05 Aug 2009: ISS Today: Are Poor Rural Blacks in South Africa Actually Interested in Farming for Profit?

5 August 2009: Are Poor Rural Blacks in South Africa Actually Interested in Farming for Profit?

 

That land reform in South Africa is not yielding the expected outcomes is by now well known. While less is known about why is this the case, there is no shortage of opinions and explanations. A few have hinted to the possibility that the rural poor, the majority of whom are black, are perhaps not interested in commercial enterprise, and are simply content with subsistence farming. Examples of this in other sub-Saharan African countries are readily identified to point to a characteristic feature of land use in rural sub-Saharan African communities in general - a pattern, which rural black South Africa appears to fit.

 

Such a possibility would imply that the redistribution and restitution of commercially productive land is perhaps not the most appropriate medium for fulfilling the constitutional and moral imperative to redress the injustices of the Land Acts and related land laws, forced removals, settlement planning and the Bantustan system associated with the colonial and apartheid governments. In terms of this reasoning, financial compensation for instance may be a more pragmatic option, to ensure that productive land is safeguarded to ensure food security. One might even ask why waste time and money letting beneficiaries first ruin the farms before intervening. Why not simply offer cash compensation right upfront? It is well known that unrealistic expectations of immediate profits are behind the downfall of many a farming project.

 

However, the possibility that beneficiaries are more interested in cash, settlement and subsistence farming, than in the rigours and toils of commercial farming, does not easily lends itself to popular political support. For one it is difficult to reconcile the implications of such a possibility with the imperative to balance the country’s racially skewed land ownership patterns. Which is why the former Minister of Agriculture and Land Affairs, Lulu Xingwana, courted controversy when she linked the failure of some farming projects directly to beneficiaries’ lack of ‘passion’ to farm.

 

More politically palatable than insinuating that rural blacks are not interested in farming for profit is an approach that takes it for granted that they, like whites, also want to farm for profit but are impeded by lack of access to agricultural land, as well as lack of the requisite skills, funds and expertise for running commercial farming projects. However, reconciling this approach with the poor success rate of many black farming projects - sometimes despite beneficiary access to productive agricultural land, equipment, and funds – has long been government’s nemesis.

 

This raises some important questions, which government does not seem to pay much attention: do beneficiaries, barring those who opt for financial compensation, also share unanimously the vision of using their land to become active participants in mainstream commercial agriculture? And does the assumption that they share this vision really advance the best interests of all parties, not just government’s and industry’s?

 

These questions arise in the context of two conflicting conceptions of land that are apparent in the country’s land politics. One is government’s view of land as a critical economic asset that needs to be harnessed and utilised productively for the country’s economic development. This is consistent with the dominant liberal economic discourse, which interprets land simply as a property to be possessed, commodified and traded. The other is a traditional indigenous conception where a piece of land does not only represent a means of livelihood, but also possesses for the occupant a cultural and spiritual dimension, defined, among other things, by a connection to previous generations. It is inconceivable how all beneficiaries could have suddenly eschewed this symbolic and emotive understanding of land in favour of government’s and the private sector’s market-oriented approach.

 

In this sense post-apartheid land policy is reminiscent of the previous government’s attempts to improve land utilisation and farming methods in the so-called Native areas to counter what was seen as irrational use of land by Africans. Like it’s predecessor, the present government is operating on the assumption that poverty could be dealt with by providing black African farmers with access to markets and secure title, to be used to generate credit needed for farm development. In this way it is not doing any better at displaying a nuanced understanding of intended beneficiaries and their environment.

 

A better understanding of intended land reform beneficiaries and their cultural context is a prerequisite to getting South Africa on a path of land reform that facilitates efficient, equitable, sustainable use of its land and related assets. With land reform among the five priorities identified by the new ANC government under Jacob Zuma, who is himself an unabashed guardian of cultural values, it will be intriguing how this dynamic of conflicting conceptions of land is handled in the next five years.

 

Andile Sokomani, Researcher, Corruption and Governance Programme, ISS Cape Town

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