South Africa's Agrarian Question

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List of tables

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List of photographs

Acronyms and abbreviations

South Africa's agrarian question

• 2014: Reflecting on the country's agrarian transition
• A focus on South Africa's agrarian reform
• An agrarian diagnosis approach: A long-term approach acknowledging farm diversity
• Extensive fieldwork: Revealing the realities on the ground
• Structure of the book

Chapter 1 The planned destruction of 'black' agriculture

• Overview of previous production systems
• First signs of distress
• Land grabbing and the further weakening of black agriculture
• Ciskei and Transkei
• KwaZulu
• Crocodile River Valley (Brits)
• Lowlands of the northern and eastern regions of the former Transvaal
• 'Agricultural development' planning for blacks
• Betterment plan and normative agricultural planning
• Nwanedzi Valley (Limpopo)
• New Forest village
• Promoting a small black farming elite in the bantustans
• Bantustan of Bophuthatswana
• Alluvial terraces of the Kat River (Eastern Cape)
• Bantustan of Gazankulu
• Emergence of sugar cane smallholdings in the black spots of KwaZulu
• Cutting off access to the national agrofood system
• Conclusion

Chapter 2 Agrarian reform in South Africa: Objectives, evolutions and results at national level

• South Africa's agricultural liberalisation, deregulation and the institutional restructuring of the public sector
• Deracialisation of the agricultural sector and South Africa's spatial configuration
• South Africa's land reform programmes
• Land restitution
• Land tenure reform
• Land redistribution
• Two phases of land reform
• First phase (1994–1999): Land policies focusing on the establishment of subsistence farmers and food security
• Second phase (1999–2004): Land policy aiming at creating small-scale commercial farmers
• Shifting from land to agrarian reform and the development of emerging black farmers
• A preliminary attempt towards spatial reform
• South Africa's persisting dualistic agricultural structure
• Disappointing results of the country's land and agrarian reforms
• A stagnating sector becoming more and more concentrated
• Conclusion

Chapter 3 Analysing productive processes and performances of agriculture at local scale in South Africa: How to proceed?

• Agrarian diagnosis: Origin of the approach and key concepts
• The agrarian system: A complex and multidimensional concept
• Cropping, livestock and production systems: Concepts leading to unavoidable embedding of analytical scales
• The notions of livelihood or activity system: Are they complementary or contradictory to the production system?
• The agrarian diagnosis explained in light of its application in South Africa
• Selecting a study area
• Studying historical dynamics and reconstructing production systems' trajectories
• Analysing the production systems from a technical and economic perspective
• Selecting study areas
• Characteristics of the study areas and their local problematics
• Defining and delimiting the study area
• Characterising the mode of exploitation of the environment
• Selecting production units to be studied in detail and sampling
• Characterising the technical operation and measuring the economic efficiency of the production systems
• Value added and productivity
• Distribution of value added and farm income
• Placing production systems in the socio-economic and institutional sphere of the agrarian system

Chapter 4 The interlinked but continuously divergent production systems of the catchment area of the Nwanedzi River (Limpopo Province)

• Agro-climatic conditions and importance of agriculture
• Historical background, land tenure and socio-economic characteristics
• Market proximity, off-farm jobs and contract farming opportunities
• Landscape examination and zoning
• Historical dynamics
• First white settlements in tribal lands and early division of land
• From eradication of malaria to the implementation of the first pro-white agriculture policies
• The golden age of white agriculture and the reinforcement of segregation policies
• The agrarian crisis of the 1980/90s: In or out the system
• Post-apartheid reforms and restructuring of markets
• Typology of production systems
• Thirteen production systems grouped in seven broad categories
• Subsistence micro-farmers cultivating residential starchy staple in gardens for self-consumption, depending on off-farm incomes (subgroups 1, 2, 3 and 5)
• Micro-farmers depending on off-farm income, combining staples for self-consumption and vegetables for local markets (subgroup 4)
• Small-scale producers of staple crops depending on off-farm activities and social grants (subgroup 6)
• Medium-scale commercial farmers specialised in vegetable production for the local and domestic markets (subgroups 7, 8, 9 and 10)
• Extensive commercial farmers, producers of fruits mainly for the domestic market (subgroup 11)
• Intensive large-scale commercial producers of fruits and vegetables for the domestic and export markets (subgroup 12)
• Emerging industrial broiler producers (subgroup 13)
• Economic results
• Land productivity
• Labour productivity
• Household income
• Conclusion and perspectives

Chapter 5 Constrained potential: Intensive agriculture in the Hazyview region (Mpumalanga)

• Study area
• Agro-ecological characterisation
• Subtropical climate
• Tropical and subtropical crops
• Landscape and river system
• Geology and soils
• River system and hydraulic systems: The different irrigation schemes of the former 'white areas'
• White Waters Irrigation Board (Da Gama Dam) – Zone 3
• Sabie River Irrigation Board – Zones 2 and 1
• Farmers in Kiepersol
• History
• From the 19th century until the end of World War II
• 1950–1970: 'White farming' boom, forced removals and creation of irrigation schemes
• Boom of white 'commercial' farming after World War II
• Black farmers confined into homelands without irrigation
• Black farmers confined into homelands with irrigation
• From 1970 to the end of apartheid
• Creation of bantustans and explosion of the population density
• Modification of the production systems
• The situation since 1994
• Tourism boom and explosion of macadamias
• Access to irrigation in the former bantustan
• ...but the distribution of water resources remains very unfair in the study area
• Failure of land reform projects, lack of agrarian transformation and maintenance of a post-apartheid agricultural segregation
• Description of the different production systems
• White irrigated farming
• Farms producing bananas (PS1, as well as variant PS2)
• Farms producing avocados, macadamias and bananas (PS3A and variants PS3B, PS4, PS5)
• Part-time farmers (PS6A and variant PS6B)
• Small-scale farming with access to irrigation in New Forest (PS7B and PS8)
• 'Emerging' and 'entrepreneurial' farmers (PS9A, PS9B, PS10)
• Breeders/raisers on communal land (PS11)
• Comparison of production systems
• Comparison of net value added
• Comparison of the net farm income/family worker
• Conclusions and prospects

Chapter 6 Unequal access to means of production and agrarian trajectories: An agrarian diagnosis of the Kat Valley (Eastern Cape)

• Different ecosystems form the Kat River Valley
• Unequal access to land set up since the 19th century within the South African political context
• 1850–1900: A black peasantry development limited by white supremacy
• Beginning of the 20th century: The initiation of segregation policies
• 1950–1980: Unequal access to irrigation water and consequences of 'betterment planning' policy
• 1980–1994: Consolidation of the Ciskei and diversification of citrus cultivars in the white areas
• Since 2000: Growth of production in the upper valley citrus farm
• The production systems reflect the unequal access to agricultural means of production
• Extensive breeding systems on shrubby savannah
• Extensive cattle raising (PS1)
• Cattle, sheep and goat rearing on large white farms and trophy hunting (PS2)
• Cattle, sheep and goat rearing on small (black-owned) farms with irrigated vegetable crops (PS3)
• Citrus production systems
• White-owned farms with large-scale orchards and cattle raising (PS4)
• Black-owned citrus farms
• Black-owned farms in production since the 1980s (PS5)
• Farming activities in the villages of the former Ciskei
• Chicken breeding for home consumption
• Goat rearing on communal land, sold to families for ceremonies
• Households with low incomes (mainly social grants) having only one agricultural activity (AS1)
• Households with medium income and two agricultural activities (AS2)
• Households with higher income and stock-raising activity (AS3)
• Comparison of economic results
• NVAs show the diversity of technical practices
• Income inequalities in relation to access to land
• The activity systems are not based on agriculture in the villages
• Conclusions and perspectives
• Ongoing development dynamics
• Unequal access to means of production and possible evolutions

Chapter 7 Agrarian reform and sustainability of sugar cane production: A tricky balance (The case of Sezela, KwaZulu-Natal)

• Sezela: An economy based on sugar production
• The coastal strip: Housing and tourism
• The granite hills: Large cane plantations and former reserves
• The sandstone plateau: Cane and eucalyptus plantations
• A brief history of agriculture in the area
• Characterisation of the production systems identified
• Integrated farms – PS1 (MCPs)
• Capitalist farms owned by a diversified company (PS2)
• Cane growers (mainly) and contractors (PS3)
• NFGs with no equipment and using a contractor (PS4)
• Farms restituted to black communities through land restitution programmes (PS5, PS6)
• Production systems among small-scale growers in the former missions (PS7, PS8)
• Production systems in the former missions without sugar cane production (PS9, PS10)
• Comparison of economic results
• Comparison of the NVA of sugar cane-based systems
• Comparison of total NVA and farm income
• Conclusions
• Land repartition versus cane supply repartition: A non-proportional relationship
• Current trends: Land reform, just to maintain cane production?
• Development prospects: Towards the promotion of alternative production systems?

Chapter 8 The irrigated scheme of Jacobsdal and its land and agrarian reform issues

• Introduction
• Presentation of the study area
• Geographical situation
• Soil features
• Characterisation of three agro-ecological units
• Agrarian history of the study area
• 1947–1987: Construction of the first canals and development of flood-irrigated agriculture
• 1987–post 1994: Securing water resources in the context of liberalisation of the agricultural market and agrarian reform
• Construction of the Orange–Riet canal
• Liberalisation of the markets
• The increase in wages
• Land and agrarian reform
• Various strategies to adapt to these changes
• Technical and economic characterisation of current production systems
• Production systems on natural pastures without irrigation
• PS1: Extensive breeding (surface area/family worker (FW) = 2?800 ha)
• PS2: Game farms (surface area/FW = 6?000?ha)
• PS3: Extensive breeding on small surface area (surface area/FW = 60)
• Production systems under irrigation
• PS4: Irrigated maize/winter cereal and alfalfa (surface area/FW = 130 ha)
• PS5: Irrigated alfalfa in rotation with maize (surface area/FW = 120 ha)
• PS6: Dairy cattle farming (surface area/FW = 50 ha)
• PS7: Crops and cattle fattening (surface area/FW = 100 ha)
• PS8: Alfalfa, vineyard, fattening pigs and small sheep and cattle ranching (surface area/FW = 6.5 ha)
• PS9: Crops and sheep fattening (surface area/FW = 20 ha)
• PS10: Irrigated alfalfa and cattle fattening on small surfaces (surface area/FW = 10?ha)
• Economic results
• Comparison of the NVA per worker
• Comparison of FIs
• Conclusion

Chapter 9 Brits' irrigated areas and neighbouring communities (the Madibeng and Rustenburg municipalities, North West province)

• Presentation of the study area
• Agro-ecological characterisation of the study area
• A dry subtropical climate tempered by altitude
• Landscape and river system
• Water and market access conditions
• Unequal access to water
• Proximity to many diversified markets
• Abundance of cheap labour
• Growing mining development in the region
• Agrarian history of the Brits region
• From the year 1000 to the end of the 19th century: Population in the study area
• The agricultural situation at the beginning of the 20th century: Two already distinct farming methods
• 1910–1940: Formalisation of spatial segregation and differential development between white and black farmers
• Agricultural situation in the study area between the 1930s and the 1950s
• Agricultural situation in the black reserve between 1930 and 1950
• Agricultural situation in the irrigated lands between 1930 and 1950
• 1950–1970: Motomechanisation and renovation of the irrigation network
• 1970–1990: The 'independence' of Bophuthatswana and the tobacco farming crisis
• The independence of Bophuthatswana and the establishment of the sunflower project
• White tobacco farming crisis of the 1980s
• 1990–2010: End of the apartheid and post-apartheid policies
• Agricultural support policies to black farmers
• New dynamic of return to the land in the study area in the 1990/2000s
• Characterisation of the production systems
• Production systems relying on cattle breeding
• Cattle breeders who are established on community lands but who do not have a bull (PS1)
• Cattle breeders who are established on community lands and who have a bull (PS2)
• Cattle breeders who are established on private lands and who have a bull (PS3)
• Sunflower producers on the rain-fed lands of the former bantustan (PS4)
• Producers of wheat/soya who are beneficiaries of the land restitution process (PS5)
• Irrigated market garden production systems
• Market-oriented horticultural producers with a sales contract (PS6)
• Market-oriented horticultural producers selling at the wholesale market (PS7)
• Market-oriented horticultural producers selling to hawkers (PS8)
• Comparison of the different production systems
• Labour productivity and income
• Development perspectives and conclusion

Chapter 10 Persistent and extreme polarisation: Wide productivity and income gaps

• White agriculture: Partial motorisation and concentration
• Partial motorisation and productivity gains
• Larger farms in fewer hands
• Residual black agriculture
• The low productivity of subsistence peasant farming
• The share of agriculture in the income of smallholders in the former bantustans
• Wide productivity gaps
• Government support for white agriculture in the form of low labour costs
• Government subsidies for white agriculture
• Pensions and their role
• Have labour costs increased much since 1994?
• A distribution of value added that favours capital over labour
• Irrigated, mechanised grain farming
• On sugar cane plantations in KwaZulu-Natal
• Irrigated arboriculture
• Example of field-scale fruit and vegetable production
• Recent changes have not compromised the financial efficiency of white-owned holdings
• Conclusion

Chapter 11 Ambiguities, limits and failures of South Africa's agrarian reform

• South African agrarian reform, contrasted surveys 'from the bottom'
• Brits and Hazyview: Known examples of failed restitution programmes
• Land claim and restitution on the irrigated perimeter of Hartbeespoort (Brits Region, North West province)
• Kiepersol, region of Hazyview (Mpumalanga)
• The irrigated area of Jacobsdal on the high central plateaux and the poor results of the redistribution programmes
• Accessing grazing lands to establish small, extensive animal production via the Settlement/Land Acquisition Grant
• Limited access to lands of the irrigated area via Land Redistribution for Agricultural Development
• Access to farmland via lease on land (Pro-Active Land Acquisition Strategy)
• Sugar regions of KwaZulu-Natal: Redistribution of a (small) portion of land if beneficiaries produce sugar
• Proactive redistribution by Illovo
• Dynamics
• Communities benefiting from restitution programmes, trapped in sugar cane monoproduction
• Quantitative review on sugar cane
• Citrus plantations of the Kat River: A mixed example of company transfer
• In Limpopo province
• Redistributing water rights: Everything remains to be done
• Historical water access conditions and recent reforms
• The example of the Sabie River Valley
• Lack of irrigation water acts as a brake on development of family agriculture in former bantustans
• Being trapped in a unique production model and the difficulties encountered to get out of it
• In search of the technical model
• The 'Commercial' farming model
• 'Modern' business based on employees
• Conclusion

Chapter 12 Contract farming and strategic partnerships: A promising exit or smoke and mirrors?

• Contract farming and the prospects of inserting small farmers into the juice-processing industry (the Winterveld case in Gauteng)
• Background of the contract agreement
• Contract characteristics
• Enhancement of production capacity: Empowerment, access to resources and capital
• Strategic partnerships in South Africa's land and agrarian reform: The New Dawn joint ventures in Moletele (Limpopo)
• Background of the New Dawn strategic partnership in Moletele
• Characteristics of the strategic partnership
• Skills transfer, employment and revenue creation
• Contract farming and strategic partnerships: A critical assessment
• A few success stories, concerning only a limited number of often better-established farmers
• Unequal power relations and skewed benefits, between partners and communities and within communities
• Transferring control and decision rights over production and resources and questioning effective empowerment
• Genuine capacity of the smallholder–agribusiness model questioned
• Contract farming and strategic partnerships: Promising exit or smoke and mirrors?

Chapter 13 Far from grassroots agrarian reform: Towards new production models, increased concentration and the export of the South African model

• Deregulating and liberalising the South African agrarian economy: From a state-controlled to an oligopolistic sector
• The unexpected guest: Financial capital and new models of production in South Africa's agriculture
• South Africa's agrarian conquest and the export of its production model
• South Africa's agrarian transformation?
• The financialisation of South Africa's agricultural sector
• Towards corporate production models within South Africa's agricultural sector
• The globalisation – or 'foreignisation' – of South Africa's agricultural sector
• Vertical integration, primary production concentration and further dualisation of South Africa's agricultural sector
• From independent farmers to global service providers: Farmers' changed status in the agricultural society
• Conclusion: Top–top transformation, elite redistribution and an increasingly blocked sector to restructure

Chapter 14 Conclusion

• South African agrarian reform: Back to its old ways
• Is the development of black farming possible, despite everything?
  
  

Contributors

Index