LIBRARY
Farm Data Directory
Every public source a farm valuation draws on — organised by the question the valuer is asking, each with its publisher, access basis and update cadence.
Most of what a farm valuation needs already exists in public — scattered across government map servers, gazettes, industry bodies and the courts. This directory gathers it, organised by the question the valuer is asking rather than by the department that publishes it.
Every card names its publisher and links to the source. Nothing on this page is a figure of the Valuation Discussion Hour’s own, and this page may never be cited as the source of anything: follow the link, verify at source, and cite the source. Where a dataset is stale, restricted or simply does not exist, the card says so — the absence of a public register is itself something a valuer needs to know.
Prefer a map? The Farm Explorer queries several of these sources live at any point you click, and returns a site card with the land facts and their sources. This directory is maintained on a review calendar. Sources checked as at 24 August 2026. If a link has moved or a better source exists, please tell us through the contact page.
LAND
What is this land capable of?
The national Department of Agriculture’s map viewer over the provincial Spatial Resource Tools: SG farm-portion cadastre, land, soil, climate and terrain capability (2016), grazing capacity, cultivated fields (2021), soil depth, clay content and irrigation suitability. The richest single free resource for farm due diligence.
Generates a formal site screening report and carries Land Capability (2016), the Field Crop Boundary (2023) and Protected Agricultural Areas (2023). Note that the current national capability dataset uses fifteen classes, not the older Class I–VIII scheme.
The Western Cape Department of Agriculture’s mapper: crop census 2023, land cover 2022, cadastre, slope and biodiversity overlays, with export to shapefile, GeoJSON and KML.
Soil properties for the whole of Africa at 30 m resolution, modelled from over 130,000 samples — pH, carbon, texture, CEC and more, with a free API. The highest-resolution soil surface available for the continent.
Global 250 m soil property grids under an open CC-BY licence — the safe choice where redistribution matters. Inside Africa, iSDAsoil is finer.
The authoritative 1:250,000 land type survey (1972–2002): some 7,070 land types from roughly 400,000 soil observations. The polygons and derived attributes are free through the Atlas above; the memoir attribute data is ordered from the ARC by telephone or e-mail.
CARRYING CAPACITY
How many animals will it carry?
Grazing capacity in hectares per Large Stock Unit at 1:250,000 — biome means of Grassland 6, Savanna 12 and Nama-Karoo 25 ha/LSU. View it as a layer in the Atlas; GIS files are supplied free on request by the Department. A 2018 revision exists as a layer in the provincial services.
CLIMATE
What is the climate risk?
Long-term annual and monthly rainfall, the 33rd and 67th percentile surfaces — more useful than the mean for risk — evaporation, aridity zones and frost, on the ARC 8 km grid, all within the Atlas.
Official station records, supplied against a quotation — there is no published tariff. Free alternatives exist (including the Western Cape’s station portal), but they warn that their data is unverified; where a figure carries formal weight, the official record is the defensible source.
WATER
What is the water position?
The working consolidated text on SAFLII. The four authorisation routes — Schedule 1 use, a general authorisation, existing lawful use and a licence — carry very different degrees of permanence. The gov.za PDF is the unamended 1998 text; do not work from it.
The national register of water use is submission-only: there is no public search by farm, owner or title deed. The water position on a property must be established from the owner’s documentation and confirmed with the water user association or irrigation board — and a registration certificate is not proof of lawful use.
The Department’s PAIA manual lists water use licences and licence applications as automatically available for inspection and copying without a formal PAIA request — a little-known route to the licence position on a specific property, against modest copy fees.
The gazetted state charges for raw water by water management area — irrigation abstraction between 1.15 and 3.86 c/m³ for 2026/27. Gazetted each December, effective 1 April.
The best public catchment library in the country: the catchment management strategy, scheme tariff booklets and irrigation restriction notices — direct, citable evidence of supply risk. Most other catchment bodies publish far less; scheme quotas must be requested in writing.
The Department’s annual multi-volume report. The 2024 edition tabulates conveyance losses across fifteen major irrigation schemes — a national average near 30%, from 11% to 43% by scheme — a citable supply-reliability driver.
Dam storage by province and water management area, published weekly — the supply context for any irrigation valuation. Use this page rather than saved PDF links, which serve stale editions.
ENTERPRISE INCOME
What does this enterprise earn?
Regional summer and winter grain budgets — Eastern Highveld, Eastern Free State, Northern Cape irrigation areas and the Swartland — the closest thing to a free published gross margin template for grain, alongside area, yield and crop condition reports.
Location differentials by region — converting an exchange price to a farm-gate price at a given silo — with domestic versus import and export parity prices and supply-and-demand projections.
Hectares and tree numbers by cultivar, orchard age distribution, producer prices and net realisations, and full crop budgets for pome and stone fruit across establishment, non-bearing and bearing phases.
The Status of Wine-grape Vines gives area by region and cultivar and vine age in five bands — the direct input to remaining productive life. The pricing tier — bulk wine and producer grape prices — is members-only.
Hectares by region, leading cultivars, vine age distribution, weekly intakes and export volumes. No producer price data is published.
Hectares by region and citrus type, the tree age profile and export volumes — placing a subject orchard in the national planting cycle.
The farm-gate milk price series, producer counts by province, the all-farming-requisites cost index and international cost benchmarking. Use Milk SA’s page — the MPO’s own listing is years out of date.
Beef and lamb carcass prices by class together with the weaner calf series — the direct income line for an extensive breeding operation — in c/kg farm-gate excluding VAT.
Hectares by region, tree census, crop forecasts and regional loss factors. The latest public figures are 2023 — check currency before relying on them.
Flock sizes, day-old chick placements and industry structure for broilers and layers. The public profile runs roughly two years behind.
The bank’s seasonal agribusiness analysis — commodity and sector trends across grains, livestock and horticulture, useful context for income assumptions. Note that the bank’s former land-price chapters are no longer published: no South African bank currently publishes a farmland price series.
Ten-year projections of production, consumption, prices and trade across South African agricultural value chains — the most defensible free source for the forward assumptions in a farm discounted cash flow.
Income by product type, current and capital expenditure and employment, by province and farming type — the best free benchmark for testing whether a subject farm’s cost structure is normal.
The annual national compendium: production, gross value, farming income and expenditure, and livestock numbers.
Forward prices for maize, wheat, soybeans and sorghum. The JSE restricts commercial use of its data — consult it at source; the Grain SA reports above carry what a budget needs.
MARKET EVIDENCE
What do farms sell for?
The primary record. Registration R229 once-off, R19 per month, R19 per enquiry, R109 to view a deed (2026/27 tariffs). The extract gives owner, extent, title number, and the purchase price and date; the conditions of title live in the deed document itself.
The monthly land sales publication. Since 2026 it covers Western Cape towns only, sourced from Landbouweekblad; the earlier national provincial and district series ended in early 2025. Averages frame a trend — they are never comparables.
Nearly 2,000 state land-reform acquisitions from 2005 to 2018 across all nine provinces, analysed to R/ha by enterprise type — the most citable open-access farmland benchmark study, published under CC-BY.
Deeds transactions filtered to 308 arm’s-length sales across four districts — and a model of the discipline: over half of the raw deeds records were discarded as non-market before any rate was extracted.
The only official transaction-derived farmland price series in Africa outside South Africa: N$ per hectare by region, 2015–2023, compiled by the Namibia Statistics Agency from Deeds Office records.
The Valuer-General’s methodology for land-reform valuations: sales comparison preferred where comparables exist, a prescribed inspection record, and separate treatment of growing crops and timber. Methodological guidance — never evidence of market level.
STATUTORY CONSTRAINTS
What may lawfully be done with it?
In force — the 1998 repeal was never brought into operation, whatever the gov.za label says. Written Ministerial consent is required before a portion of agricultural land is subdivided, sold or advertised. See Geue and Four Arrows in the Case Law library.
Occupiers’ rights that restrict vacant possession — section 8(4) protection for long-resident older or disabled occupiers is effectively permanent. See Daniels v Scribante and Baron v Claytile in the Case Law library.
A backlog of unresolved section 16 acquisition claims exists at scale and is invisible to a title search — enquiry with the Department is part of farm due diligence. See Mwelase in the Case Law library.
Once a claim is gazetted, section 11(7) restricts sale, subdivision, rezoning and development without notice to the Commissioner. There is no searchable national claims register — the gazetted notices are found through the free gazette archives.
Assented December 2024 and not yet commenced — the Expropriation Act 63 of 1975 still governs until proclamation. Section 12 restates just-and-equitable compensation and the nil-compensation grounds.
The eventual successor to the Subdivision Act: protected agricultural areas and agro-ecosystem authorisations. Commencement is unconfirmed — treat the 1970 Act as the operative regime until proclamation is verified.