Unpacking the ‘Emergent Farmer’ Concept in Agrarian Reform: Evidence from Livestock Farmers in South Africa

Abstract

South Africa has historically perpetuated a dual system of freehold commercial and communal subsistence farming. To bridge these extremes, agrarian reform policies have encouraged the creation of a class of ‘emergent’, commercially oriented farmers. However, these policies consider ‘emergent’ farmers as a homogeneous group of land reform beneficiaries, with limited appreciation of the class differences between them, and do little to support the rise of a ‘middle’ group of producers able to bridge that gap. This article uses a case study of livestock farmers in Eastern Cape Province to critique the ‘emergent farmer’ concept. The authors identify three broad categories of farmers within the emergent livestock sector: a large group who, despite having accessed private farms, remain effectively subsistence farmers; a smaller group of small/medium‐scale commercial producers who have communal farming origins and most closely approximate to ‘emergent’ farmers; and an elite group of large‐scale, fully commercialized farmers, whose emergence has been facilitated primarily by access to capital and a desire to invest in alternative business ventures. On this basis the authors suggest that current agrarian reform policies need considerable refocusing if they are to effectively facilitate the emergence of a ‘middle’ group of smallholder commercial farmers from communal systems.

Balancing Democracy with Service Delivery: Power Relations, Politics and Accountability in Cooperatives Supporting Emergent Livestock Farmers in South Africa

“…The few farmers who had access to or owned multiple farms, were usually part of a well-connected elite ( Table 2). Their socio-political influence stemmed from them having considerable financial capital; strong social and political networks; and commanding positions of power in the hierarchy of the cooperative committees (Gwiriri et al 2019). There are three farmers, who were originally members of a particular cooperative by virtue of their primary farm locations, but who have deliberately targeted the lease of additional farm(s) in a more 'effective' cooperative (in terms of distribution of benefits to members) because they knew that the benefits from being part of this cooperative would be greater.…”

“…'Emergent' farmers are defined as farmers who engage in agricultural capital accumulation from below, transitioning from subsistence production to varying levels of petty-commodity and small-scale commercial production(Gwiriri et al 2019). …”

Modeling the regional agro-elite’s social position in rural areas’ sustainable development system

“…In this study, we note the social immaturity of the position of the local elite in the development of agrarian relations. Similar examples can be traced in a number of other publications [12,13,14,15] and provide an opportunity to understand what constitutes land inequality and the concentration of power in the agri-food system [16,17,18,19]. For the system of sustainable development of rural areas, the social position of the regional and local agrarian elites and state authorities plays an important role.…”

A review of possibilities for using animal tracking devices to mitigate stock theft in smallholder livestock farming systems in rural South Africa

“…The greater portion of the livestock reaches the market, and the off-take for cattle is about 25% (Scholtz & Bester, 2010). Gwiriri, Bennett, Mapiye and Burbi (2019) stated that emerging farmers own about 40% of the national cattle herd. Furthermore, this group makes use of hired labour or non-family labour (Zantsi & Mack, 2019).…”