm workers," said Maans Nel, the party’s land affairs spokesman,.
The country’s largest farmers’ union, Agri SA, said it was not aware of any illegal farm evictions this year.