Setting them up to fail: enforcement of the agribusiness model on land reform projects in South Africa

Abstract

Land reform in South Africa aims, among other things, to build ‘the economy by generating large-scale employment, increasing rural incomes and eliminating overcrowding’ (ANC 1994). While there is ‘near-consensus that land reform has been unsuccessful’ (Aliber and Cousins 2013), various factors have been raised as contributing to land reform’s failure to meet its goals. Among the factors negatively affecting livelihoods and income generation is the government’s enforcement of an agribusiness model promoting large-scale production for (export) markets. This article uses a case study to illustrate how the implementation of large-scale, and sometimes capital-intensive, production negatively affects the livelihoods of the beneficiaries. It challenges the perspectives that associate success, or even the viability, of land reform projects with the agribusiness model by demonstrating how difficult it is for the beneficiaries to sustain production autonomously.

The Dynamics of Youth Employment and Empowerment in Agriculture and Rural Development in South Africa: A Scoping Review

“…Moreover, to promote equal participation in the sector, other skills development programs were implemented through AgriSETA, extension services, and agricultural finance schemes through the Land and Agricultural Bank and Micro Agricultural Financial Institutions of South Africa (MAFISA) [33]. However, despite these efforts to mainstream youth into the sector, support programs have achieved limited success [31] with numerous initiatives lacking consistent support, monitoring, and evaluation [34,35], including the impact of government corruption [36] and lack of coordination between land, agriculture, and rural development policies [37,38].…”

Rethinking Land Reform and Its Contribution to Livelihoods in South Africa

“…The challenges with strategic partnerships are embedded in the fundamental problem of enforced large-scale farming in land reform projects. Many beneficiaries are not able to sustain the huge costs and complexities associated with large-scale farming (Rusenga, 2020). Thus, land reform should incorporate variety in the meaning and use of land by beneficiaries.…”

The effect of selected macroeconomic policies on citrus price volatility in South Africa: A reflection on experiences of farmer support

“…As of 2017, 80% of the total value of agricultural output was produced by just a few commercial farmers (i.e., 40122 individuals), and less than 20% was produced by 2 million smallholder farmers (StatsSA, 2020). On the question of whether the farmer support programmes are effective, recent studies by several researchers, namely Maka and Aliber (2019) and Rusenga (2020), Mncina and Agholor (2021) and Zantsi et al (2021), have painted a bleak picture. They posit that these programmes to a large extent are poorly designed and not fit for purpose as they do not address the needs of resource-poor farmers.…”

“…They posit that these programmes to a large extent are poorly designed and not fit for purpose as they do not address the needs of resource-poor farmers. Most of the farmer support programmes are poorly coordinated and there is late delivery for some of the services (Mncina and Agholor, 2021), whereas a high number of farmers struggle to access markets, especially export markets (Rusenga, 2020). Specifically for citrus, Bitzer and Buman (2014) posit that the support programmes designed for resource-poor citrus producers were not efficient to enable them to meet the stringent quality requirements of export markets.…”