tag:theconversation.com,2011:/ca/topics/africa-land-reform-38700/articlesAfrica land reform – The Conversation2023-09-21T13:27:43Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2113652023-09-21T13:27:43Z2023-09-21T13:27:43ZZulu land dispute: Ingonyama Trust furore highlights the problem of insecure land tenure for millions of South Africans in rural areas<p>The recent <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2023-06-04-the-battle-between-the-zulu-king-and-his-prime-minister-over-the-ingonyama-trust-is-likely-to-divide-kzn-voters-in-2024/">fallout</a> between the Zulu king, Misuzulu, and his now late traditional prime minister, Mangosuthu Buthelezi, over the running of the Ingonyama Trust highlights a pervasive problem in South Africa: insecure land tenure in rural areas. </p>
<p>The Ingonyama Trust administers about a third of the land in KwaZulu-Natal province. Buthelezi insinuated that the king – or those around him – wanted to corruptly sell the land for profit. He also questioned the competence of the board chairperson appointed by the king. The king denied the charge, saying the board would <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2023-06-04-the-battle-between-the-zulu-king-and-his-prime-minister-over-the-ingonyama-trust-is-likely-to-divide-kzn-voters-in-2024/">“never allow the sale of the land”</a>.</p>
<p>But the legally questionable practices of the Ingonyama Trust, such as charging people rent on land they own communally, and its unilateral decision-making about communally owned land, reflect the <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-south-african-communitys-win-against-mining-company-matters-107746">insecurity of land tenure</a> for millions of rural South Africans. </p>
<p>Land disputes arise when the principles at the core of <a href="https://ci.uct.ac.za/sites/default/files/content_migration/health_uct_ac_za/533/files/living%2520customary%2520law%2520and%2520families%2520in%2520South%2520Africa.pdf">customary law</a> are breached. The breach can be by the state or by the representatives appointed by the communities to manage or administer the land on their behalf and for their collective benefit.</p>
<p>Constitutional <a href="https://scholar.ufs.ac.za/xmlui/handle/11660/12130">land reform measures</a> are intended to provide security of land tenure to all land holders equally. All laws, including customary law, are subject to the <a href="https://www.justice.gov.za/legislation/constitution/saconstitution-web-eng.pdf">constitution</a>. Any law, rule or conduct found to be inconsistent with constitutional principles of human dignity, equality and freedom is invalid. </p>
<p>In areas run by traditional leaders, land is owned collectively, in line with <a href="https://ci.uct.ac.za/sites/default/files/content_migration/health_uct_ac_za/533/files/living%2520customary%2520law%2520and%2520families%2520in%2520South%2520Africa.pdf">customary law</a>. South African law <a href="http://www.saflii.org/za/cases/ZACC/2010/10.html">recognises</a> the application of living customary law, in accordance with the constitution.</p>
<p>Customary communal land tenure comes with inherent rights for land holders. They include collective ownership rights, equal benefit from the land and natural resources, and decision-making authority. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/customary-land-governance-holds-in-ghana-but-times-are-changing-and-not-for-the-better-205497">Customary land governance holds in Ghana. But times are changing and not for the better</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>My <a href="https://scholar.ufs.ac.za/xmlui/handle/11660/12130">research</a> areas include issues of rural land tenure, custodianship and property law. </p>
<p>In my view, the Ingonyama Trust has misconstrued <a href="http://www.saflii.org/za/journals/CCR/2011/4.pdf">customary communal land tenure</a>. Its dual application of both trust law and traditional customary law causes confusion. It’s not clear what the property rights of communal land holders are. Applying both sets of laws also blurs the limitations on the powers of the trust and traditional representatives. </p>
<p>Such misconstructions of customary law are often intertwined with corrupt practices and power mongering. These misconstructions preserve certain individuals’ powers and interests at the expense of the greater community. This occurs when understandings of individual private property ownership are applied to customary communal land tenure in a way that diminishes the need for communal consent and consultation.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/24566755">Living customary law</a> – which is developed over time by the community, is specific to that community, and occurs through collective practice and decision-making in accordance with shared values and rules – is then supplanted by misapplications. These misconstructions can originate from various sources, such as statutory regulations, distorted common law beliefs, and patriarchal traditional leadership practices that masquerade as customary law. </p>
<p>The result is insecure tenure for rural land occupants. The Ingonyama Trust epitomises these problems.</p>
<h2>How customary communal land tenure works</h2>
<p>Customary <a href="https://www.academia.edu/37320502/Land_reform_political_instability_and_commercial%20_agriculture_in_South_Africa_An_assessment">communal land tenure</a> is found in communities that have a genealogical or ancestral connection to that land. Some are beneficiaries of the government’s <a href="http://www.scielo.org.za/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1727-37812014000200004">land restitution programme</a>. They collectively hold all property rights to their land. </p>
<p>Living customary law gives them, collectively, the power to hold individual community members and leaders or representatives accountable for breaches of their fiduciary duties to the community.</p>
<p>Often a statutory entity is created, such as a trust or association, that regulates the way the land is managed. For example, some communities in the <a href="https://www.gov.za/issues/land-reform#:%7E:text=The%20Act%20makes%20provision%20for%20the%20restitution%20of%20rights%20in,and%20a%20Land%20Claims%20Court.">land restitution programme</a> are members of an association in terms of the <a href="https://www.gov.za/documents/communal-property-associations-act">Communal Property Associations Act</a>. </p>
<p>Such communities elect representatives who manage the administration of the association and have fiduciary responsibilities in terms of the act. Associations are governed by their constitution and the Communal Property Associations Act. Similarly, the Ingonyama Trust is governed by traditional customary law and the statutory trust framework. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/customary-and-religious-laws-are-impeding-progress-towards-womens-health-in-nigeria-154221">Customary and religious laws are impeding progress towards women's health in Nigeria</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Both forms of communal land holding are distinguishable from private property ownership, which confers registered ownership rights on individuals. Private ownership is primarily governed by the common law. It gives the land owner autonomous decision-making powers with few limitations. The owner has extensive unilateral decision-making authority in respect of their privately owned land. They can, for example, transfer ownership, dispose of, or encumber their property (without consultation).</p>
<h2>The Ingonyama Trust and its tenure challenges</h2>
<p>The Ingonyama Trust was <a href="http://www.ingonyamatrust.org.za/">established in 1994</a> by the then KwaZulu Government to administer all land it held. It is a corporate entity and administers 2.8 million hectares of the land in KwaZulu-Natal. The territory was once administered by the erstwhile KwaZulu homeland. This followed <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02582473.2021.1909116">a deal hammered out earlier</a> to entice Buthelezi and his Inkatha Freedom Party to take part in the elections that ended apartheid. The province is a stronghold of the party.</p>
<p>The Zulu monarch is the sole trustee, even though the land is <a href="http://www.ingonyamatrust.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Ingonyama-Trust-Act-as-amended.pdf">owned by the Zulu people</a>. The king represents the people and the land must be managed for their benefit and welfare. </p>
<p>The trust is plagued with disputes for not involving the community in its business transactions. There has been little evidence of collective benefit for the community. </p>
<p>The disputes expose unequal profit from trust assets, privileging a select few, instead of all the communal land holders equally. To sum up crisply: the trust has treated communal land like privately owned land.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-south-african-communitys-win-against-mining-company-matters-107746">Why South African community's win against mining company matters</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>In 2022, the Supreme Court of Appeal <a href="https://lrc.org.za/24-august-2022-supreme-court-of-appeal-dismisses-ingonyama-trust-board-application-for-leave-to-appeal/">directed</a> the Ingonyama Trust to cease letting trust land to the land beneficiaries to whom the land belonged. It was ordered to repay the rent.</p>
<p>In 2017, <a href="https://www.parliament.gov.za/storage/app/media/Pages/2017/october/High_Level_Panel/HLP_Report/HLP_report.pdf">a panel appointed by parliament to review post-apartheid legislation</a> recommended that the trust be amended or repealed. </p>
<p>However, such criticism is perceived by some as a slight against the king and is met with social and political resistance. The <a href="https://omalley.nelsonmandela.org/index.php/site/q/03lv02424/04lv02730/05lv02898.htm">Congress of Traditional Leaders of South Africa</a> contends that the Ingonyama Trust cannot be repealed, amended or dissolved without the king’s approval – in accordance with customary law. </p>
<h2>Traditional rule versus democracy</h2>
<p>The misapplication of tenure under the Ingonyama Trust exemplifies structural conflict between trust tenure and customary traditional rule. </p>
<p>The trust applies a form of traditional despotic rule that can be at odds with democratic principles enshrined in the constitution. Under traditional despotic rule or authoritarian rule, customary law is interpreted in a way that naturally limits the need for community consultation, consent and participation in all decision-making related to the land from the “subjects”. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africas-courts-and-lawmakers-have-failed-the-ideal-of-cultural-diversity-91508">South Africa's courts and lawmakers have failed the ideal of cultural diversity</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>This despotic rule is also at odds with trust tenure and the communal landholding rights of rural communities. The extent to which the community is able to equally use and enjoy their land, and the economic benefits accruing from it for collective social and economic progress, should be the yardstick against which communal land tenure is measured, and land rights clarified and protected.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/211365/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anthea-lee September-Van Huffel does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Land disputes arise when the fundamental principles of customary law are breached. The breach can be at the hands of the state or its representatives.Anthea-lee September-Van Huffel, Lecturer, University of the Free StateLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1904522022-10-17T14:57:17Z2022-10-17T14:57:17ZLand reform in South Africa is failing. Ignoring the realities of rural life plays a part<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/489772/original/file-20221014-896-pmyzrq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo by OJ Koloti/Gallo Images via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>There is widespread agreement that land reform in South Africa has failed to deliver the changes <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Land-Matters-Africas-Failed-Reforms/dp/1776095960">many hoped it would</a>. Racially based dislocation and land dispossession were central features of colonial conquest and apartheid rule. To redress this, in 1994, the newly elected African National Congress (ANC) set a target of redistributing 30% of the country’s white-owned agricultural land to black people <a href="https://www.parliament.gov.za/storage/app/media/Pages/2017/october/High_Level_Panel/Commissioned_Report_land/Diagnostic_Report_on_Land_Reform_in_South_Africa.pdf">within the first five years of government</a>. Persistently failing to come close to this goal, the government now hopes to reach it <a href="https://www.gov.za/issues/land-reform">by 2030</a>. </p>
<p>Agriculture continues to be <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03066150.2016.1259223?needAccess=true">dominated by large-scale agri-business</a>, and small farmers <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2015-10-15-farmers-rights-must-be-defended/">frequently lack the support they need</a> after land has been transferred. There are many debates about why <a href="https://www.tut.ac.za/news-and-press/article?NID=579">land reform is not working</a>. </p>
<p>My co-researcher <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/donna-hornby-420077">Donna Hornby</a> and I <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03066150.2022.2101098?src=">investigated the socio-cultural influences on farming</a>. We reviewed findings from across the social science literature. We also drew on our own research on <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0305750X14000485">small farmers belonging to an irrigation scheme</a> and land reform beneficiaries operating as part of <a href="https://etd.uwc.ac.za/xmlui/handle/11394/4199">communal land-holding organisations</a>.</p>
<p>Our <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03066150.2022.2101098?src=">findings</a> show that South Africa’s land reform programme is misguided. It is designed for a socio-economic context that doesn’t exist. It ignores three important factors: </p>
<ul>
<li><p>land has multiple uses other than production </p></li>
<li><p>small rural farmers aren’t purely economic actors who are self-reliant </p></li>
<li><p>family and community obligations create financial pressures that can force small rural farmers to stop production and fall into poverty. Social obligations may at other times consolidate social networks that keep farmers afloat. </p></li>
</ul>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/land-reform-in-south-africa-what-the-real-debate-should-be-about-182277">Land reform in South Africa: what the real debate should be about</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Finding ways to support people to produce more food is critical for tackling rising hunger. But the economic viability of land reform programmes depends on their flexibility to accommodate the multiple ways that farmers and residents use and circulate resources, including land, labour and money. A narrow focus on productivity misses a wider picture about people’s diverse needs. </p>
<h2>Land reform programmes</h2>
<p>A strong thread in land reform policy is the aspiration to <a href="https://www.gov.za/sites/default/files/gcis_document/201907/panelreportlandreform_1.pdf#page=26">create “self-reliance” among small farmers</a>. Therefore, “commercial viability” <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03066150903498739">underpins entitlement to redistributed land</a>. </p>
<p>This way of allocating land overlooks its multiple uses aside from cultivation. Land is valued in ways that do not always lead to increasing yields.</p>
<p>Land reform programmes also assume that farmers are individual economic actors, self-reliant and autonomous. But this is at odds with the realities of life in rural South Africa. People rely on social networks of distribution to make a living. For example, farmers may not necessarily reinvest funds in productive enterprise if the social demands on these resources are more pressing.</p>
<p>Households need a ceremonial fund to pay for life-cycle events such as weddings and funerals. They may also be supporting non-farm activities of other family members, such as job-seeking. </p>
<p>Money circulates in ways that render ideas of “self-reliance” spurious. Interdependence is integral to livelihoods in rural South Africa. Economic life is embedded within social practices. </p>
<p>Our <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03066150.2022.2101098?src=">research</a> shows that successful small farming depends on diversified income sources and secure distributional networks. “Self-reliance” is associated with farmers dropping out of production, often into extreme poverty. </p>
<h2>Three social dynamics affecting farming viability</h2>
<p>Three key issues emerged.</p>
<p>First, families do not usually live under a single roof. They are split between country, town and city. Food and resources travel through networks in ways that development policy and planning often ignores. Yet the implications for farming prospects are huge. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03057070.2016.1265336">Unemployed youth do not necessarily take up farming</a>, although there is evidence of this happening more during the COVID crisis. Instead, they travel to and from cities in search of work. However, those with salaried income in towns often have more likelihood of success in farming. They are <a href="https://theconversation.com/obstacles-facing-a-young-black-farmer-in-south-africa-a-personal-story-94037">more likely to access loans</a>. </p>
<p>Second, the expectations and roles of women and men, young and old, is changing in South African homes. Contradictory trends are emerging. On the one hand, customary land rights – whereby chiefs control access to land – in many regions have extended to women. This allows women <a href="https://journals.co.za/doi/10.10520/EJC148468">access to land without being married</a>. On the other hand, pressure on women’s land rights may be increasing in recent times, as migrants return from urban to rural homes following COVID job losses. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/black-farmers-in-south-africa-need-support-how-it-could-be-done-182605">Black farmers in South Africa need support: how it could be done</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Marriage rates have declined <a href="http://www.cls.uct.ac.za/usr/lrg/downloads/Women_and_Land.pdf">in the post-apartheid period</a>, in part because of the cost of <em>ilobolo</em> (bridewealth) in the context of <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Love-Time-AIDS-Inequality-Gender/dp/0253222397">high unemployment</a>. One implication for farming is that unmarried adults may be less willing to contribute unpaid labour to household production than if they had married and <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/260805165_The_Social_Dynamics_of_Labor_Shortage_in_South_African_Small-Scale_Agriculture">built their own homes</a>. </p>
<p>The third issue has to do with the economic significance of customary practices centred on ceremonies such as weddings and funerals. These life-cycle events are a central feature of rural life, and are important for maintaining connection to <em>amadlozi</em> (ancestors). </p>
<p>The ceremonial fund households require to maintain this social obligation can put a strain on farming. Not everyone has four or five cattle and goats to carry out mourning, celebration and marriage feasts or the cash to buy food, goods and services for these ceremonies. </p>
<p>In some communally held land projects acquired through land reform, wealth inequalities emerged quickly due in part to the strain caused by <a href="https://etd.uwc.ac.za/xmlui/handle/11394/4199">ceremonial expenses for some families</a>. In some cases, this led to irresolvable conflict.</p>
<h2>Implications for land reform</h2>
<p>If it doesn’t recognise the social dynamics that impinge on farming decisions, land reform will continue to be poorly suited to rural economic life. Post-transfer support must take seriously the social demands on land and finances that shape collective life, and that sit outside the production-oriented logic of mainstream agricultural policies.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/small-and-medium-growers-and-innovation-are-key-to-south-africas-citrus-export-growth-142112">Small and medium growers and innovation are key to South Africa's citrus export growth</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Social demands may occur through trans-local networks and through ceremonial obligations, drawing resources away from farming. Obligations based on age, gender or marital status shape farming decisions and its viability. Without tailoring support more closely to these local realities, the prospect of land reform genuinely meeting the social and economic needs of marginalised communities is remote.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/190452/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>My co-researcher Donna Hornby received funding from EU/Capacity Building Programme for Employment Promotion (CBPEP) to conduct an earlier version of this study.</span></em></p>South Africa’s land reform programme is designed for a socio-economic context that doesn’t exist.Elizabeth Hull, Senior Lecturer in Social Anthropology, SOAS, University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1217712019-08-20T13:04:43Z2019-08-20T13:04:43ZHow a chief defied apartheid and upheld democracy for the good of his people<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/288184/original/file-20190815-136222-34o1j9.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Inkosi Mhlabunzima Maphumulo, right, with Dali Mpofu and Winnie Mandela in 1989. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Thobekile Maphumulo Family Papers, Author provided (No reuse)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The recently released report of President Cyril Ramaphosa’s <a href="http://www.thepresidency.gov.za/press-statements/president-ramaphosa-appoints-advisory-panel-land-reform">advisory panel</a> on land reform, and the latest efforts to force through <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africa-still-has-a-long-way-to-go-to-settle-traditional-leadership-challenges-119009">two controversial traditional authority bills</a>, point to the continued legacies of changes to the relationship between traditional leaders, their followers, and land in South Africa’s history. </p>
<p>The panel calls for a resolution to the “<a href="https://www.gov.za/documents/final-report-presidential-advisory-panel-land-reform-and-agriculture-28-jul-2019-0000">contending philosophies around land tenure</a>” — those of individual rights and those of communalism. But as traditional leaders <a href="https://www.enca.com/news/contralesa-back-zulu-king-ingonyama-issue">fight to continue their control</a> over communally held land, there also needs to be a recognition that there are contending philosophies of traditional leadership. At times, these overlap.</p>
<p>This was evident at the meeting between a delegation from the Congress of Traditional Leaders of South Africa (Contralesa) and the then exiled African National Congress (ANC) in Lusaka, Zambia 30 years ago – on 18 August 1989.</p>
<p>The meeting released a joint memorandum. In it the parties called upon traditional leaders in South Africa to refuse to implement apartheid. The <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20110427125959/http://www.anc.org.za/show.php?id=3843">document</a> recognised the profound effects of apartheid on South Africa’s traditional leaders: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>From leaders responsible and responsive to the people, you are being forced by the regime to become its paid agents. From being a force for unity and prosperity you are turned into perpetrators of division, poverty and want among the oppressed. The so-called <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/homelands">homeland system</a>, land deprivation, forced removals and the denial of basic political rights – all these and more are the anti-people policies that the white ruling clique forces the chiefs to implement on its behalf.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Contending views of chieftancy</h2>
<p>The ANC and the Contralesa delegation called on a historical understanding of traditional authority in which a leader’s authority came from their followers. This understanding is embodied by the isiZulu proverb <em>inkosi yinkosi ngabantu</em> (a chief is a chief by the people who <em>khonza</em> him, or pay allegiance to him). <em>Ukukhonza</em> is a practice of political affiliation. It is one that binds chiefs and their subjects and allows for accountability.</p>
<p>Colonialism and apartheid sought to make traditional leaders accountable to white officials by tying them to land. Historian Percy Ngonyama called this <em>inkosi yinkosi ngendawo</em> (a chief is a chief by territory). Doing so effected territorial segregation. It also allowed white officials to govern through a mimicry of pre-existing political structures.</p>
<p>Colonial officials came to interpret <em>ukukhonza</em> as a practice of subservience. But in fact, historically, this was a reciprocal practice. Paying allegiance to a chief came with expectations of physical and social security.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/287997/original/file-20190814-136176-ywjj73.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/287997/original/file-20190814-136176-ywjj73.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=797&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287997/original/file-20190814-136176-ywjj73.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=797&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287997/original/file-20190814-136176-ywjj73.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=797&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287997/original/file-20190814-136176-ywjj73.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1002&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287997/original/file-20190814-136176-ywjj73.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1002&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287997/original/file-20190814-136176-ywjj73.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1002&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>My recent <a href="http://www.ukznpress.co.za/?class=bb_ukzn_books&method=view_books&global%5Bfields%5D%5B_id%5D=552">book</a>, To Swim with Crocodiles: Land, Violence and Belonging in South Africa, 1800 - 1996, is a history of <em>ukukhonza</em>. It shows how even as colonialism and apartheid sought to break down personal bonds of <em>ukukhonza</em>, people used knowledge about the practice to make claims on land and on their leaders. </p>
<p>In the case of Inkosi Maphumulo, the claims were for physical security in times of violence.</p>
<h2>Inkosi Mhlabunzima Maphumulo</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/mhlabunzima-joseph-maphumulo">Inkosi (Chief) Mhlabunzima Maphumulo</a> (1949-1991) led the Contralesa delegation to Lusaka. He governed in the Table Mountain region, an area just outside of Pietermaritzburg, in KwaZulu-Natal. His life, tragically cut short by an apartheid hit squad, provides insight on these overlapping concepts of chiefly authority – <em>inkosi yinkosi ngabantu</em> and <em>inkosi yinkosi ngendawo</em>. </p>
<p>Inkosi Maphumulo was the fourth chief of a colonially created chiefdom that from its genesis in 1905 was tied to land south of the <a href="http://www.dwaf.gov.za/iwqs/rhp/state_of_rivers/state_of_umngeni_02/history.html">Umngeni River</a> at <a href="https://www.google.com/search?rlz=1C1NHXL_enZA711ZA711&q=table+mountain+pietermaritzburg&tbm=isch&source=univ&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiNz9T18f_jAhVKJVAKHbBzCQUQsAR6BAgGEAE&biw=1261&bih=636">Table Mountain</a>. The existence of two types of chiefdoms served to “divide and rule”. It pitted leaders who saw themselves as having historical authority against those with new authority from the colonial regime. </p>
<p>From his installation in 1973, he carried out the duties of the chieftaincy within the structures of the nascent KwaZulu bantustan. The so-called <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/homelands">“bantustans” or “homelands”</a> were the ultimate level of the three tiered system of governance designed to ensure segregation in South Africa – not only on racial, but also ethnic lines. The bantustans built on so-called <a href="https://repository.up.ac.za/bitstream/handle/2263/24222/02chapter2.pdf?sequence=3&isAllowed=y">tribal authorities</a> such as that of the region Maphumulo governed. </p>
<p>One of Inkosi Maphumulo’s priorities was to provide land to his subjects during a time when territorial segregation constrained black South Africans’ access to land. He tirelessly pursued a contested strip of land that bisected his territory but, according to apartheid-defined boundaries, fell neither under his control nor that of a neighbouring chief.</p>
<p>The government gazette that outlined the boundaries of the Inkosi Maphumulo Tribal Authority in 1957 made its leaders chiefs by land. Colonial officials had been putting down boundaries in Natal for over 100 years. But apartheid’s <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/archive/bantu-authorities-act%2C-act-no-68-of-1951">Bantu Authorities</a> finalised this process and fully bounded chiefdoms. </p>
<p>But Inkosi Maphumulo was a leader who did not forget the responsibilities of chief by the people, even as he pursued land to allocate to his followers. By the time he flew to Lusaka, he had become known as the “peace chief”. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/287938/original/file-20190813-9389-k5lnqo.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/287938/original/file-20190813-9389-k5lnqo.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287938/original/file-20190813-9389-k5lnqo.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287938/original/file-20190813-9389-k5lnqo.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287938/original/file-20190813-9389-k5lnqo.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287938/original/file-20190813-9389-k5lnqo.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287938/original/file-20190813-9389-k5lnqo.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Maphumulo the peace maker.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">New African, April 17, 1989</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As violence spread across the Natal Midlands from 1985 in a state-sponsored civil war, Inkosi Maphumulo organised peace initiatives. And, through Contralesa, he set up a commission of inquiry into the causes of the conflict. </p>
<p>He spoke out against police partiality and cooperation with Inkatha, which was engaged in a deadly conflict with the ANC and the broader liberation movement. He also welcomed refugees of all political affiliations from war torn townships onto land at Table Mountain. He described the process by which this happened to the press:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>People are not made to pay money to live in the area, but in our tradition they are expected to pay ‘khonza’—a tribute to the chief… A goat is sufficient for ‘khonza’ but if a person does not have one, then a small amount of money, depending on the person’s circumstances, is expected.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Land and belonging</h2>
<p>Inkosi Maphumulo spoke of rights to land as tied to belonging in a chiefdom, a process facilitated by <em>ukukhonza</em>. There was a slight hitch. The neighbouring Nyavu chiefdom, who claimed precedence in the region – to the time of King Shaka, if not before – believed the land onto which Maphumulo located refugees belonged to them. </p>
<p>While Inkosi Maphumulo sought to provide expected security to his followers, both old and those who newly paid allegiance to him, his neighbours and some among his followers who contested his chieftaincy saw the newcomers as interlopers. Peace would <a href="http://disa.ukzn.ac.za/sites/default/files/pdf_files/aff00000000.043.027.pdf">not remain</a> at Table Mountain.</p>
<p>As the violence spread to the area, people used the cultural inheritance of <em>ukukhonza</em> to define who had access to the contested land, and who could expect security from their chief. Inkosi Maphumulo believed himself responsible for the new residents because they had paid allegiance to him. As the conflict raged, he reflected:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I had done all I could to ensure peaceful coexistence in my area. What had I done wrong?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>He sought to expand his territory, but respected the demands of <em>ukukhonza</em> with his attempts to promote political tolerance, provide a safe haven, and end the violence.</p>
<h2>Chiefaincy and land reform</h2>
<p>Inkosi Maphumulo did not live to see the dawning of democracy in South Africa. But these overlapping concepts of chief by the people and chief by land embodied in his leadership need to be brought to the forefront in current discussions about traditional authority and land reform. </p>
<p>Even after the territorial rule of colonialism and apartheid took hold among chiefs, Inkosi Maphumulo’s belief in the concept of <em>inkosi yinkosi ngabantu</em> spurred him to pursue peace and promote political tolerance.</p>
<p>Enshrining the control of land by traditional leaders in <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2019-08-07-secret-details-of-the-land-deal-that-brought-the-ifp-into-the-94-poll?fbclid=IwAR1crtWUQX3RseTPGSua0-0FRZhRv7niLms6KJQBe0tv5bIg8tcNF4TWCkc">recent</a> and newly proposed laws gives precedence to the <em>inkosi yinkosi ngendawo</em> of colonial and apartheid rule at the expense of the people of <em>inkosi yinkosi ngabantu</em>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/121771/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jill E. Kelly's research has been supported by the American Council of Learned Societies (2015) and Fulbright (2010-2011, 2018-2019). </span></em></p>Colonialism and apartheid sought to make traditional leaders accountable to white officials by tying them to land.Jill E. Kelly, Associate Professor of History, Southern Methodist UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1184642019-07-14T10:51:54Z2019-07-14T10:51:54ZHow South Africa’s rural communities are getting a raw deal from mining<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/283507/original/file-20190710-44448-x7vm1p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Mining activities in South Africa's rural areas tend to occur at the expense of local communities and the environment.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Some of the most profitable South African mines are situated in the <a href="https://hsf.org.za/publications/hsf-briefs/mining-land-and-community-in-communal-areas-ii-mineral-rights-and-land-rights">areas of the country</a> that are home to traditional communities and are governed in terms of customary law. </p>
<p>Many of these developments have led to the <a href="https://www.bizcommunity.com/Article/196/558/76519.html">destruction</a> of the natural environment. And mining activities have also disrupted local ways of life. For example, residential homes have been <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2018-07-27-00-scramble-for-minerals-leaves-rural-families-homeless">destroyed</a>. In others, violence has erupted within communities leading to <a href="https://www.hrw.org/report/2019/04/16/we-know-our-lives-are-danger/environment-fear-south-africas-mining-affected">the deaths</a> of people opposed to mining. </p>
<p>On top of this communities rarely <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2019-02-05-mining-brings-no-benefit-say-79-of-community-members-in-audit/">benefit</a> from mining. Instead, they’re exposed to pollution and health risks as well as disruptions to their livelihoods. </p>
<p>Unfortunately, communities are often let down by traditional leaders who are meant to represent their interests. Some have acted as barriers to local community participation and decision making. And some have entered into deals with the mining companies for personal profit, without local community consent.</p>
<p>There have been <a href="http://www.hsrc.ac.za/uploads/pageContent/6547/HSRC%20Review%20Nov%20to%20Dec%202015.pdf">legal cases</a>. For example, over a decade ago the Bakgatla-ba-Kgafela traditional community <a href="https://www.ajol.info/index.php/sacq/article/view/109085">attempted</a> to hold their traditional leader to account over assets and revenue derived from mining operations. The traditional leader sought an <a href="http://www.saflii.org/za/cases/ZACC/2015/25.html">interdict</a> against villagers from holding public meetings to discuss community concerns about mining and corruption. In the end the traditional leader was convicted of <a href="https://www.judgesmatter.co.za/opinions/judge-hendricks-in-the-hot-seat/">theft and corruption</a>.</p>
<p>I conducted a <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264837718308664?dgcid=author">study</a> in the community of Fuleni located in Northern KwaZulu-Natal near the Great St Lucia Wetland Park, where a coal mining company is attempting to develop an anthracite open cast coal mine. </p>
<p>My fieldwork centred on the role of traditional leaders in the area. I conducted research spread over a year in Fuleni and neighbouring Somkele, and as part of a larger study on mining in South Africa. My findings included the fact that corruption played a role in blocking the local community’s concerns being taken on board when mining licences were considered. I also found that mining conglomerates exercise more control over the government and traditional chiefs than local communities.</p>
<h2>The research</h2>
<p>I interviewed key social actors. These included local community residents fighting mining, youth groups and civil society organisations that were providing support to the local community. </p>
<p>I found that there was a lack of transparency on how decisions were made about mining developments within the Fuleni traditional council. And that decisions weren’t in the interest of the community. The support for mining development within the traditional council was due to benefits received from <a href="https://www.iol.co.za/sunday-tribune/news/community-vs-coal-mining-giants-in-court-today-16691046">mining development</a>. </p>
<p>I also found that South Africa’s laws weren’t being enforced. </p>
<p>Firstly, the <a href="http://www.justice.gov.za/legislation/constitution/SAConstitution-web-eng.pdf">South African Constitution</a> protects peoples’ right to transparency, accountability and justice. These conditions were not being met. </p>
<p>In addition, specific laws – such as the <a href="https://cer.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/107-of-1998-National-Environmental-Management-Act_18-Dec-2014-to-date.pdf">1998 National Waste Management</a> Strategy and the <a href="https://www.gov.za/documents/national-environmental-management-act">1998 National Environmental Management Act</a> – designed to protect the environment were also being flouted. </p>
<p>These laws all point to the fact that the state has a duty to ensure that communities’ interests are genuinely taken into account during decision making processes over mining developments. </p>
<p>In addition, mining companies need to ensure that they’re operating within the law and to ensure that proper rehabilitation of the environment is done post-mining operations. </p>
<p>Another big challenge is monitoring the impact of mining once a licence is granted. A lack of human resources at all government levels means that this is done unevenly. As a result mining companies take advantage of enforcement loopholes. </p>
<h2>Traditional leaders</h2>
<p>Another major challenge is that the government is <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/joac.12179">proposing</a> new regulations that would strengthen the powers of traditional leaders. Traditional leaders often purport to be the only community representatives in negotiation processes with mining companies. </p>
<p>But reasserting the proprietary powers of chiefs in the name of “custom” would create a situation in which land could be indirectly transferred to mining corporations. </p>
<p>Even as things stand, communities are left vulnerable to exploitation by traditional leaders, mining companies and government. This is because of a lack of transparency – nobody knows what deals traditional leaders have done – is compounded by weaknesses in the regulatory framework. A sound framework would ensure genuine consultation, consent, and <a href="http://www.larc.uct.ac.za/sites/default/files/image_tool/images/347/NewsStories/In%20Good%20Company.pdf">downward accountability in mining communities</a>. </p>
<p>So far government has distanced itself from the challenges faced by mining affected communities. It needs to adopt a co-ordinated and integrated environmental management approach when it considers mining development and applications. And effective governance won’t happen unless the government and industry are transparent and employ credible participatory processes.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/118464/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Llewellyn Leonard does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>South Africa’s rural communities where mining licenses have been granted are often excluded from consultations and bear the brunt having their environment and livelihoods destroyed.Llewellyn Leonard, Professor Environmental Science, University of South AfricaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1077462018-12-13T12:26:55Z2018-12-13T12:26:55ZWhy South African community’s win against mining company matters<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/249267/original/file-20181206-128196-132mrc4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A Xolobeni villager protesting against mine development.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Flickr/Patricia Alejandro</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>A South African High Court has passed an important <a href="http://www.saflii.org/za/cases/ZAGPPHC/2018/829.html">judgment</a> putting a stop to <a href="https://www.wits.ac.za/media/migration/news-migration/files/SWOP%20%20WP%20%20Bakgatla%20%20Mnwana%20and%20Capps.pdf">the pervasive practice</a> by companies to mine ancestral lands in rural areas without the villagers’ consent.</p>
<p>The case was brought by the community of rural UMgungundlovu, a small cluster of villages that fall under the Amadiba traditional authority on the largely undeveloped coast of the Eastern Cape Province. The place is also known as <a href="https://za.geotargit.com/index.php?qcountry_code=ZA&qregion_code=05&qcity=Xolobeni">Xolobeni</a>. </p>
<p>The villagers have been resisting plans by the Australian mining company, Transworld Energy and Mineral Resources, to mine their land for titanium and other heavy minerals for <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2016-03-24-goodbye-bazooka-wild-coast-anti-mining-activist-killed/">at least a decade</a>.</p>
<p>The government granted the firm’s holding company, Mineral Resources Commodities, a mining licence in 2008, with the support of the chief who ostensibly represented the villagers, much to their disgruntlement. The state later <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2011-06-07-wild-coast-mining-rights-revoked">revoked</a> the licence due to lack of consultation with the community. The conflict deteriorated into violence – <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2016-03-24-goodbye-bazooka-wild-coast-anti-mining-activist-killed/">including murder</a>. </p>
<p>In this court battle, Xolobeni villagers fought not only to be consulted, as required by law, but – as the owners of the land – for the power to give consent to mining.</p>
<p>The court ruling is, therefore, a major victory for them. But subtle points remain to be worked out in a country that legally recognises tradition and <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africas-courts-and-lawmakers-have-failed-the-ideal-of-cultural-diversity-91508">customary law</a>, on condition that these must ultimately conform with the values of the <a href="https://www.gov.za/documents/constitution-republic-south-africa-1996">Constitution</a>.</p>
<h2>Free and informed consent</h2>
<p>The court ruled that the Minister of Mineral Resources had no legal authority to grant a mining licence, unless the Minister and the Director General of Rural Development and Land Reform had implemented the provisions of an act <a href="https://www.gov.za/documents/interim-protection-informal-land-rights-act">that covers protection to informal land rights</a>. A key provision on which the Xolobeni community based their demands is a section of the act that states:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>… (No) person may be deprived of any informal right to land without his or her consent.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The court also confirmed that the UMgungundlovu community – and other customary rights holders – are entitled, not just to be consulted - under the <a href="http://www.dmr.gov.za/Portals/0/mineraland_petroleum_resources_development_actmprda.pdf">Mineral Petroleum Resources Development Act</a> - but to free, prior and informed consent before a mining right can be granted on their land. This is in line with international human rights law. </p>
<p>This is a significant victory for the people of Xolobeni and other rural communities who face dispossession of their ancestral land due to mining in South Africa. </p>
<p>But, for this court victory to translate into real power for rural communities, a few issues need to be made explicit. These include clarity about what is meant by “custom” and who has power over the different categories of rural land. There is also the need to appreciate the true meaning of land to rural African communities.</p>
<h2>Customary communities</h2>
<p>Some people may think that “customary communities” are homogeneous groups living in areas that were set aside for them under apartheid <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/article/homelands">according to an ethnic identity</a>. They may also think that these groups’ interests and views can be represented and protected by local chiefs.</p>
<p>The judgment, although groundbreaking in terms of enforcing the protection customary rights when it comes to land, makes it even more important to understand the nature and content of custom. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/249216/original/file-20181206-128199-z99jrt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/249216/original/file-20181206-128199-z99jrt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249216/original/file-20181206-128199-z99jrt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249216/original/file-20181206-128199-z99jrt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249216/original/file-20181206-128199-z99jrt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249216/original/file-20181206-128199-z99jrt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249216/original/file-20181206-128199-z99jrt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Court judgment prevents Australian firm mining without South African rural villagers’ consent.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Flickr/Patricia Alejandro</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The content of precolonial African custom was reshaped and distorted by colonialism and <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/history-apartheid-south-africa">apartheid</a> in South Africa. The whole scale colonial process of “formalisation” of custom enhanced the power of colonial chiefs over land and people. According to <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/titles/11315.html">Ugandan academic and author Mahmood Mamdani</a>, the colonial version of custom</p>
<blockquote>
<p>was not about guaranteeing rights, it was about enforcing custom. It was not about limiting the power of local chiefs and the colonial state, but about enabling it.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The Xolobeni judgment secures customary rights through the 1996 interim law protecting customary rights over land. But questions remain about which social units have the power to decide on which categories of rural land.</p>
<p>In practice, access to African property rights depend on membership to a particular group and the way society allocates power over property. If decisions on land are to be left to the domain of custom, it should be made clear by those who subscribe to local customary law: </p>
<ul>
<li><p>which social categories – including gender, age, marital status, level of authority – are likely to hold more power than others to decide on the control and distribution of certain categories of land and why;</p></li>
<li><p>which local authority - allocates rights to and power over various categories of land, and why; </p></li>
<li><p>how does power (of access, use, distribution) over land gets distributed at the family level, and who gets to decide about land at this micro level?;</p></li>
<li><p>if power is not shared equally, what will that mean when communities are asked to consent to mining? How will compensation for loss of land be allocated?</p></li>
</ul>
<h2>Democratic discussion</h2>
<p>Land carries multiple meanings among Africans. It’s, among other things; a home and a place to grow food. It is a space for cultural, political, social and spiritual fulfilment and dignity. It’s also a place for political belonging and identity, and property - that is owned and shared by members of families or other units. </p>
<p>There is a common misconception that customary land rights in Africa are always “communal”. This is not always the case. A large communal group may take decisions about land for livestock grazing and the use of natural resources such as herbs, trees and thatch grass. But, it is families and individuals who decide on land where homesteads, ploughing fields, and in some instances graves are located. African living custom does not allow any outside authority, even that of a local chief, to take away such land.</p>
<p>Xolobeni villagers fought for recognition as holders of legitimate property rights on land – not only as “community” members, but as families and individuals who have inalienable rights to certain categories of land and resources. </p>
<p>Now that customary land rights are <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-african-court-resets-power-balance-between-villagers-mines-and-chiefs-106633">gaining legal recognition</a>, it’s time to open a democratic discussion about customary rights.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/107746/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sonwabile Mnwana receives funding from the Open Society Foundation South Africa. </span></em></p>Villagers from a community in South Africa’s Eastern Cape fought to be consulted and for the power to consent to mining their land.Sonwabile Mnwana, Associate Professor, Sociology, University of Fort HareLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/981062018-11-13T14:38:09Z2018-11-13T14:38:09ZWhy giving South Africans title deeds isn’t the panacea for land reform<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/223368/original/file-20180615-85845-1yzicf7.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">DSC</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The land reform debate in South Africa has become increasingly polarised since Parliament resolved to consider <a href="https://www.sanews.gov.za/south-africa/national-enquiry-fast-track-land-reform">amending</a> the country’s Constitution to allow for the expropriation of land without compensation.</p>
<p>But the <a href="https://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/parliament-concerned-about-slow-pace-of-land-reform-20170519">slow pace</a> of <a href="http://ccs.ukzn.ac.za/files/LandreforminSouthAfrica.pdf">land reform</a> – a process that aims to address the dispossession of the previously oppressed black majority – will not be solved by amending the Constitution. That’s because the main problems with the country’s land reform programme have nothing to do with it.</p>
<p>The main problem lies with the government’s thinking behind land reform. It’s rooted in a Western, <a href="http://www.plaas.org.za/plaas-publication/ruralstatusrep-bk3-weinberg">colonial</a> mindset that’s totally out of step with how many would-be beneficiaries understand land.</p>
<p>The problem stems from the fact that indigenous systems of land ownership are not the same as the absolute ownership approach preferred by the West. Nor are they what early colonialists assumed when they adopted a <a href="http://www.ee.co.za/article/addressing-shortcomings-land-tenure-reform-customary-land-rights.html">communal paradigm</a>, assuming that land was collectively owned by indigenous communities. This was not the case. Some land was for communal use (particularly grazing and some agricultural land), but families and individuals held exclusive use rights over other areas such as homesteads.</p>
<p>The legacy of this is devastating. Adherence to a communal paradigm strips people of the ability to hold land rights individually. This is unconstitutional. Yet the paradigm persists: we can see it in, for example, the <a href="http://www.customcontested.co.za/laws-and-policies/communal-land-rights-act-clara/">communal land rights Act</a>, and the <a href="http://www.customcontested.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/06-AUG-2013-Communal-Land-Tenure-Policy-v2.pdf">communal land tenure policy</a>.</p>
<p>South Africa needs to move away from the communal paradigm that entrenches colonial and apartheid-era thinking, and move towards an approach that’s better aligned to living norms and traditions.</p>
<p>Rejecting the communal paradigm, I prefer to refer to <a href="http://www.land-links.org/issue-brief/the-future-of-customary-tenure/">customary land tenure</a> to describe how indigenous communities manage their land. Customary tenure systems are regulated by traditional norms and practices, within which land rights are socially embedded. They are dynamic, multi-layered and responsive to the needs of the community. As a result, and contrary to common perception, they <em>can</em> offer secure tenure.</p>
<p><a href="https://hsf.org.za/publications/focus/focus-70-on-focus/focus-70-oct-g-pienaar.pdf">What is required</a> is legislation to recognise and protect them, and for such legislation to be properly implemented. This, unfortunately, is not the government’s approach.</p>
<h2>Flawed thinking</h2>
<p>The government sees customary tenure as insecure and an impediment to economic development. In terms of the <a href="http://www.plaas.org.za/sites/default/files/publications-pdf/Landreform.pdf">Green Paper on Land Reform</a>, land in South Africa may only be owned by a <a href="http://www.plaas.org.za/plaas-publication/ruralstatusrep-bk3-weinberg">“small elite”</a>. The <a href="http://www.ruraldevelopment.gov.za/phocadownload/Policies/state_land_lease_and_disposal_policy_25july2013.pdf">State Land Lease and Disposal Policy</a> (which does not provide for ownership, but allows beneficiaries of land redistribution to lease land from the State), has been criticised as showing the government’s lack of faith in <a href="http://www.plaas.org.za/blog/whats-wrong-governments-state-land-lease-disposal-policy-and-how-can-it-be-remedied">poor black farmers</a>. And the <a href="http://www.customcontested.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/06-AUG-2013-Communal-Land-Tenure-Policy-v2.pdf">Communal Land Tenure Policy</a> seeks to transfer ownership of customary land to tribal authorities.
This <a href="http://www.plaas.org.za/blog/communal-land-tenure-policy-state-land-grabbing-and-coercive-use-land-create-voting-blocks">deprives land rights-holders</a> of their land rights, rendering them subjects of the chief instead of citizens of the country. Such an approach is unequivocally unconstitutional.</p>
<p>Globally, individual title to land (ownership) is seen as the ultimate goal because it allows people to access the capital value of their land and promotes investment. This view is supported by both the African National Congress and the main opposition party, the <a href="https://www.da.org.za/2018/03/da-has-proud-record-on-land-reform-and-we-reject-land-expropriation-without-compensation/">Democratic Alliance</a>. </p>
<p>Titling is seen as a sure way to lift people out of poverty. But the link between giving people title deeds to their land and poverty alleviation in sub-Saharan Africa is <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1467-7660.1996.tb00578.x">contested</a>.</p>
<h2>Ownership</h2>
<p>Titling, or the formalisation approach is <a href="http://www.ee.co.za/article/land-rights-people-want.html">supported</a> by some people, while others argue <a href="http://theconversation.com/why-title-deeds-arent-the-solution-to-south-africas-land-tenure-problem-82098?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Latest%20from%20The%20Conversation%20for%20August%2014%202017%20-%2080696483&utm_content=Latest%20from%20The%20Conversat">against</a> it. Those who oppose it warn that it could bring about greater insecurity of land tenure, especially for women and other vulnerable groups. </p>
<p>From <a href="http://www.ee.co.za/article/addressing-shortcomings-land-tenure-reform-customary-land-rights.html">interviews I conducted</a> with customary land rights-holders in the Eastern Cape, the biggest fears around formalisation were:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Having title to land is expensive because you are immediately liable for rates and taxes, and banks may seize your property should you default on loan repayments.</p></li>
<li><p>For the poor and vulnerable, especially, this may lead to a decrease in tenure security and push them further into poverty.</p></li>
<li><p>Titling also leads to a loss of tribal identity because individuals may choose to sell their lands to outsiders who do not identify with the traditions and customs of the area.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>Government views formalisation through registration and title as a <a href="https://www.parliament.gov.za/storage/app/media/Pages/2017/october/High_Level_Panel/Commissioned_Report_land/Commissioned_Report_on_Spatial_Inequality.pdf">quick fix “silver bullet” solution</a>, but it’s beset with “intractable problems and conflicts”. </p>
<p><a href="http://reference.sabinet.co.za/sa_epublication_article/ju_jur_2011_a9">In some cases</a>, beneficiaries of land titling programmes revert to customary practices. This is partly because they don’t identify with government’s imposed system of ownership.</p>
<h2>Customary tenure systems</h2>
<p>A conservative approach is to recognise customary tenure systems that are socially embedded and that may offer more security than ownership through titling. Such recognition represents a shift away from the <a href="http://www.econ3x3.org/article/land-and-property-rights-title-deeds-usual-won%E2%80%99t-work">supremacy of ownership</a> that views individual title as the be all and end all. </p>
<p>In South Africa, both the <a href="https://www.gov.za/tn/documents/interim-protection-informal-land-rights-act">Interim Protection of Informal Land Rights Act</a> and the former <a href="http://saflii.org/za/legis/num_act/lrarlaa1999423.pdf">Land Rights Bill of 1999</a> adopted a conservative approach. Both documents recognised existing land rights and sought to protect and further strengthen them. But Interim Protection of Informal Land Rights Act is <a href="https://agbiz.co.za/uploads/AgbizNews16/160211_CommunalLandAninkaClaasens.pdf">often overlooked</a>, and the Bill was <a href="https://pmg.org.za/committee-meeting/3436/">scrapped</a>.</p>
<p>Current policies seek to undermine customary land rights-holders, allowing them only to lease land from the state or to have secondary use rights as subjects of traditional authorities. South Africa needs a new approach, one that challenges the supremacy of titling and casts off the shackles of the communal paradigm.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/98106/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Simon Hull is employed by the University of Cape Town. He is a member of the South African Geomatics Institute, the GeoInformation Society of South Africa, and is a professional land surveyor registered with the South African Geomatics Council.</span></em></p>The main reason land reform in South Africa has been lethargic is not the Constitution, but a flawed approach.Simon Hull, Senior lecturer, Division of Geomatics, University of Cape TownLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1053012018-10-31T12:49:39Z2018-10-31T12:49:39ZNamibia’s long-standing land issue remains unresolved<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/241870/original/file-20181023-169822-ls11z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">One of the new resolutions on land related to Namibia's urban areas, like the capital city Windhoek.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Grobler du Preez/Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Thirty years of German settler colonialism in South West Africa – from 1884 to 1914 – paved the way for continued apartheid under South Africa. The resistance of the local communities against the invasion culminated in the <a href="https://stichproben.univie.ac.at/fileadmin/user_upload/p_stichproben/Artikel/Nummer33/01_Article_Melber_Genocide_Namibia_draft_FINAL.pdf">first genocide of the 20th century</a> among the Ovaherero, Nama and other groups. As main occupants of the eastern, central and southern regions of the country they were forced from their land into so-called native reserves.</p>
<p>Forced land dispossession continued. Even independence brought little relief. The negotiated transition to independence in 1990 entrenched the <a href="http://www.diva-portal.org/smash/record.jsf?pid=diva2%3A275566&dswid=2400">structural discrepancies created during colonialism</a>. In exchange for occupying the political commando heights of a sovereign state the national liberation movement SWAPO accepted the material inequalities it inherited without any major debate. </p>
<p>Namibia’s <a href="https://www.gov.na/documents/10181/14134/Namibia_Constitution.pdf/37b70b76-c15c-45d4-9095-b25d8b8aa0fb">Constitution</a> was adopted as a precondition to independence. Its chapter 3 on Fundamental Human Rights and Freedom cannot be changed. Next to civil and political rights, its article 16 states that any expropriation of private property requires compensation that is just. </p>
<p>Not surprisingly, the question of land has been hotly contested ever since independence. A <a href="http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.538.3535&rep=rep1&type=pdf">National Land Reform Conference</a> took place in 1991. Its <a href="http://www.mlr.gov.na/documents/20541/290353/Conference+Consensus+Document+%28Booklet+and+Programme%29.pdf/dfa21c58-1112-49e8-b22e-54d09e77cf52">recommendations</a> included the redistribution of commercial farmland, a land tax and the reallocation of underused land.</p>
<p>But meaningful restitution wasn’t implemented. In addition, the buying of farm land was slow and inefficient. Beneficiaries were often not able to use farms they’d got for resettlement purposes because they lacked capital and know-how.</p>
<p>Finally, many beneficiaries were anything but still disadvantaged. Members of the political and bureaucratic elite received preferential treatment. Subsidised by taxpayers’ money, they became <a href="http://ippr.org.na/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/Opinion11.pdf">weekend or hobby farmers</a>. </p>
<h2>Second land conference</h2>
<p>More recently there have been increased demands to address the failures of the past; these culminated in a second land conference in early October 2018. But local responses to the final document that was adopted were based on previous experiences – that is, in most cases not much happens after such conferences. As an editorial in a <a href="https://www.observer.com.na/index.php/editorial/item/10517-let-them-eat-cake">weekly paper</a> remarked:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Placing one or two plasters on the stump of an amputated leg, is not a cure.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The government invited more than 800 participants to the conference and allocated N$ 15 million (one million USD$) for the five-day event. Given the overwhelming dominance of state authorities and other official institutions as well as indications that SWAPO tried from the get-go to hijack the agenda, civil society organisations threatened to boycott. At the end, most of them participated merely because it was a chance to voice their frustrations.</p>
<p>The Ministry for Land Reform provided access to most of the <a href="http://www.mlr.gov.na/land-conference1">documents submitted</a>, including those of the first Land Conference. Compared with the 24 resolutions adopted but hardly implemented then, many matters in the now <a href="http://www.mlr.gov.na/documents/20541/638917/Second+National+Land+Conference+Resolutions+2018.pdf/15b498fd-fdc6-4898-aeda-91fecbc74319">40 resolutions</a> were a <a href="https://www.namibian.com.na/72030/read/Land-conference-resolutions-Whats-new">modified follow up</a>.</p>
<p>A significant new addition was the issue of urban land and informal settlements. It recognised the demands of urban squatters to affordable housing, estimated at 900,000 people (40% of Namibia’s total population). </p>
<p>Notably, the issues of communal and of ancestral land also received more prominence and there appeared to be a greater willingness to consider interventions. These include the protection of tenure rights mainly in the interest of the poorest as victims of illegal land occupation and privatisation by members of the new elites.</p>
<h2>Reconciliation and justice</h2>
<p>What complicates matters is that land is not merely an economic affair. More than any other issue, land is a matter of identity – for those who own it as much as for those who feel it should be theirs. </p>
<p>Colonialism went along with violent land theft. The current distribution of land in Namibia is a constant reminder that colonialism has not ended despite independence.</p>
<p>History cannot be fully reversed. The structural legacies created under apartheid and the long-term demographic impact of the genocide have left irreversible marks. However, what seems a feasible compromise is to offer the San communities access to and protection in the parts of Namibia which have remained, in their views, home. </p>
<p>The forced removal from land on record since the early times of white settler encroachment would also be a widely accepted reference point.</p>
<p>Some of the still festering wounds can be treated. The recent Land Conference stated on “ancestral land rights and claims” in resolution 38 that “measures to restore social justice and ensure economic empowerment of the affected communities” should be identified. And it proposes to “use the reparations from the former colonial powers for such purpose”. This might offer a way out of the current stagnation in the negotiations between the <a href="https://theconversation.com/genocide-negotiations-between-germany-and-namibia-hit-stumbling-blocks-89697">Namibian and German governments</a>. </p>
<p>As part of the long overdue compensation, Germany should fork out the necessary funds for a just compensation of commercial farmers, whose land was previously utilised by Namibia’s indigenous communities. It then also has to finance the necessary investments – both in terms of infrastructure as well as know-how – that will empower local communities to fully benefit from resettlement. This would be a wise investment by both governments into true reconciliation towards a peaceful future for all people who want to continue living in Namibia.</p>
<p>But such brokerage requires honesty to obtain legitimacy and credibility. Ten days after the Land Conference disturbing news made the rounds. A Russian oligarch, who has been in possession of three farms since 2013, had added another four farms to his <a href="https://www.namibian.com.na/72336/read/Russian-buys-four-farms">Namibian empire</a>. This shady deal with the Land Reform Ministry was made a week before the Land Conference, whose resolution 21 stated “no land should be sold to foreign nationals”.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/105301/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Henning Melber is a member of SWAPO since 1974.</span></em></p>The question of land has been hotly contested in Namibia ever since independence.Henning Melber, Extraordinary Professor, Department of Political Sciences, University of PretoriaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1033792018-09-26T11:43:10Z2018-09-26T11:43:10ZWhy Namibians want fresh impetus behind land reform<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/237490/original/file-20180921-88806-z9gpvy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Land reform discussions in Namibia don't address capital or profits.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Twenty-eight years after independence, wealth in Namibia is still skewed along racial lines laid down in the colonial period. The level of inequality is one of the highest in the world, according to the <a href="https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/si.pov.gini">World Bank</a>.</p>
<p>Land distribution plays a big part in keeping this pattern of inequality in place, and the country is holding its <a href="http://www.mlr.gov.na/land-conference1">Second National Land Conference</a> in October to discuss reform. But many Namibians are unhappy with this approach – and new forms of inequality are emerging too. This calls for a more radical approach to distribute not only land, but wealth more evenly. </p>
<p>The October conference will focus on the fact that 48% of the land is privately owned (freehold), 35% is communal land vested in the state and administered by customary authorities, and the rest (17%) is state land link to (Namibia Statistical Agency, 2018), including national parks and restricted areas. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/236653/original/file-20180917-158225-1pzejk5.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/236653/original/file-20180917-158225-1pzejk5.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=289&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/236653/original/file-20180917-158225-1pzejk5.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=289&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/236653/original/file-20180917-158225-1pzejk5.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=289&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/236653/original/file-20180917-158225-1pzejk5.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=363&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/236653/original/file-20180917-158225-1pzejk5.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=363&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/236653/original/file-20180917-158225-1pzejk5.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=363&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Over 70% of the Namibian population make their living from communal land, but fewer than 5000 individuals - out of a population of just over <a href="https://www.google.co.za/search?q=what+is+the+population+of+namibia+in+2018&rlz=1C1NHXL_enZA711ZA711&oq=what+is+the+population+of+Namibia&aqs=chrome.1.0l6.10930j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8">2.5 million</a>- own freehold farmland. The pattern of land distribution and ownership reflects class inequality and perpetuates racial inequalities. </p>
<p>This inequality is a direct consequence of land dispossession during the colonial and later apartheid eras and its division into the three categories. </p>
<p>Since independence <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/dated-event/namibia-gains-independence">in 1990</a>, the land reform programme has focused on two ways of correcting historical wrongs. The <a href="http://www.mlr.gov.na/documents/20541/634749/National_Resettlement_Policy.pdf/5514cc05-c81a-4195-a80f-a41e131474e1">National Resettlement Programme</a> allows the government to buy freehold land to resettle landless Namibians. It has followed the “willing seller, willing buyer” principle. The <a href="http://agribank.com.na/product/affirmative-action-loan-scheme-aals-1">Affirmative Action Loan Scheme</a> allows formerly disadvantaged people to get subsidised loans from the Agricultural Bank of Namibia to buy land. </p>
<p>There is general discontent with the success of the programme and calls are growing for the land reform programme to be reviewed and for a new direction. </p>
<h2>Policy failure</h2>
<p>Since 1990, only <a href="https://cms.my.na/assets/documents/NamibiaLandStatistics2018Draft.pdf">3 million hectares</a> of land have been acquired through the National Resettlement Programme and <a href="https://cms.my.na/assets/documents/NamibiaLandStatistics2018Draft.pdf">6.4 million hectares</a> through the Affirmative Action Loan Scheme and private commercial banks. About <a href="https://cms.my.na/assets/documents/NamibiaLandStatistics2018Draft.pdf">70%</a> of the freehold agricultural land is still owned by white people. The previously disadvantaged (black and coloured people) <a href="https://cms.my.na/assets/documents/NamibiaLandStatistics2018Draft.pdf">own only 16%</a>. </p>
<p>There’s a scramble among the previously disadvantaged for what little freehold land has been acquired by the government for resettlement. A new elite, often with close ties to government and international investors - rather than the most disadvantaged - tend to benefit. </p>
<p>As for communal lands, increasing demand and a variety of new uses of the land are posing a challenge to customary rights and systems. Emerging <a href="https://neweralive.na/posts/illegal-sale-of-customary-land-rampant">informal land markets</a> in populated areas threaten people’s security of tenure and their user rights. What Namibia needs in these areas is a plan for thorough agrarian reform.</p>
<p>The land reform discussions don’t address the way land is being turned into capital, or who profits from it. Very few of the commercial farms are profitable agriculturally, and the most lucrative farm lands are now the ones with mining, tourism, trophy hunting, conservation or real estate potential. Many landowners have long since withdrawn the capital from their land and put it into these more profitable business. </p>
<h2>Redistributive justice</h2>
<p>To bring about redistributive justice, Namibia needs to analyse where the profits go that are gained through the capitalisation of land that was stolen in colonial times. </p>
<p>Urban land, much of it still owned by the old elite, is where real profits are made today. As in many other African countries, the profits made in Namibia by international conglomerates or the small Namibian elite no longer come directly from land ownership. They come from owning the capital to invest, from having the know-how and networks to link up with global markets, or from owning urban land paid for by selling private farm land illegally acquired during colonial and apartheid times. A national and international elite has withdrawn its capital from the land, while the majority of the people never had a chance to accumulate land or capital.</p>
<p>The shortcomings of the current land reforms suggest that voluntary, market-based transactions of land might not be a suitable measure to redistribute land, not to speak of wealth and power. The “policy” of national reconciliation has delivered one-sided benefits. The politics of national reconciliation are used to justify the status quo - an avoidance strategy to address the structural problems in Namibia. A more radical approach must be considered to redistribute land and capital. Only then will formerly disadvantaged people become equal co-owners of Namibia’s land and wealth.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/103379/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Shortcomings of Namibia’s land reforms suggest that voluntary, market-based transactions might not be suitable.Luregn Lenggenhager, Researcher at the Centre for African Studies, University of BaselRomie Vonkie Nghitevelekwa, Sociology Lecturer, University of NamibiaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1010442018-08-03T11:06:55Z2018-08-03T11:06:55ZExplainer: what’s involved in changing South Africa’s Constitution<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/230553/original/file-20180803-41360-jd741k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A member of South Africa's Economic Freedom Fighters party with a copy of the Constitution.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/Kim Ludbrook</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, in his capacity as leader of the governing African National Congress (ANC), has <a href="https://www.news24.com/Columnists/GuestColumn/read-president-cyril-ramaphosas-full-speech-here-20180731">announced</a> that his party will spearhead an amendment to <a href="https://constitutionallyspeaking.co.za/on-the-right-to-property/">section 25 of the country’s Constitution</a> to</p>
<blockquote>
<p>outline more clearly the conditions under which expropriation of land without compensation can be effected.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>He emphasised that the property clause in the Constitution already enables <a href="https://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/breaking-national-assembly-adopts-motion-on-land-expropriation-without-compensation-20180227">expropriation of land</a> without compensation in the <a href="https://www.news24.com/Columnists/GuestColumn/read-president-cyril-ramaphosas-full-speech-here-20180731">public interest</a>. The proposed amendment would be aimed at putting this beyond any doubt. </p>
<p>But what is the process that would have to be followed for such an amendment to be passed?</p>
<p>Like all modern constitutions, the <a href="https://www.gov.za/documents/constitution-republic-south-africa-1996">South African Constitution</a> provides for its own amendment by Parliament and prescribes special procedures to effect them. The Constitution has already been <a href="https://www.gov.za/documents/constitution-republic-south-africa-1996">amended 17 times</a> since it came into force in 1996, following this prescribed procedure.</p>
<p>The procedure for amending the Constitution differs from the procedure to pass or amend ordinary legislation. It is more difficult to amend the Constitution than it is to pass or amend ordinary laws. This is because the Constitution is the <a href="https://www.gov.za/documents/constitution/constitution-republic-south-africa-1996-1">supreme law</a> of the Republic. </p>
<p>Section 74(2) of the Constitution allows Parliament to amend any provision in the Bill of Rights – including section 25. But this cannot be done by a simple majority vote as would be the case for ordinary legislation. A Bill amending any provision of the Bill of Rights must be passed by the National Assembly, with a supporting vote of at least two thirds of its members, and by the National Council of Provinces, with a supporting vote of at least six of the nine provincial delegations.</p>
<p>This means that at least 266 members of the national assembly must support the amendment. The additional requirement that six of the provincial delegations in the National Council of Provinces must support the Bill in effect means that the party – or parties – wishing to amend the Constitution must control at least six of the nine provincial legislatures. This is because provincial legislatures give each provincial delegation to the National Council of Provinces a mandate on how to vote on constitutional amendments.</p>
<h2>The process</h2>
<p>Some <a href="https://www.fin24.com/Opinion/expropriation-without-compensation-an-unruly-horse-20180103">commentators</a> have argued that an amendment to section 25 of the Constitution would have to be supported by at least 75% of the members of the National Assembly. </p>
<p>But this is incorrect, and confuses two things. It’s true that the founding values in the Constitution – set out in section 1 – can only be amended with a supporting vote of 75% of the members of the Assembly. But, as long as an amendment doesn’t affect the values in section 1 (specifically the Rule of Law) by allowing the arbitrary expropriation of property, a 75% majority wouldn’t be required.</p>
<p>Apart from the increased majorities required to pass an amendment to section 25, the Constitution also prescribes other procedures that must be followed for an amendment.</p>
<p>A Bill amending the Constitution can’t include provisions other than constitutional amendments and matters connected with the amendments. This means a constitutional amendment may not be included in another Bill dealing with other matters to secure its passage. For example, a constitutional amendment can’t be attached to the budget in the hope that MPs will be forced to pass it in order to pass the budget.</p>
<p>The next step to effect an amendment of section 25 would be for the government to formulate the text of the Bill proposing the amendment. At least 30 days before such a Bill is introduced in Parliament, the government is required to publish in the national Government Gazette details about the proposed amendment for public comment. This would include the text of the amendment and the motivation for it.</p>
<p>At the same time these details must also be submitted to the provincial legislatures to get its views. Only after this 30 day period can the Bill be formally tabled in the National Assembly. When it’s introduced in the assembly, the government must also submit any written comments from the public and the provincial legislatures to the Speaker for tabling in the assembly. These must also be tabled to the chairperson of the National Council of Provinces.</p>
<h2>Public involvement</h2>
<p>Sections 59 and 72 also require the National Assembly and National Council of Provinces to </p>
<blockquote>
<p>facilitate public involvement in the legislative and other processes of the National Assembly and its committees. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>The <a href="http://www.saflii.org/za/cases/ZACC/2006/11.html">Constitutional Court held</a> that this imposed a duty on the assembly and the National Council of Provinces to act reasonably in ensuring the voices of ordinary people are heard before passing legislation. </p>
<p>The more important the Bill, and the greater the public interest, the more onerous the obligation to facilitate public involvement. The <a href="https://www.parliament.gov.za/house-rules">rules</a> of the National Assembly and National Council of Provinces already provide for this and will therefore have to be followed. </p>
<p>This process could take some time to conclude as it can be time consuming to ensure extensive public involvement in the process.</p>
<p>Section 74(7) also says that a Bill amending the Constitution may only be put to the vote in the National Assembly after at least 30 days have elapsed since its introduction, if the National Assembly is sitting when the Bill is introduced; or after at least 30 days after its tabling if the National Assembly is in recess when the Bill is introduced.</p>
<p>Once the Bill amending the Constitution has been through all these steps, it’s then referred to the President for signing into law.</p>
<h2>Legal challenge</h2>
<p>An important caveat is that an amendment to the Constitution passed in this way can’t be challenged on the basis that the amendment itself is unconstitutional. This was made clear by the Constitutional Court <a href="http://www.saflii.org/za/cases/ZACC/2002/21">in 2002</a>, when it stated:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Amendments to the Constitution passed in accordance with the requirements of section 74 of the Constitution become part of the Constitution. Once part of the Constitution, they cannot be challenged on the grounds of inconsistency with other provisions of the Constitution. The Constitution, as amended, must be read as a whole and its provisions must be interpreted in harmony with one another. It follows that there is little if any scope for challenging the constitutionality of amendments that are passed in accordance with the prescribed procedures and majorities.</p>
</blockquote><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/101044/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Pierre de Vos does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>South Africa’s constitution has been amended 17 times already. But, the procedure for doing so is onerous.Pierre de Vos, Claude Leon Foundation Chair in Constitutional Governance, University of Cape TownLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/966612018-05-28T13:47:31Z2018-05-28T13:47:31ZSouth Africa needs to reverse corporate capture of agricultural policy<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/220487/original/file-20180525-51121-1pcy2lp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">South Africa is the only country in the world that permits its staple food, maize, to be grown from genetically modified seed.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>South Africans are embroiled in heated debates about the expropriation of <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africa-is-still-way-behind-the-curve-on-transforming-land-ownership-87110">agricultural land</a>. But very little space is being devoted to how the country’s scarce arable land could and should be used once it has been acquired. </p>
<p>This is an important part of the puzzle given that the country’s existing industrial agricultural system has failed on a number of levels. A quarter of the country’s population goes hungry <a href="https://www.oxfam.org/sites/www.oxfam.org/files/file_attachments/hidden_hunger_in_south_africa_0.pdf">every day</a>. Price inflation makes nutritious <a href="https://www.pacsa.org.za/research/research-reports/food-price-barometer">food increasingly unaffordable</a> and – as the listeriosis scandal <a href="https://www.who.int/csr/don/28-march-2018-listeriosis-south-africa/en/">recently revealed</a> – food safety is easily compromised. </p>
<p>Unlike most other countries on the continent, South Africa’s agricultural sector is heavily skewed to industrial farming. Its 40 000 commercial farmers <a href="http://www.harvestsa.co.za/articles/farming-holds-its-own-in-south-africa-24809.html">produce most of the country’s food</a>. The official number of households engaged in small-scale farming is <a href="http://www.daff.gov.za/Daffweb3/Portals/0/Statistics%20and%20Economic%20Analysis/Statistical%20Information/Abstract%202016%20.pdf">around 1,3 million</a>, although this could be a low estimate. </p>
<p>The country’s commercial agriculture sector relies on expensive and polluting genetically modified seed, pesticides and <a href="https://www.foei.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/18-foei-who-benefits-report-mr.pdf">chemical fertilisers</a>. It is also heavily reliant on irrigation: the commercial agricultural sector extracts 63% of the country’s <a href="https://www.agrisa.co.za/wwf-agriculture-facts-and-trends-south-africa/">available surface water</a>. None of this is good for the environment. </p>
<p>South Africa urgently needs to rethink its existing agricultural model. The current preference for large-scale, high-input farming enterprises fails to trust in small-scale family-based producers’ ability to provide more efficiently for the market. Employing agroecology – farming without GMOs, chemical pesticides and artificial fertilisers – small-scale farmers can, with sufficient policy and practical state support, contribute significantly to food and nutritional security. This has been accomplished successfully elsewhere. </p>
<p>For example in the state of Santa Caterina in Southern Brazil, the state supported 60 000 small farmers with their agriculture, resulting in an increase of the sales of their produce by <a href="http://www.worldbank.org/en/results/2017/10/24/enhancing-small-farmers-competitiveness-santa-catarina-brazil">64% after one year</a>. In South Africa, it is also possible to make small scale farms <a href="https://www.news24.com/Analysis/how-to-make-small-scale-farms-work-20180516">work</a>. </p>
<h2>Powerful corporate interests</h2>
<p>Why are South African policy makers choosing to back large scale farmers? The answer is that they have succumbed to pressures from transnational corporations that have made farmers dependent on hybrid or genetically modified proprietary seeds, herbicides and fertilisers.</p>
<p>South Africa is the only country in the world that permits its staple food, maize, to be grown from genetically modified seed. Over 87% of South Africa’s maize is now <a href="https://www.africabio.com/agriculture">based on proprietary GM seed</a>.</p>
<p>On top of this, the country’s legislation is weak. The <a href="http://www.saflii.org/za/legis/num_act/gmoa1997286/">Genetically Modified Organisms Act</a> passed in 1997 does little to ensure biosafety. In effect it opened the door to the import and release of GM seed and enabled GM seed experimentation and bulking in South Africa. Instead of a strict impartial assessment of applications by the gene companies, the act allows for self-regulated risk assessments to be submitted to the regulator based entirely on in-house tests conducted by the GMO-purveying corporates themselves.</p>
<p>Nine years ago the state was forced, for the first time, to provide the public with information on GM permits after it was challenged by Biowatch, a South African <a href="http://www.biowatch.org.za/docs/misc/2013/A%20Landmark%20Victory%20for%20Justice.pdf">food sovereignty non-profit group</a>. </p>
<p>But the power of the large corporations has intensified in the intervening years. In 2012 South Africa’s Competition Appeal Court <a href="https://www.comptrib.co.za/assets/Uploads/113CACNov11-Pioneer-Pannar.pdf">allowed</a> for the largest remaining local crop seed company, Pannar, to be purchased by DuPont’s subsidiary, Pioneer Hi-Bred. This signalled the beginning of foreign monopoly control over local crop seed. This is now dominated by transnationals Monsanto, DuPont, Dow and Syngenta.</p>
<p>The country’s drive to adopt GMOs has resulted in some spectacular failures. One involved Monsanto attempting to persuade small-scale farmers at the Makhathini Flats, a floodplain on the Phongola River in KwaZulu-Natal, to plant their proprietary GM cotton. The project was an attempt to convince the world that GM crops were suited to farmers like this. Monsanto flew representative Makhathini farmers around the world to advocate the corporation’s position. But within only a few years the farmers found themselves deeply in debt and the GM cotton project <a href="http://rajpatel.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/Can-the-Poor-help-GM-Crops_final-printed-version.pdf">was abandoned</a>.</p>
<p>In the Eastern Cape province small-scale farmers were initially given free Monsanto GM and hybrid seed. Traditional farming practices were abandoned in favour of mechanical tilling and monocropping of maize. Called the Massive Food Production Programme, it failed to meet any of its key objectives over five years and swallowed R570 million <a href="https://www.tips.org.za/research-archive/inequality-and-economic-inclusion/second-economy-strategy-project/item/2991-review-of-the-eastern-cape-s-siyakhula-massive-maize-project">in state funds</a>. Productivity hardly improved and small-scale farmers where left with unpayable debts.</p>
<h2>Support for small scale farmers</h2>
<p>Helping small-scale farmers requires a number of interventions. The first is practical support. South Africa used to provide extension services to farmers, which consisted of independent advice. But budget cuts have reduced the quality of the service and opened the way for corporate agents to take on the roll. For example, in the Hlabisa district, KwaZulu-Natal, the state and Monsanto have combined efforts to influence the GM crops <a href="http://bio-economy.org.za/2017/11/27/growing-gm-maize-outcomes-for-small-scale-farmers-in-hlabisa-kzn/">that farmers plant</a>.</p>
<p>As part of the land debate, South Africans should be calling on government to abandon its bias towards monopoly agribusiness. The first step would be to reverse the measures that favour international agribusiness interests. Secondly, biosafety regulations should be tightened. </p>
<p>And significant resources should be diverted to support small-scale farmers. In doing so it will be minimising land and seed contamination, honouring traditional practices of seed saving and exchange, reviving and building sustainable employment opportunities, guaranteeing soil quality and food sovereignty. It will be a positive contribution to reducing carbon emissions and sustainable water usage. </p>
<p>It is time to reduce the policy influence of agribusiness interests and answer the call for land with practical agrarian reform measures.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/96661/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Fig chairs the Biowatch South Africa Trust, which has sponsored the writing of this article. </span></em></p>South Africa urgently needs to rethink its existing agricultural model.David Fig, Honorary Research Associate, University of Cape TownLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/950112018-05-07T14:15:12Z2018-05-07T14:15:12ZHow South Africa should tackle the redistribution of land in urban areas<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/217518/original/file-20180503-83693-jhzaak.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">South Africa's property regime is anchored in registered title and this can be rigid and exclusionary.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/Kim Ludbrook</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Land debates are reverberating across South Africa after the country’s parliament <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-safrica-land-exproriation/vote-in-south-africas-parliament-moves-land-reform-closer-idUSKCN1GB22I">resolved to accelerate land redistribution</a> through expropriation without compensation where necessary. Twenty four years since the advent of democracy, land remains a stark and visible symbol of dispossession and racial and income inequality.</p>
<p>The current wave of land reform debates is different in one key respect: there’s been an emergence of an urban angle to them. And rightly so. The majority of South Africans live in urban areas. On top of this spatial apartheid lives on in South Africa’s cities. </p>
<p>But genuine land reform requires a shift in the country’s approach to urban land: it can’t be seen simply in terms of its market value and its potential for profit. Land’s social and redress value must be considered. </p>
<p>There’s also the real possibility of the land debate being hijacked for political party or elite gains rather than a genuinely re-distributive agenda for poor and working class people. South Africans need to pay attention to the voices dominating land debates, and constantly ask: land reform for whom? </p>
<p>In spite of the challenges, the current moment could provide a golden opportunity to redefine the country’s approach to urban land. I spoke to Lauren Royston, who has been working on the urban land question in the research and advocacy arena for more than a quarter of a century. She recently <a href="http://www.ukznpress.co.za/?class=bb_ukzn_books&method=view_books&global%5Bfields%5D%5B_id%5D=517">co-authored</a> “Untitled: Securing Land Tenure in Urban and Rural South Africa”. </p>
<hr>
<p><strong>Sarita Pillay:</strong> Are we seeing a conversation about urban land reform that we’ve not had before? </p>
<p><strong>Lauren Royston:</strong> I think we’re seeing an opening for a conversation about urban land reform in a way that hasn’t been present before. Urban land tends to be hidden in other urban development sectors such as housing, planning and municipal finance. </p>
<p>The expropriation without compensation debate might be changing that, creating an urban land focus and redistribution an urban land issue too. But a meaningful shift in the debate requires serious interrogation of key areas such as the dynamics of the property market as well as a review of how both state owned and private land can be used to accommodate urban land reform.</p>
<p><strong>Sarita Pillay:</strong> Urban land in South Africa’s cities isn’t approached as an opportunity for redistribution or social justice. Good public land in cities is being sold for profit by government while land in well-located suburbs is not considered for public housing. Would you agree that the country’s provinces and city municipalities haven’t pursued brave and progressive approaches to urban land?</p>
<p><strong>Lauren Royston:</strong> I do think that state land is often seen as a revenue generator. I’m not unsympathetic to that – municipalities do have big mandates and are under-funded. But isn’t it time to rethink private land? The expropriation debate gives us that opportunity. </p>
<p>It seems to me that occupied inner city buildings and occupied private land parcels are a prime case for a focused, programmatic expropriation approach. One that needn’t cause instability. What we need to talk
about next is how those buildings will be held. It’s my view that they should be a public or social asset, not privately owned. The country should have a debate about this.</p>
<p><strong>Sarita Pillay:</strong> Expropriation can also be used by government to ensure shack settlements on private land finally have access to basic services and infrastructure. This was raised as a demand in the recent <em>Land for Living</em> <a href="https://www.groundup.org.za/article/cape-town-residents-call-land-decent-housing/">march in Cape Town</a>. Is this the kind of genuine urban land reform that the expropriation debate opens up?</p>
<p><strong>Lauren Royston:</strong> Definitely. But the risk with expropriation is how political it has become. Despite the heated debate, it’s always been technically possible. In the urban context, the Housing Act allows for expropriation. The call for an amendment to the constitution seems premature – at least until existing provisions have been used more proactively. </p>
<p>Expropriation in the urban setting should focus on poor households – those earning a household income below R3 200 per month. They make up <a href="http://www.seri-sa.org/images/Minding_the_Gap.pdf">close to 50%</a> of Johannesburg’s population. Private sector delivery doesn’t work for them. </p>
<p><strong>Sarita Pillay:</strong> There seems to be a lack of public imagination and interrogation around how land is held and the ownership of land when it comes to urban land reform. You’ve written about land tenure, how should we be thinking about this in an urban context?</p>
<p><strong>Lauren Royston:</strong> South Africa’s property regime is anchored in registered title and this can be rigid and exclusionary. To get into official or formal property if you’re poor, you have to enter a system of individual title deed registration via a housing subsidy project. But a significant number of subsidy properties are not on the deeds registry. </p>
<p>South Africa needs to consider that the problem with title may be more systematic than simply “fixing” a <a href="https://www.parliament.gov.za/storage/app/media/Pages/2017/october/High_Level_Panel/Commissioned_Report_land/Commissioned_Report_on_Spatial_Inequality.pdf">backlog</a>. It needs to look into the range of tenures that exist outside the formal property system. These tenures have legal protection under a range of different post-1994 tenure laws but these rights are not registered which makes them less secure and denies access to the many benefits of registered title. </p>
<p><strong>Sarita Pillay:</strong> What do you think needs to happen now?</p>
<p><strong>Lauren Royston:</strong> If President Cyril Ramaphosa’s commitments are genuine, then after the 2019 elections the government needs to move beyond rhetoric and it needs to start countering the fear mongering and instability spectre. And it needs to improve capacity on land by co-opting private sector and civil society experts.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/95011/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sarita Pillay receives funding from NRF & South African Research Chair in Spatial Analysis and City Planning for her PhD Studies. She is an active supporter of Reclaim The City. </span></em></p>The current debate about land reform in South Africa could open the door to reviewing urban land ownership issues.Sarita Pillay Gonzalez, PhD Student at South African Research Chair in Spatial Analysis and City Planning, University of the WitwatersrandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/945462018-04-16T13:55:52Z2018-04-16T13:55:52ZSmall-scale farmers should be at the centre of land reform in South Africa<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/214313/original/file-20180411-577-zc7ew7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Great growth is possible if small-scale farmers are taken seriously.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source"> PhilipYb Studio/Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Smallholder farming has been <a href="https://www.parliament.gov.za/storage/app/media/Pages/2017/october/High_Level_Panel/Commissioned_Report_land/Diagnostic_Report_on_Land_Reform_in_South_Africa.pdf">neglected</a> over the past 23 years of South Africa’s attempt to redistribute land taken away from black people during the apartheid era. Not one farm acquired for redistribution has been officially sub-divided, despite there being no legal barriers to doing so. </p>
<p>Instead the country has overemphasised redistribution of large commercial farms as single operations. This severely limits the number of people who can benefit from land reform, not only in terms of ownership but also job creation and poverty reduction.</p>
<p>A review is in order as the country <a href="https://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/breaking-national-assembly-adopts-motion-on-land-expropriation-without-compensation-20180227">contemplates</a> improving its painfully slow land reform programme.</p>
<p>Some <a href="https://www.gov.za/issues/national-development-plan-2030">estimates</a> suggest that one million new jobs can be created in agriculture, and a large proportion of those must be in labour intensive enterprises in communal areas and land reform contexts. I have long <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-south-africa-needs-fresh-ideas-to-make-land-reform-a-reality-60076">argued</a> that this ideal will be best served if small-scale, or smallholder black farmers become key beneficiaries of redistributive land reform in rural South Africa.</p>
<p>But authorities must be alive to the fact that smaller-scale commercial farmers face different constraints and opportunities from those of large-scale, commercial farmers. It’s critically important that planning and post-settlement support are appropriate to their needs and objectives.</p>
<p>I asked Rauri Alcock of the <a href="http://www.mdukatshani.com/">Mdukatshani Rural Development Programme</a> about the problems facing small-scale farmers in the areas it covers. Mdukatshani is an organisation based in the KwaZulu-Natal province that specialises in supporting small-scale farmers. It was formed in the 1970s.</p>
<p><strong>What kinds of production do small-scale farmers and land reform beneficiaries in the Msinga and Weenen districts engage in?</strong></p>
<p>Small-scale farmers in this part of the world focus on dryland crops, fresh produce and livestock – cattle, goats and homestead poultry, mostly indigenous breeds. Rainfall is low and droughts are common. But smallholder irrigation schemes are a key source of cash income for many households. Grazing is communal.</p>
<p><strong>What problems do these farmers experience?</strong></p>
<p>Key problems are limited access to tractors and implements for cultivation, and cash for the purchase of fertilisers and chemicals. In Msinga, land reform beneficiaries tend to ask neighbouring white farmers to help out with tractors and implements.</p>
<p><strong>What about access to markets for produce?</strong></p>
<p>Farmers on irrigation schemes sell produce to informal traders, many with their own trucks. Green maize, tomatoes and cabbage are their most lucrative crops, and are sold in surrounding towns. On one land reform farm I know, farmers have sold groundnuts at a good price to local traders and consumers. Targeting the right market niche is key.</p>
<p><strong>Could small-scale farmers negotiate contracts with supermarkets, as many commercial farmers do?</strong></p>
<p>This might work for some, perhaps for specialist crops such as garlic. For many crops, the degree of coordination required between many individuals operating on a small scale to produce high quality of crops, in the quantities required and on a regular basis, is very demanding.</p>
<p><strong>When it comes to livestock production, what problems do small-scale livestock owners in KwaZulu-Natal experience?</strong></p>
<p>Access to water is a key constraint. Walking long distances to water points reduces the productivity of animals since energy is expended that could be used for growth. Large areas of the province are not being grazed because there’s a shortage of small dams. Creating more water points would improve efficiency, but government does not provide much assistance in maintaining these dams.</p>
<p>This problem is exacerbated by a farming system in which animals are kraaled: animals must return to the homestead every night. But KwaZulu-Natal experiences much higher levels of stock theft. The kraal also plays a significant role in social and cultural life in the province’s rural communities, as it is the site of different ceremonies in which members of the household communicate with the ancestors. </p>
<p><strong>Is the fact that livestock share access to communal grazing a constraint?</strong></p>
<p>It is not clear that creating exclusive grazing areas would necessarily be a solution. Determining the maximum number of animals that an area of grazing can sustainably support, known as its “carrying capacity”, is difficult when rainfall is uncertain and droughts are common. In trying to support small-scale farmers, we must take the farming and livelihood system as a whole into account. But few planners and extension staff are currently able to do so.</p>
<p><strong>Is lack of markets for livestock a serious constraint?</strong></p>
<p>No, there are active local markets for both cattle and goats, particularly for ceremonial uses. But sales can be increased through organising auctions and sales points, which in our case has seen rapidly increasing prices as outsiders arrive to bid for animals.</p>
<p>The major constraint on livestock production is not the market, but productivity, and problems of nutrition and disease. We have seen significant improvements in our goat project through providing feeding areas in the kraal that only mothers and their kids can gain access to, with blocks of supplementary feed provided in these areas. Local youth earn money for themselves by making feed blocks for sale to farmers.</p>
<p><strong>Is government doing enough to help smallholder farmers on land reform projects and in communal areas?</strong></p>
<p>No, not nearly enough. The so-called “<a href="https://www.parliament.gov.za/storage/app/media/Pages/2017/october/High_Level_Panel/Commissioned_Report_land/Commissioned_Report_on_Land_Redistribution_Kepe_and_Hall.pdf">mentorship</a>” of smallholders by commercial farmers has largely failed, perhaps because the farming systems each uses are so different. A few individuals or land reform projects are successful, perhaps because the people involved already had the right skills.</p>
<p>But there are some hopeful signs. The department of agriculture in KwaZulu-Natal has now realised, for example, that goats are potentially a growth industry, and are looking for ways to redesign and expand their support programmes. There may even be potential for exports to places like the Middle East.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/94546/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ben Cousins receives funding from the National Research Foundation</span></em></p>South Africa’s land reform programme will fail if it continues to neglect smallholder farming.Ben Cousins, Professor, Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies, University of the Western CapeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/940372018-04-12T14:10:36Z2018-04-12T14:10:36ZObstacles facing a young black farmer in South Africa: a personal story<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/213363/original/file-20180405-95689-e1odr9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The cabbage plantation on Lonwabo Jwili's farm emerged from the toils that up-and-coming black farmers have to endure. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Supplied</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>A new sense of urgency has entered South Africa’s land reform process after the country’s parliament took a <a href="https://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/breaking-national-assembly-adopts-motion-on-land-expropriation-without-compensation-20180227">resolution</a> to amend the constitution to effect land expropriation without compensation. But even this will fail if the country doesn’t improve support for small and emerging black farmers who should be allocated a prime role in any reform process. </p>
<p>International experience shows that small and middle-range farmers play a critical role in land reform processes. For example, <a href="https://theconversation.com/zimbabwe-urgently-needs-a-new-land-administration-system-89387">research</a> on Zimbabwe shows increased productivity on small and medium-sized farms after land reform. </p>
<p>In my <a href="http://www.plaas.org.za/blog/how-black-farmers-are-constrained-state-corruption-eastern-free-state">research</a>, I found that South Africa has failed to take advantage of the “middle farmer” factor. Support from government is grossly insufficient; banking support is almost non-existent.</p>
<p>Black people who venture into commercial farming are bound to fail. Commercial farming is a capital intensive business. The battle to secure support has forced many struggling black farmers to rent out their land to established white farmers. </p>
<p>The situation is made worse by the fact that what limited state support there is has been hijacked by corrupt elements or a small authoritarian rural elite. A selected few politically connected individuals have begun to dominate the space. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/213426/original/file-20180405-189804-jm3k61.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/213426/original/file-20180405-189804-jm3k61.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=606&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213426/original/file-20180405-189804-jm3k61.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=606&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213426/original/file-20180405-189804-jm3k61.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=606&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213426/original/file-20180405-189804-jm3k61.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=762&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213426/original/file-20180405-189804-jm3k61.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=762&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213426/original/file-20180405-189804-jm3k61.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=762&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Lonwabo Jwili.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Supplied</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>If this is left unchanged, South Africa is likely to see more black commercial farmers being forced out of the space. Some may turn to renting out their land, others may sell their properties back to white farmers. This will render the land acquisition process futile.</p>
<p>The experiences of a young black aspirant commercial farmer named Lonwabo Jwili, who has bought a small piece of land near Johannesburg, are a case in point. He highlighted his challenges in a conversation I had with him.</p>
<hr>
<p><strong>Would you advise young black South Africans to go into farming?</strong></p>
<p>I would advise them to go into farming only if they have passion for it. Farming is not like most jobs. It’s extraordinarily hard and requires lots of patience which runs out if not accompanied by loads of passion.</p>
<p>Farming will break and bankrupt you. It will test your mental strength. </p>
<p><strong>From your experience, what are the three “make or break” interventions for young black farmers?</strong></p>
<p>Access to information, finance and markets.</p>
<p><em>Access to information:</em> My experience tells me that young black people who try out farming face a dearth of information about critical aspects. For example, you don’t find readily accessible information on planting practices.</p>
<p>I think this is a function of the fact that the country doesn’t have a very good extension service programme – a worldwide practice of professional agents who help farmers improve productivity by providing advice, information and other critical support services. </p>
<p>The Department of Agriculture is meant to run an extension service programme. But in my experience, it’s very poor to non existent. The only time extension officers have been to my farm was when they came to give me advice on my irrigation system. And it turned out to be very bad advice.</p>
<p>In my case I certainly needed good information to make headway because I ventured into unknown territory. Yes, I grew up on a farm. But my homegrown farming knowledge was on livestock. I’m currently producing vegetables and some grains. A well functioning agricultural extension service would have saved me time and money.</p>
<p><em>Access to finance:</em> Everywhere you look in South Africa there are claims that the country provides financial support for small and emerging farmers. The banks and state owned development finance institutions make this empty claim. </p>
<p>The Land Bank is a perfect example. It is supposed to develop small black farmers like myself. But it’s almost impossible to get funding from the Land Bank.</p>
<p>When I tried to apply for finance to purchase the farm, the Land Bank sent me a two-page list of requirements. I could satisfy everything on the list except for one thing: they required off-take agreements (that’s a pre-assurance from a business that it will buy my produce).</p>
<p>Its almost impossible for someone like myself with no commercial farming experience to get off-take agreements from a market dominated by a few mainstream retailers. </p>
<p>Big retailers – and even smaller ones – won’t offer an off-take agreement to someone starting out.</p>
<p>And so the Land Bank wouldn’t dare take a risk on my endeavour. So I took a different route, approaching a bank for a normal loan and bonding my home against the farm property.</p>
<p>But even here I struggled. I think that finance institutions also need to understand that there is a different kind of farmer emerging. One’s like me. I’m not farming full-time because I can’t yet afford to do so. My off-farm job funds my seed, fertiliser and pays my staff. I need to keep my off-farm job while building the farm into a self sustaining operation. The banks I approached didn’t seem to want to grasp my situation.</p>
<p><em>Access to markets:</em> This is the most critical factor of farming. For example, even when I produced 17 000 cabbages last season I still struggled. That’s because I was only able to find a market for them when it was too late – they’d been in the ground too long. </p>
<p>I’m also disadvantaged by distance. My vegetable and grain producing farm is 70 km outside Johannesburg so it’s difficult to access the big city markets.</p>
<p>But with the assistance of family and friends, I managed to secure another retailer to pick up my produce. In hindsight, I should have tapped these networks first before going for big markets like the Pretoria and Johannesburg fresh produce markets which offered me unacceptably low prices.</p>
<p><strong>What can be done to support young black commercial farmers?</strong></p>
<p>I think the government should review its programmes to see if they are actually working or not. </p>
<p>They might want to reconsider their focus on rural communities. Yes, rural communities need assistance in terms of development. But the government also needs to acknowledge operations like mine which are located within a 100 km radius of a big city.</p>
<p>I am halfway into becoming a sustainable farmer. I’ve purchased the land and am producing the best products possible. I think operations like mine deserve some state support.</p>
<p>Right now I don’t necessarily need financial support from government. But it could help facilitate other types of support for farmers like me. For example, government could facilitate access to markets and to farm production machinery such as advanced tractors, ploughs and other implements.</p>
<p>The private sector could also come to the party. Banks are critical players. They need to realise that there are young black entrepreneurs who want to farm. They need to create financial products – like loans and insurance – that are going to assist emerging farmers. Currently their products are focused on serving established farmers. </p>
<p>After I had bought the farm using my own funds I approached three banks to secure finance for farm production and machinery. I was rejected on the basis that I had no farming experience. </p>
<p>Banks need to look at things differently. I’m not calling for banks to be reckless in their lending. But I have been taken aback by some of the banking practices I’ve seen. </p>
<p>For example, I can qualify for normal credit, but not for an agricultural specific financial product. I could easily apply for finance to buy a Mercedes Benz worth about R200 000 to pay over five years. I could borrow the same amount as a cash loan. But the answer was “no” when trying to secure funding for a tractor worth R 1 million.</p>
<p>Banks need to be more innovative by designing ways of lending, for example, that move away from monthly instalments and towards seasonal instalments in line with agricultural cycles of planting and harvesting.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/94037/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mnqobi Ngubane is affiliated with the Institute for Poverty, Land & Agrarian Studies. </span></em></p>South Africa’s land reform process will fail if it continues to neglect small and emerging black farmers.Mnqobi Ngubane, PhD candidate, University of the Western CapeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/939582018-04-04T16:25:35Z2018-04-04T16:25:35ZWhy giving South Africa’s chiefs more power adds to land dispossession<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/212153/original/file-20180327-109169-3onbmt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Chief Nyalala Pilane of Bakgatla-ba-Kgafela has been accused of corruption regarding mining royalties.
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">The Star/Simphiwe Mbokaz</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Power over rural land has become more and more concentrated in the hands of local chiefs in <a href="https://www.wits.ac.za/media/newsmigration/files/SWOP%20%20WP%20%20Bakgatla%20%20Mnwana%20and%20Capps.pdf">post-apartheid South Africa</a>. </p>
<p>This is particularly so in areas that are earmarked for mining. </p>
<p>I have spent more than a decade studying the multiple impacts of platinum mining on rural communities in the North West and Limpopo provinces. The <a href="https://www.wits.ac.za/media/news-migration/files/SWOP%20%20WP%20%20Bakgatla%20%20Mnwana%20and%20Capps.pdf">research</a> has revealed widespread grassroots discontent, significant resistance to mining expansion and to local chiefs, and mounting exclusive group claims over the platinum-rich land. </p>
<p>This matters because mining affects the livelihoods of millions of South Africans. That South Africa holds unparalleled reserves of <a href="https://www.projectsiq.co.za/platinum-mining-in-south-africa.htm">platinum group metals reserves</a> is well known. </p>
<p>But platinum hasn’t been an economic saviour for the ordinary residents in the mine villages who face grim living conditions. Most are characterised by extreme poverty, severe inequalities and <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214790X15000866">high unemployment</a>.</p>
<p>This is even though some of these communities have been recipients of substantial mining revenues. But these are controlled and distributed by local traditional authorities, known as chiefs, who have positioned themselves as custodians of rural land and mineral resources. They have done so in collusion with the state and mining companies.</p>
<p>This is not as it should be. Distributive power over land doesn’t rest exclusively with chiefs. There are multiple layers of power that rests in different social units, families (and individuals within them). Most importantly, chiefs have never had powers to alienate land rights from ordinary residents.</p>
<p>African land rights are acquired through membership to a group – a productive and social unit such as a <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/1160760.pdf?refreqid=excelsior%3A6b37ecef31c5703ee6705db597e074fb">family or clan</a>.</p>
<p>Once allocated, land rights were passed from one generation to the next. It is at the level of this unit that, by and large, decisions about distribution of such rights were taken in <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/1160760.pdf?refreqid=excelsior%3A6b37ecef31c5703ee6705db597e074fb">precolonial times</a>.</p>
<h2>The law and chiefs</h2>
<p>The post-1994 African National Congress (ANC) government at first vacillated about defining and codifying the powers and status of chiefs. But it eventually passed legislation that significantly increased the powers of chiefs in rural local governance. </p>
<p>The main piece of legislation that did this was the Traditional Leadership and Governance Framework <a href="http://www.cogta.gov.za/cgta_2016/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/TLGFA-Traditional-Leadership-and-Governance-Framework-Act-2003-Act-No-41-of-2003.pdf">Act of 2003</a>. It reenacts traditional (“tribal”) authorities to preside over precisely the same geographic areas that were defined by the apartheid government. But there’s ambiguity around what the powers the act actually gives chiefs. It has been interpreted as giving them and their traditional councils powers over the administration and control of communal land and natural resources, economic development, health, and welfare, and to <a href="https://journals.assaf.org.za/sacq/article/view/1204">administer justice</a>.</p>
<p>In fact the law doesn’t directly grant chiefs power and control over communal land and landed resources. But it’s been interpreted that way. </p>
<p>The case of the chiefs’ control over mining revenues on the platinum belt epitomises the contradiction.</p>
<h2>Chiefs gain the upper hand</h2>
<p>Over the last 30 years a new trend began to evolve. Local chiefs began to enter into deals with mining companies on behalf of rural communities on the platinum belt. Chiefs, as assumed custodians of communal resources, became mediators of mineral-led development and mining deals.</p>
<p>This trend can be traced back to the <a href="http://www.bafokeng.com/past/story">Bafokeng</a> community’s momentous court victory over <a href="http://newafricanmagazine.com/bafokeng-africas-richest-ethnic-group/2/">mining royalties</a> in the 1999. The Bafokeng chieftaincy secured enormous mineral royalties – ostensibly on behalf of the entire community. </p>
<p>Such a victory ushered this rural community, which some have labelled <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0305707032000060598">“the richest tribe in Africa”</a>, into a new era of platinum revenues and corporate assets worth billions of rand. </p>
<p>Several rural communities on platinum rich land in the North West and Limpopo provinces have followed the Bafokeng example.</p>
<p>But these developments haven’t been without problems. The mediation and control of mining revenues by local chiefs has generated significant tensions and conflict in the villages that host vast mining operations. </p>
<p>Lack of transparency and accountability, plus <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2018-02-01-stealing-the-crust-how-the-baktatla-ba-kgafela-were-robbed-of-their-inheritance/#.WrSPaHVOLIU">serious allegations of corruption</a> have been levelled against chiefs. For instance, Kgosi (chief) Nyalala Pilane of the Bakgatla-ba-Kgafela community – perhaps even more than any other chief in South Africa – has been the subject of a litany of maladministration and <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2018-02-01-stealing-the-crust-how-the-baktatla-ba-kgafela-were-robbed-of-their-inheritance/#.WrSPaHVOLIU">corruption allegations</a>. </p>
<p>The combined value of the assets of the largely SeTswana-speaking Bakgatla community, who reside in 32 impoverished villages scattered all over the north eastern foothills of the Pilanesburg Mountains, are estimated at <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2018-02-01-stealing-the-crust-how-the-baktatla-ba-kgafela-were-robbed-of-their-inheritance/#.WrkKuy5ubIU">R25 billion </a>. Yet the members of the community have yet to realise the benefits.</p>
<p>Mining expansion has also produced significant resistance to Kgosi Pilane’s control over land. Groups of villagers have made strong claims over some of the mineral rich farms, where some of the largest mining operations are situated. They assert that these farms were bought by their forefathers as private property and so never should have been designated <a href="https://www.wits.ac.za/media/news-migration/files/SWOP%20%20WP%20%20Bakgatla%20%20Mnwana%20and%20Capps.pdf">“tribal” land</a>. </p>
<p>Many of these land disputes have been fought in the <a href="http://www.saflii.org/za/cases/ZACC/2015/25.html">courts</a>. So far, the chief has been able to hire top lawyers. He has successfully interdicted and pressed charges against activists who have called him to account.</p>
<h2>Resistance</h2>
<p>The assumption that chiefs are custodians of rural land and mineral wealth – and as such can distribute and alienate land rights and sign complex mining deals on behalf of rural residents – has no precolonial precedent. It’s no surprise that ordinary people are resisting chiefly power over their property. </p>
<p>It’s even more crucial to closely examine and understand the character of power over land and landed resources as rural land increasingly becomes a target for large scale resource extraction. What needs attention is how ordinary rural residents articulate what leading land academic Ben Cousins calls the <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1471-0366.2007.00147.x">“socially legitimate”</a> and historical <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/1160760.pdf?refreqid=excelsior:89d030e2faa25%E2%80%8Bhttp://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/1160760.pdf?refreqid=excelsior:89d030e2faa25e132d6b673c005b6d2de132d6b673c005b6d2d">“processes through which power over land is conferred”</a> to different groups and individuals. </p>
<p>There is an urgent need to examine how Africans historically accessed, shared, controlled, distributed and defended their rights to land. These customary processes must be used to guide the recording of land rights, consultation and compensation before mining can begin. </p>
<p>Any attempt to legally empower the rural poor by securing their land rights should begin with a full understanding of these processes. Centralising this power in the hands of chiefs is another form of dispossession.</p>
<p><em>This article is <a href="https://theconversation.com/africa/topics/africa-land-reform-38700">part of a series</a> on land reform in Africa.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/93958/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sonwabile Mnwana receives funding from the Open Society Foundation, South Africa and the Ford Foundation. He is affiliated with the Society, Work and Development Institute, University of the Witwatersrand. </span></em></p>Some communities on South Africa’s Platinum Belt have received substantial mining revenues, but these are controlled by chiefs.Sonwabile Mnwana, Associate Professor, Sociology, University of Fort HareLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/930782018-03-08T14:17:27Z2018-03-08T14:17:27ZSouth Africa’s land debate is clouded by misrepresentation and lack of data<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/209506/original/file-20180308-30972-sg1tao.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Harvest season on a wine farm in Stellenbosch, South Africa. The country is struggling with land redistribution.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>South Africa’s parliament has passed a <a href="https://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/breaking-national-assembly-adopts-motion-on-land-expropriation-without-compensation-20180227">resolution</a> to amend the constitution and allow expropriation without compensation. The decision has generated a storm of gigantic proportions as political parties, citizens, white farmers and commentators anticipate either the moment of salvation (‘real land reform at last!’) or disaster (‘the collapse of the market economy!’).</p>
<p>Sadly, few contributions to the public debate are informed by the available evidence. And poorly informed commentators often misrepresent the issues. Compounding this is a serious problem – the absence of reliable national data on many aspects of the land issue.</p>
<p>Land policy, at the centre of the storm, is flailing around in the dark. South Africa’s land policy is based on three main pillars: restitution, redistribution and tenure reform. </p>
<p>Restitution involves people claiming back land taken away from them after June 1913, or compensation for their loss. Land redistribution involves acquiring and transferring land from white farmers to black farmers, for a variety of purposes, including farming and settlement. Tenure reform aims to secure the land rights of those whose rights are insecure as a result of past discrimination. </p>
<p>Land reform has been <a href="https://www.parliament.gov.za/storage/app/media/Pages/2017/october/High_Level_Panel/HLP_Report/HLP_report.pdf">slow</a>, with government reporting that, so far, around 9% of commercial farmland has been transferred through restitution and redistribution. Tenure reform has been remarkably ineffective, with many poor people as insecure as they ever were. </p>
<p>But, in reality, there is only the haziest of understandings of how well or how badly land reform is doing, and why. </p>
<p>The woeful record keeping of national and local government departments is partly to blame. But they are not the sole culprits. The last census of commercial farming conducted in 2007 underestimates the true numbers of farm owners as it only reports on farms that are registered for VAT – currently those with a minimum turnover of R1 million. And StatsSA agricultural reports don’t distinguish farms by size or value of output. Also, official survey data on smallholder farming are also thin and even less useful. </p>
<p>In general, the lack of accurate information on land reform and the rural economy allows much of the public debate to be misinformed, and is a serious constraint on policy making.</p>
<h2>Data deficit</h2>
<p>Nobody knows precisely how much agricultural land has been privately purchased by black farmers and how much has been acquired via land reform.</p>
<p>Consider two national land audits released in recent months, one by the agricultural lobby group <a href="https://www.agrisa.co.za/">AgriSA</a> and the other by government. Both are based on analysis of information derived from title deeds in the national registry. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.agrisa.co.za/land-audit-transactions-approach/">AgriSA</a> land audit of 2017 argues that the initial target of transferring 30% of agricultural land via land reform is close to being met. It concludes that the market is much more effective at transferring land than the state.</p>
<p>But the market is not redistributing land to black people to the extent AgriSA claims. Its methodology and most of its conclusions are fundamentally flawed. For example, much of the 4.3 million hectares of land it says were acquired through private purchases by previously disadvantaged individuals includes transfers of land as a result of land reform. In these cases, government has provided funds and served as an intermediary in the transaction. So they were not private transactions. </p>
<p>Government’s latest <a href="http://www.ruraldevelopment.gov.za/publications/land-audit-report/file/6126">land audit</a> is also not particularly useful. It provides some evidence of continuing patterns of racial inequality in land ownership. But it can’t identify the racial, gender and national identity of the 320 000 companies, trust and community based organisations that own 61% of all privately owned land.</p>
<p>Neither of these audits is able to identify zones of need and opportunity for land reform. Information of this kind, crucial for well planned redistribution, simply doesn’t exist.</p>
<p>There is almost zero information on how many people have actually benefited from land reform, patterns of land use after transfer, and levels of production and income. </p>
<p>A few reports on these issues have been published, but they aren’t a substitute for systematic data collection. Similarly, case studies by academics can’t serve the wider purposes of guiding planning for land reform at scale.</p>
<p>In relation to deeds registry data, there are vast discrepancies between official records for black land owners, both rural and urban, and realities on the ground. In our 2017 <a href="http://ukznpress.bookslive.co.za/blog/2017/06/19/book-launch-untitled-securing-land-tenure-in-urban-and-rural-south-africa/">book</a>, ‘Untitled. Securing land tenure in urban and rural South Africa’, we estimate that close to 60% of all South Africans hold land or housing outside the formal system, and the deeds registry can tell us little or nothing about these realities.</p>
<h2>Debunking myths</h2>
<p>Official data, although inadequate, does allow common misrepresentations of land reform to be refuted. For example, one widely held view is that the great majority of land restitution claimants have chosen cash compensation rather than restoration of their land. This is nonsense.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.parliament.gov.za/storage/app/media/Pages/2017/october/High_Level_Panel/HLP_Report/HLP_report.pdf">Around 87%</a> of land claims lodged by the cutoff date in 1998 were to urban properties, and in most cases claimants were offered (and accepted) a standard cash settlement, because restoration was clearly impracticable. But the great majority of rural claims, involving a great many more people since most are group claims, have opted for restoration.</p>
<p>Another misconception is that land reform can involve the redistribution of state owned land. The reality is that most state land in rural areas comprises densely settled communal land which obviously isn’t available for redistribution. The recent government land audit confirms this, and shows that state land comprises only 18% of the total.</p>
<p>In urban areas, however, state owned land can be used for low cost housing if it is in appropriate locations close to economic opportunities. </p>
<p>The single most misleading ‘fact’ endlessly repeated in the media is <a href="http://business.iafrica.com/news/2519343.htmlink">the assertion</a> by former minister Gugile Nkwinti that 90% of land reform projects have failed. This has no foundation in any research evidence – a fact that he himself later admitted. </p>
<p>Empirical evidence suggests that around <a href="http://www.plaas.org.za/sites/default/files/publications-pdf/No4%20Fact%20check%20web.pdf">50% of the projects</a> have improved the livelihoods of beneficiaries to a degree. </p>
<p>This is not to say that these land reform projects have been highly productive. The real potential of rural land reform and agricultural development, as well as urban land reform, to reduce poverty and inequality has not been realised in South Africa to date.</p>
<h2>Solutions</h2>
<p>How to acquire and transfer land, the focus of much current debate, is the least difficult aspect of land reform. It simply requires increasing the tiny budget and paying just and equitable compensation in line with the constitution.</p>
<p>Larger challenges involve targeting beneficiaries, identifying well located land, ensuring that water is reallocated along with land, effective district based planning, and enabling small scale economic activity in both rural and urban spaces. </p>
<p>And new legislation that secures the rights of people in the social tenures found in communal areas, farm dweller communities and informal settlements is also an urgent requirement.</p>
<p>Much of the current commentary on land policy is ill informed and fails to identify these challenges. More important, the lack of robust official data on land and agriculture is a key problem that must surely be high on the agenda of the new president.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/93078/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ben Cousins holds a DST/NRF Research Chair in Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies at the University of the Western Cape</span></em></p>South Africa’s land policy is flailing around in the dark, with the haziest of understandings of how well or how badly land reform is doing.Ben Cousins, Professor, Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies, University of the Western CapeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/920482018-02-20T09:55:25Z2018-02-20T09:55:25ZRamaphosa is a breath of fresh air. But South Africans can’t relax<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/206943/original/file-20180219-75990-tvx9rd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Members of parliament applaud South Africa's new president Cyril Ramaphosa.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters/Mike Hutchings</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The <a href="http://ewn.co.za/2018/02/16/must-read-president-ramaphosa-s-state-of-the-nation-address">State of the Nation Address</a> by South Africa’s new president, Cyril Ramaphosa, heralds a new dawn for the country. After a decade of maladministration, venal politics, corruption and the wrecking of a number of important state institutions, any alternative would have filled South Africans with optimism. </p>
<p>There is little doubt that, even if they are dealing with the same party, the leadership, determination and discipline that Ramaphosa will bring to their politics will be very different to the last decade under Jacob Zuma. </p>
<p>Although South Africans should be thankful for the persistence and courage of opposition parties, civil society, courts and <a href="http://amabhungane.co.za/">media</a>, an obvious fact shouldn’t be forgotten. Ultimately it was the ANC itself that was the agent of change. The ANC, not the Constitutional Court, nor the vocal opposition Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), nor the media, nor South Africa’s citizens, brought Zuma’s calamitous and corrupt <a href="https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/national/2018-02-14-president-jacob-zuma-resigns/">reign to an end</a>.</p>
<p>Laying aside the ecstatic optimism that’s marked the end of the Zuma era, and looking at the detail of Ramaphosa’s speech in parliament, the question that comes to minds is: what does it promise? </p>
<h2>No ordinary speech</h2>
<p>First, this was not any old ordinary state of the nation address. It was the speech of an incoming president laying out his vision, not really a programme of what government hopes to achieve over the coming year. The hope, sense of renewal and determination was evident throughout: to root out corruption; rebuild state capacity; enable jobs; support education; re-industrialise the economy. </p>
<p>Ramaphosa said he would personally drive and ensure throughput. What a breath of fresh air on a number of levels: responsible leadership; concrete ideas; and, finally, a speech actually written by a leader.</p>
<p>Second, this state of the nation address promises serious action to stabilise the state as well as to spur South Africa’s depressed economy. But growth, development, reducing inequality and turning the tide on <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-lesser-known-and-scarier-facts-about-unemployment-in-south-africa-83055">rampant unemployment</a> requires a capable state. Ramaphosa clearly understands this. He has a mammoth task ahead of him. Fortunately, he’s not short of ideas. He:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>focused at length on making 2018 the year of turning the tide on corruption;</p></li>
<li><p>had specific points on how to intervene decisively to sort out the <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2015-08-06-state-owned-enterprises-chaos-inside-a-mess-wrapped-in-politics/#.WT_1gOuGPIU">parlous state of state owned enterprises</a>. In particular, he accepts that many of the problems at the state owned enterprises are structural. For example, he said that it was vital to remove directors from having any role in procurement. </p></li>
<li><p>insisted on reviewing the size of the state bureaucracy;</p></li>
<li><p>hinted that nonperforming ministers will lose their jobs; and</p></li>
<li><p>stressed the need for government to lead in creating an environment of stability and certainty. </p></li>
</ul>
<p>Third, the speech was carefully balanced to keep the markets happy, but also with an eye on rectifying South Africa’s past injustices. For example, he talked about the need to expropriate land without compensation. But he was careful in his wording, adding that it had to be done in a way that “increases agricultural production and ensures food security”. </p>
<p>South Africans produced a collective sigh of relief. A tumultuous era has ended and there’s a silver lining to the cloud that has been hanging over the country.</p>
<h2>Need for vigilance</h2>
<p>South Africans shouldn’t relax. Politicians must be held accountable. But for this to truly work, the country needs to change its electoral system. The current balance of power means that citizens aren’t able to hold their political representatives accountable, including their president. It is no accident that the executive, and Zuma in particular, were able to use parliament to make a mockery of citizens’ concerns and the constitution.</p>
<p>The party-list <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africa-needs-electoral-reform-but-presidents-powers-need-watching-88820">proportional representation system</a> means that South Africans elect representatives who don’t have any real link to their needs and interests in the areas in which they live and work. Instead, candidates are nominated and elected on party lists. This has rendered parliament a lame-duck. Decisions in parliament aren’t made by the people’s representatives – they’re made by <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2012-04-20-sas-electoral-system-fails-the-people">the party in power</a>. </p>
<p>This also means that parliament, not the people, elects the president. This <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africa-needs-electoral-reform-but-presidents-powers-need-watching-88820">needs to be rectified</a>. </p>
<p>The events of the last two months only prove a depressing reality: the only way citizens can really get rid of a <a href="https://www.iol.co.za/news/politics/president-zuma-has-gone-rogue-says-barbara-hogan-8440986">‘rogue president’</a> and a <a href="https://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/eff-looking-forward-to-date-with-constitutional-delinquent-zuma-20171229">‘constitutional delinquent’</a> is via the strange process of the liberation party undertaking a ‘recall’ of one of its <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09718923.2014.11893352?journalCode=rjss20">‘deployees’</a>. </p>
<p>South Africans have come a long way since 1994, but the country’s constitutional and political institutions are products of their time – a time of real, and understandable fear about ensuring that the country never returned to the horrors of apartheid. The ironic result is that ordinary citizens – especially as represented in parliament – don’t have the means to affect change.</p>
<p>The democratic miracle is stillborn. The country cannot mature into a full-blown democracy until major reforms are undertaken. If Ramaphosa really wants to seize this new dawn, if he really wants to change the course of South Africa’s democratic history, he needs to think even more boldly.</p>
<p>The reconstruction of South Africa’s shattered state is vital. But as he does so he could also reconfigure it. It needs deep, structural change to properly empower the people to hold political representatives accountable. Acting in this way would trigger two further developments: the ANC would, finally, have to transform itself from being a liberation movement into a political party; and citizens could start to realise that the party is not equivalent to the state.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/92048/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lawrence Hamilton receives funding from the National Research Foundation and the British Academy. He is the author of Are South Africans Free? </span></em></p>A tumultuous era has ended and there’s a silver lining to the cloud that has been hanging over South Africa.Lawrence Hamilton, SARChI/Newton Research Professor in Political Theory, Wits and Cambridge, University of the WitwatersrandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/882052017-11-29T14:55:01Z2017-11-29T14:55:01ZLand reform is a Zimbabwe success story – it will be the basis for economic recovery under Mnangagwa<p>In his <a href="http://www.chronicle.co.zw/president-mnangagwas-inauguration-speech-in-full/">speech</a> after being sworn in as Zimbabwe’s new president on November 24, Emmerson Mnangagwa, stressed the role of the country’s land reform farmers in boosting the country’s economic recovery. They have excelled recently. </p>
<p>Zimbabwe produced more maize in 2017 than was ever grown by white farmers, who have repeatedly been praised for making the country into the <a href="http://money.cnn.com/2017/11/21/news/economy/zimbabwe-economy-history-robert-mugabe-resigns/index.html">bread basket of Africa</a>. Maize production in 2017 was <a href="https://www.indexmundi.com/agriculture/?country=zw&commodity=corn&graph=production">2.2m tonnes</a>, the highest in two decades. </p>
<p>Good rains helped, but even the <a href="https://gain.fas.usda.gov/Recent%20GAIN%20Publications/GRAIN%20AND%20FEED%20ANNUAL%20REPORT%20_Pretoria_Zimbabwe_7-26-2017.pdf">United States Department of Agriculture</a> said the huge increase in maize production was “mainly due to favourable weather conditions and a special program for import substitution, commonly termed as "Command Agriculture”. That programme was implemented last year by Mnangagwa, when he was vice president.</p>
<p>Under the programme, land reform farmers signed contracts for a certain number of hectares and agreed to sell at least five tonnes of maize per hectare to the Grain Marketing Board. The government provided seed, fertiliser, and, if needed, tractors and fuel for ploughing, and the cost was deducted from the sale price of the maize. Compared to 2011, another good rainfall year, maize production jumped 700,000 tonnes – more than half of which was <a href="http://www.open.ac.uk/technology/mozambique/sites/www.open.ac.uk.technology.mozambique/files/files/Mozambique_377-17July2017_agriculture.pdf">due to the Command Agriculture</a> programme. </p>
<p>Earlier this year, before he was dismissed as vice president, Mnangagwa announced that the programme would be <a href="http://www.herald.co.zw/command-agric-exceeds-target/">expanded</a> for the coming agricultural season – when more good rains are also forecast.</p>
<p><iframe id="LHkJB" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/LHkJB/1/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<h2>The politics of land reform</h2>
<p>Robert Mugabe was displaced as president partly by pressure from the war veterans, who he led to victory in Zimbabwe’s independence struggle. But they had stood up to him much earlier, in 2000, as I documented in a <a href="https://www.rienner.com/title/Zimbabwe_Takes_Back_Its_Land">book</a> on the issue, written with <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/2772435.Teresa_Smart">Teresa Smart</a> and <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Jeanette_Manjengwa">Jeanette Manjengwa</a>, who was recently appointed to the Zimbabwe Land Commission.</p>
<p>Mnangagwa was a liberation war veteran, and as he said in his inauguration speech: “Dispossession of our ancestral land was the fundamental reason for waging the liberation struggle.” As we showed in our research, by 2000 the white farms were mostly under-used and the war veterans were fed up with Mugabe’s refusal to take them over. They moved against him. In a carefully organised campaign over the Easter weekend that year, 3,000 huge white-owned farms were <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/667621.stm">occupied</a> by 170,000 Zimbabwean families. </p>
<p>Mugabe was <a href="https://www.rienner.com/title/Zimbabwe_Takes_Back_Its_Land">initially opposed to the move</a>, but when he saw the popularity of the occupation, he reversed his position – and was happy to be blamed for the occupation by the British press and media. </p>
<p>The occupation was legalised and small farms were marked out on the land that had been formerly owned by the white farmers. But the new farmers received little support and had to pull themselves up by their bootstraps. It took a decade, and the economic mismanagement and hyperinflation of the 2000s did not help, but the 146,000 smaller farmers with land of six hectares saved and reinvested and became highly productive – and <a href="http://www.landdivided2013.org.za/sites/default/files/Manjengwa%20Hanlon%20Smart%20Zimbabwe%20%28jm%2C%20ts%2Cjh%29.pdf">created 800,000 jobs</a>. The development economist <a href="http://www.thezimbabwean.co/2016/05/small-towns-in-zimbabwe-are-booming-thanks-to-land-reform/">Ian Scoones</a> points to the way vibrant market towns have grown up around the land reform farms.</p>
<p>But a group of 23,000 medium-sized farmers with 10-50 hectares had limited capital to get start and farmed only part of their land. From their limited production they could not save enough to buy the fertiliser and tractors needed for the larger farms. Mnangagwa’s Command Agriculture programme was aimed at this group, and credit provided by the programme more than doubled their maize production.</p>
<p><iframe id="kkoYU" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/kkoYU/1/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>The other success has been <a href="http://www.fctobacco.com/images/Daily_stats_16/ZimFCVStats2009-2017E.pdf">tobacco</a>, with US$576m produced in 2017 – mainly by land reform farmers. Clearly, Zimbabwean farmers are willing to work hard, given the land and the opportunity.</p>
<h2>The compensation question</h2>
<p>Mnangagwa has been part of the government since independence, so this is only a change of leadership. Corruption dogged Zimbabwe under Mugabe, but nevertheless, Mnangagwa was already moving to curb it. Participation in the Command Agriculture programme was voluntary, but Mnangagwa used the army to check that the agreed number of hectares had been ploughed and planted. Some senior figures from the ruling ZANU-PF party were <a href="https://www.newsday.co.zw/2017/01/denied-bail-over-command-agriculture-inputs-theft/">arrested</a> for fraud for selling fertiliser and diesel that was meant for other farmers.</p>
<p>Officially no family can have more than one land reform farm, but as we found in our research, this did not stop Mugabe’s cronies taking several larger farms each. Last year, under pressure, a <a href="http://www.herald.co.zw/president-appoints-land-commissioners/">Land Commission</a> was named, and in his inaugural speech Mnangagwa increased support for it “to ensure that all land is utilised optimally.”</p>
<p>The new president will need to rebuild links with the international community, and a vexed issue has been the demand for compensation for displaced white farmers. Mnangagwa said in his speech that “the principle of repossessing our land cannot be challenged or reversed”. But, he continued: “My government is committed to compensating those farmers from whose land was taken.” But that is a fraught issue inside Zimbabwe, because the white farmers <a href="https://sites.google.com/site/zimlandpapers/rifkind">received their land</a> in the 1930s to 1950s only by expelling tens of thousands of Zimbabwean farmers already on the land.</p>
<p>Restarting and restructuring the economy will now be a priority. But Mnangagwa recognises the centrality of farming and the success of the land reform, so agriculture is likely to take the lead.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/88205/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joseph Hanlon does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Maize production in Zimbabwe in 2017 is at its highest for decades.Joseph Hanlon, Visiting Senior Fellow, Department of International Development at the London School of Economics and Political Science and Visiting Senior Research Fellow, The Open UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/871102017-11-13T14:32:48Z2017-11-13T14:32:48ZSouth Africa is still way behind the curve on transforming land ownership<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/193912/original/file-20171109-12000-f5ig5y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Land ownership patterns in South Africa have not really changed since the advent of democracy.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters/Mike Hutchings</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Land is a highly charged and politicised issue all over the world. South Africa, with its history of <a href="http://jacana.bookslive.co.za/blog/2015/02/11/land-reform-under-the-spotlight-in-land-divided-land-restored-edited-by-cherryl-walker-and-ben-cousins">extreme dispossession</a> through colonialism and apartheid, is no exception. </p>
<p>The democratic government has tried to redistribute land to address this legacy of dispossession. But, according to government, only around <a href="http://city-press.news24.com/News/zumas-commitment-to-land-reform-is-excellent-news-says-nkwinti-20170210">10%</a> of commercial farmland has been redistributed or restored to black South Africans in the 23 years since formal apartheid ended. Many are angry at the failure of land reform and there are <a href="https://www.iol.co.za/news/special-features/anc-policy-conference/ancnpc-land-expropriation-without-compensation-a-possibility---zuma-10148520">increasing calls</a> for land to be returned to black South Africans. </p>
<p>But there is very little clarity as to who owns what land in the country. This is why a recent <a href="https://www.agrisa.co.za/land-audit-transactions-approach">report</a> released by <a href="https://www.agrisa.co.za/">Agri-SA</a>, an organisation that represents the majority of South Africa’s white commercial farmers, has proved so controversial.</p>
<p>The report looks at the changing patterns of land ownership. The key question it purports to answer is the degree to which racially unequal patterns of land ownership have been altered through a combination of land reform and private land purchases by black South Africans.</p>
<p>Agri-SA argues that the initial <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/sites/default/files/the_reconstruction_and_development_programm_1994.pdf">government target</a> of transferring 30% of agricultural land via land reform has almost been met. On the back of this it argues that the market is much more effective than the state as a vehicle for change. </p>
<p>But these claims are not borne out by Agri-SA’s own data. Even though the data in the report appears to have been rigorously collected and analysed, its interpretation by Agri-SA is flawed. We believe that many of the report’s core arguments are inaccurate and misleading. </p>
<p>It’s also clear that, contrary to the AgriSA report, we are nowhere near to hitting targets set by the government in 1994. Black South Africans remain in the minority among landowners. </p>
<p>Transformation simply has not happened.</p>
<h2>A fallacious argument</h2>
<p>The first major flaw in the report is that it adds two numbers together – the amount of land held by black people, and the amount of land held by the government. It does this for all land, but also for agricultural land, estimated at 93.5 million hectares, or 76% of the total of 122.5 million hectares. It argues that a total of around 25 million hectares – or 26.7% of South Africa’s agricultural land – is now owned by previously disadvantaged individuals and government.</p>
<p>If the rand value of the 25 million hectares is considered, it asserts that this amounts to 29.1% of the total. If the agricultural potential of this land is considered, then the share owned by black people and government is 46.5% of the total value of agricultural land.</p>
<p>Agri-SA’s argument, then, is that land reform targets are close to being met. This is fallacious because it doesn’t report on government and black ownership separately. And there’s no basis for arguing that government land is black-owned. State land is held on behalf of all citizens, including white farmers. </p>
<p>Secondly, rural land in the former <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/article/homelands">Bantustan</a> lands – those areas held in trust by government for black residents during apartheid – is still held in trust for communal area residents. Their occupation of around 13% of South Africa’s total land area is the result of centuries of dispossession. It cannot be counted, and has never been counted, as a contribution to achieving an initial land reform target of 30% of white commercial farmland.</p>
<p>On top of this, Agri-SA argues that only 2.2 million hectares of farmland has been purchased by government for transformation purposes, compared to 4.3 million hectares bought by black people on the open market. The latter conflates private purchase of land by black farmers with government payment for land which is then transferred to black people through land reform. These figures don’t stand up to scrutiny. In truth, we don’t know how much agricultural land has been privately purchased by black people, using their own funds or loans, since 1994.</p>
<p>The report’s data on transactions doesn’t lend support to the argument that the market is more effective that the state in changing the pattern of land ownership. According to AgriSA’s data, government and black South Africans together accounted for only 12.9% of the 69 million hectares purchased between 1994 and 2016. If anything, this data shows that market transactions by themselves cannot result in the kind of changes required by land reform – particularly if it is to target the poor, who cannot afford to buy land.</p>
<p>Overall, vast disparities in the distribution of land in relation to race and class mean that land reform still has a long way to go. The collection of proper data as a basis for monitoring, evaluation and planning is crucial, but is inadequate at present. </p>
<h2>Data are lacking</h2>
<p>Government data on land and agriculture is problematic. Statistics SA collects few reliable data on either large or small-scale agriculture, and none on land reform. Data on land reform released by the department of rural development and land reform are also thin, often inconsistent and hide as much as they reveal. For example, no figures on the average size of farms transferred or the cost per hectare have been released.</p>
<p>We now have contradictory reports on how much land has been transferred through land reform. The department says that land restitution has transferred 3.4 million <a href="https://www.iol.co.za/capetimes/news/anc-withholding-transfer-of-14-million-hectares-of-land-11521201">hectares</a> to claimants to date, and land redistribution has transferred 4.7 million <a href="https://www.oecd.org/tad/agricultural-policies/41619597.pdf">hectares</a> . That yields a total of 8.1 million hectares. But the Agri-SA report provides a total of only 6.5 million hectares of agricultural land acquired through both government and private acquisitions. Which is correct? We don’t know.</p>
<p>The absence of reliable data means that government policy on a key and highly politicised issue is being made without the benefit of rigorous evidence and informed debate on how to improve delivery. This leaves room for bodies like Agri-SA to inflame tensions with data and interpretations that misdirect society at large.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/87110/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ben Cousins receives funding from the National Research Foundation. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ruth Hall does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>There is very little clarity as to who owns what land in South Africa. A lack of reliable data and statistics doesn’t help.Ben Cousins, Emeritus Professor, Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies, University of the Western CapeRuth Hall, Professor, Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies, University of the Western CapeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/852722017-11-08T13:45:08Z2017-11-08T13:45:08ZAgriculture training in South Africa badly needs an overhaul. Here are some ideas<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/193394/original/file-20171106-1011-1tnrbmc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">South Africa has the ability to meet national food requirements but for this to happen serious reforms in its agriculture sector are needed.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Paulo Whitaker/Reuters</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Agriculture delivers more jobs per rand invested than any other <a href="https://www.agrisa.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/011-APAP-AgriSA.pdf">productive sector</a>. If the entire agriculture value chain is considered in South Africa, its contribution to GDP reaches <a href="https://www.agrisa.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/011-APAP-AgriSA.pdf">approximately 12%</a>. </p>
<p>South Africa has the ability to meet national food requirements - yet <a href="http://www.statssa.gov.za/?p=9922">more than 7 million</a> citizens experience hunger. A further <a href="http://www.statssa.gov.za/?p=9922">22.6% of households</a> have inadequate access to food. </p>
<p>There are a number of <a href="http://research.assaf.org.za/handle/20.500.11911/85">reasons for this</a>. Unsustainable food production practices have led to soil erosion, biodiversity loss, pollution and climate change. There is also increased competition with other industries, like biofuels, for the use of arable land. Declined access to quality water and the failure to address land redistribution are also contributing factors. </p>
<p>Another major reason that the sector is unable to realise its full potential is the fact that education and training is in need of a very serious overhaul. </p>
<p>This is the core finding of a recently published consensus study I chaired for the <a href="http://research.assaf.org.za/handle/20.500.11911/85">Academy of Science of South Africa</a>. The study identified three key areas in need of attention: substantial institutional reform, stimulating innovation in the sector and ending the fragmented way in which education and training in the sector is managed. </p>
<h2>Fragmented system</h2>
<p>There are only a few agricultural secondary schools in the country. At secondary school level, agricultural science as subject is a popular choice. The tertiary sector consists of 12 agricultural colleges that offer specialised training. Ten of the country’s 26 public universities also offer agricultural science degree programmes up to doctoral level. </p>
<p>But the current system of managing education and training is fragmented and in dire need of substantial reform. </p>
<p>For example, responsibility for agricultural education and training is split between research councils and various government departments. On top of this, agricultural colleges are administered at the provincial level and aren’t formally part of the national higher education system.</p>
<p>Postgraduate education, training and research at universities is supported by the Department of Science and Technology through the National Research Foundation. But there’s no formal mechanism to coordinate the work of these various entities. </p>
<h2>Recommendations for reform</h2>
<p>Reform should be directed towards greater integration, cooperation and accountability. </p>
<p>The panel believes that it’s necessary to establish a National Council for Agricultural Education and Training. Its first responsibility would be to ensure the inclusion and participation of all of the linked departments and other critical stakeholders in the sector. Its work would be to coordinate their various policies and programmes. But, given the <a href="http://research.assaf.org.za/handle/20.500.11911/85">current moratorium</a> on establishing statutory bodies, the recommendation is to appoint a Ministerial Committee to oversee this process. </p>
<p>In 2015 the cabinet took a decision to move agricultural colleges from provinces to the national Department of Higher Education and Training. A task team was appointed to investigate the implications of the transfer of authority. But there’s been little progress. </p>
<p>The panel has made a strong recommendation that the task team’s work should be expedited. And that sufficient resources should be allocated to make sure that there is progress.</p>
<p>Attention also needs to be given to institutional capacity and resources. </p>
<h2>Exploring land-grant possibilities</h2>
<p>The panel has also recommended that South Africa pilot test a land-grant system that links research, education, training and extension. Extension is the application of scientific research and new knowledge through farmer education.</p>
<p>Land-grant systems have been successfully implemented in countries ranging from the US to Brazil and India. </p>
<p>Over the past six decades the US has built <a href="http://www.cambridgescholars.com/download/sample/61695">60 land-grant</a> universities. Academics hold appointments with dual responsibilities for teaching, on one hand, and research or extension, on the other. In their capacity as extension officers, academics advise and assist farmers on the ground, with the goal of ensuring sustainable production and rural development. They then bring this experience back to the university. They facilitate the flow of information both ways - bringing new innovative research and technology to farmers, and feeding knowledge about field problems back into the university to inform the research and teaching agenda.</p>
<p>The US has managed to develop one of the most sophisticated agricultural innovation systems in the world using land-grant institutions. </p>
<p>India has also adopted a land-grant system called the <a href="https://icar.gov.in/content/state-agricultural-universities">State Agricultural University System</a>. It now has a network of 41 institutions that have played a major role in lifting millions out of poverty. The system has also led to <a href="http://www.cambridgescholars.com/download/sample/61695">crop yield increases of 1.6% a year for 30 years</a>. </p>
<h2>Next steps</h2>
<p>Some research entities, provinces and universities have already expressed an interest in taking part in the South African pilot.</p>
<p>The three national government departments involved in agricultural education – higher education and training, science and technology, and agriculture, forestry and fisheries all support the findings of the consensus study. And they’ve made a commitment to ensuring support for the ideas to become policy.</p>
<p>The study has also been recognised by the <a href="http://www.ruforum.org/">Regional Universities Forum for Capacity Building in Agriculture</a> as having the potential to address challenges faced by agricultural education and training across Africa.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/85272/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Frans Swanepoel works for the University of Pretoria. He receives funding from the NRF. </span></em></p>To stimulate innovation in the agriculture sector education and training is in dire need of substantial reform for greater integration, cooperation and accountability.Frans Swanepoel, Research Fellow in Residence with focus on Future Africa at the Centre for Advancement of Scholarship, University of PretoriaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/841462017-09-28T18:46:22Z2017-09-28T18:46:22ZHow land reform and rural development can help reduce poverty in South Africa<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/187171/original/file-20170922-13425-70orxn.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Rural poverty affects a growing number of people in South Africa.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">REUTERS/Mike Hutchings</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>South Africa will need to review its land reform policy, with an eye to boosting productive land use among the rural poor, if it is to push back rising poverty levels.</p>
<p>The country’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-shift-in-thinking-is-needed-to-counter-south-africas-startling-rise-in-poverty-83462">poverty levels</a> have increased sharply over the past five years with an additional 3 million people now classified as living in absolute poverty. This means about 34 million people from a population of 55 million <a href="http://www.statssa.gov.za/?p=10334">lack basic necessities</a> like housing, transport, food, heating and proper clothing.</p>
<p>Much of the commentary on these sad statistics has emphasised the poor performance of urban job creation efforts and the country’s education system. Little has been said about the role of rural development or land reform.</p>
<p>This is a major omission given that about <a href="https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.RUR.TOTL.ZS">35%</a> of South Africa’s population live in rural areas. They are among the worst affected by the rising poverty levels. </p>
<p>Large tracts of land lie fallow in the country’s rural areas, particularly in former homelands (surrogate states created by the apartheid government). They were fully integrated into South Africa in 1994 bringing with them large amounts of land under traditional authorities.</p>
<p>Research by the Human Sciences Research Council suggests that poverty levels can be pushed back significantly if policies are put in place that focus on food security and creating viable pathways to prosperity for the rural poor. This would be particularly true if land reform helped people develop the means of producing food, generating value and employing people. </p>
<h2>The problem</h2>
<p>Researchers <a href="http://www.hsrc.ac.za/uploads/pageContent/624/Poverty.pdf">investigating</a> the land needs of marginal communities, such as farm workers and rural households in the former homelands, have uncovered a considerable desire for opportunities on the land.</p>
<p>But they found that municipalities, government departments and banks were offering relatively little assistance to poorer would-be farmers seeking to improve their land and its value. </p>
<p>In the former homelands in particular, many families reportedly felt opportunities existed literally on their doorsteps but they lacked the means and support to grasp them. A common response among young people to the absence of such opportunities is to pick up and leave for the cities.</p>
<p>The need to rekindle rural development in South Africa is widely recognised even within the government. The country has lots of policies that speak to the ideal of lifting the rural poor out of poverty. Some policies are just not followed while others have proven to be inappropriate.</p>
<p>A fundamental problem underpinning successive rural development initiatives has been the split between the two main strands of government land reform policy: <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/article/land-restitution-south-africa-1994">land restitution</a> and <a href="http://www.plaas.org.za/plaas-publication/FC01">land redistribution</a>. </p>
<p>Land restitution was largely conceived as a means of addressing the colonial legacy of land dispossession. For its part, land redistribution was mainly designed to create a new class of black commercial farmers who would inherit existing white commercial farms. </p>
<p>Neither has been successfully implemented. Land restitution has been painfully slow, while land redistribution has been criticised for becoming increasingly <a href="http://www.fin24.com/Economy/South-Africa/land-reform-is-captured-20170224">elitist</a>. </p>
<p>To advance land redistribution the government put in place a land acquisition <a href="http://www.plaas.org.za/sites/default/files/publications-pdf/PP%2006.pdf">strategy</a> that acted as an enabler for entrepreneurs who wanted to get into large-scale, commercial agriculture. Once again the poor were left at the margins. </p>
<p>In the early years of democracy, the African National Congress adopted a <a href="http://www.cls.uct.ac.za/usr/lrg/downloads/Factsheet_CommunalTenure_IPILRA_Final_Feb2015.pdf">“do no harm”</a> approach in relation to land tenure in the former homelands. The reasoning was that this land served as a bulwark against poverty. </p>
<p>But that policy appears to have shifted to focus on bolstering the power of local chiefs to oversee land use. The ruling party is leveraging the clout of the chiefs to secure rural constituency <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/07/world/africa/jacob-zuma-under-siege-finds-political-refuge-in-rural-south-africa.html">support</a> during elections.</p>
<p>A sharp historical irony is that the present government is arguably reproducing patterns of land ownership that were originally justified by the <a href="https://www.africaresearchinstitute.org/newsite/publications/briefing-notes/land-law-and-traditional-leadership-in-south-africa/">colonial ideology</a>.</p>
<h2>What must be done</h2>
<p>A range of different models could be adopted in different localities. Recently there’s been a significant rise in the establishment of informal land markets. </p>
<p>This indicates that disregarded rural land has substantial value. But this value is being undermined by a lack of appropriate titling opportunities and land management systems.</p>
<p>What is required is a single and inclusive land reform programme. It must view all land as economically valuable and aim to maximise its potential without undermining people’s social and cultural rights and expressions of identity and belonging. Such a programme should recognise that unused land can be used to address poverty and stimulate growth if it is incorporated into rural value chains.</p>
<p>And to make farming easier and more worthwhile new mechanisms and arrangements must be designed to release productive land currently locked up in customary practices. Although individualist freeholding is an inadequate and often wildly inappropriate alternative to present tenure practices, chiefs and communities should be held accountable if they appear unable to improve their land.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/84146/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tim GB Hart does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article. He has previously received funding from the Department of Science and Technology, the Department of Rural Development and the Belgian Technical Cooperation.
</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Leslie J. Bank does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>South Africa should review its rural development strategy and land reform policy to win the fight against rising poverty.Leslie J. Bank, Deputy Director in Economic Development and Professor of Social Anthropology, Human Sciences Research CouncilTim GB Hart, Senior Research Project Manager and Rural Sociologist, Economic Performance and Development, Human Sciences Research CouncilLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/820982017-08-14T16:24:56Z2017-08-14T16:24:56ZWhy title deeds aren’t the solution to South Africa’s land tenure problem<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/181042/original/file-20170804-4092-o2v878.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Nearly 60% of all South Africans, live on land or in dwellings outside of the land titling system.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Filckr/Icrisat</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The conventional view is that insecurity of land tenure results from the lack of a registered title deed which records the property rights of occupants of land or housing. Across Africa, many governments and international development agencies are <a href="http://www.worldbank.org/en/events/2016/08/22/land-and-poverty-conference-2017-responsible-land-governance-towards-an-evidence-based-approach">promoting large-scale land titling</a> as the solution.</p>
<p>In the South African context, some commentators <a href="http://hsf.org.za/resource-centre/focus/focus-70-on-focus/Focus%2070%20-%20On%20Land/view">suggest</a> that a key legacy of the apartheid past is the continued tenure insecurity of the third of the population who live in “communal areas”, under unelected chiefs or of traditional councils. The remedy, they suggest, is simple: extend the system of title deeds to all South Africans.</p>
<p>We have just published a book which disputes this view. <a href="http://ukznpress.bookslive.co.za/blog/2017/06/19/book-launch-untitled-securing-land-tenure-in-urban-and-rural-south-africa/">Untitled. Securing land tenure in urban and rural South Africa</a> contains case studies of a wide range of land tenure systems found in different parts of the country. These include informal settlements, inner city buildings in Johannesburg, “deep rural” communal systems, land reform projects, and examples of systems of freehold rights held by black South Africans since the 19th century. </p>
<p>With the exception of systems of freehold rights, most people who occupy land or dwellings in these areas are “untitled”, and occupy land or dwellings under a very different kind of property regime. We term these social or off-register tenures.</p>
<p>But we argue that, fundamentally, South Africans need to question the assumption that the sole solution to the problem of tenure insecurity is a system of title deeds. Alternative approaches are needed, which we set out to explore. </p>
<h2>Social tenures</h2>
<p>The book offers an analysis of social tenures, which are regulated by a different logic and set of norms than those underpinning private property. Such tenures are diverse but share some key features. As is the case across the developing world, including Africa, land tenure is directly embedded in social identities and relations. </p>
<p>Rights are often shared and overlapping in character and generally derive from accepted membership of a community or kinship group. Processes of land allocation and dispute resolution are overseen by local institutional structures. </p>
<p>In these contexts, decisions are often informed by norms and values that stress the importance of reciprocal social relationships rather than buying power as the basis for land allocation. They involve flexible processes of asserting, negotiating and defending land rights, rather than the enforcement of legally defined rules.</p>
<p>It’s estimated that in 2011 some 1.5 million people lived in low-cost dwellings provided to the poor by government’s, so-called <a href="https://www.nelsonmandela.org/omalley/index.php/site/q/03lv02039/04lv02103/05lv02120/06lv02126.htm">“Reconstruction and Development Programme” (RDP)</a> houses, with inaccurate or outdated titles, in most cases due to transfers outside of the formal system. </p>
<p>Another 5 million lived in RDP houses where no titles had yet been issued due to systemic inefficiencies. Along with 1.9 million people in backyard shacks, 2 million on commercial farms, and 17 million in communal areas, this means that in that year around 30 million people, nearly 60% of all South Africans, lived on land or in dwellings held outside of the land titling system.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/181043/original/file-20170804-7516-3zg7la.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/181043/original/file-20170804-7516-3zg7la.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181043/original/file-20170804-7516-3zg7la.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181043/original/file-20170804-7516-3zg7la.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181043/original/file-20170804-7516-3zg7la.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181043/original/file-20170804-7516-3zg7la.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181043/original/file-20170804-7516-3zg7la.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">RDP housing.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Flickr</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The edifice of title deeds</h2>
<p>The book contrasts social tenures with the conventional system of title deeds, which constitutes a key element of an imposing “edifice”. The current system of rates, services and processes of development assumes that land tenure equals a surveyed plot with a singular registered owner, which may be persons or corporate bodies. </p>
<p>The system is serviced by a Deeds Registry, private sector surveyors and conveyancers, as well as municipal officials, all governed by a range of laws and regulations in a complex and interlocking manner. </p>
<p>One key problem facing those in social tenures is the discrimination they suffer at the hands of the state and the private sector. Despite some protection under laws such as the Interim Protection of Informal Land Rights <a href="http://www.ruraldevelopment.gov.za/phocadownload/Acts/interim%20protection%20of%20informal%20land%20rights%20act%2031%20of%201996.pdf">Act of 1996</a>, people living in social tenures are severely disadvantaged. They may have to go to court to have their rights legally enforced, but most cannot afford to do so. </p>
<p>Development and land use planning, public investment and service delivery are constrained under these systems of tenure. Elite capture or abuse by unaccountable leaders can also take place, as in communal areas where minerals are found and chiefs and councils enter into business deals with mining companies that benefit only a few.</p>
<p>Titling enthusiasts argue that another problem with social tenures is the fact that banks do not accept untitled land or dwellings as security for bank loans. This constrains the poor from borrowing capital to invest in businesses of their own. But research indicates that few of the poor are willing to risk their homes in this way, since small enterprises often fail. </p>
<h2>Tenure reform policy options</h2>
<p>How then to proceed with pro-poor tenure reform? Our research indicates that it is not realistic to extend land titling to all; the system may be at breaking point, and is inadequate even for the emerging middle class.</p>
<p>Another option is to adapt elements of the edifice to provide a degree of official and legal recognition of rights within social tenures. Lawyers and planners working with communities and officials have developed a range of innovative practices, concepts and instruments aimed at securing such rights in an incremental manner. This includes special land use zones, recognising occupation rights in informal settlements, and recording rights using locally accepted forms of evidence. </p>
<p>A third option is a more radical overhaul of land tenure, leading to systematic recognition of and large scale support for social tenures. This would involve stronger laws protecting rights holders, an adjudication system that allows new forms of evidence to be considered in determining who holds rights, and new institutions for negotiating, recording and registering rights under social tenures. The system could include the office of a Land Rights Protector. </p>
<p>We believe that these alternatives all pose their own challenges. But we also believe that pursuing alternatives to a system of title deeds is not an impossible task.</p>
<p><em>The <a href="http://ukznpress.bookslive.co.za/blog/2017/06/19/book-launch-untitled-securing-land-tenure-in-urban-and-rural-south-africa/">book</a> was co-authored with Dona Hornby, a post-doctoral student at the Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies <a href="http://www.plaas.org.za/">(PLAAS)</a> at the University of the Western Cape; Rosalie Kingwill, at the institute and Lauren Royston, a researcher at the <a href="http://www.seri-sa.org/">Socio-Economic Rights Institute</a></em>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/82098/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ben Cousins receives funding from the National Research Foundation.</span></em></p>The conventional view is that insecurity of land tenure results from the lack of a registered title deed which records the property rights of occupants of land or housing.Ben Cousins, Professor, Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies, University of the Western CapeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/808412017-07-25T15:14:00Z2017-07-25T15:14:00ZA 10-point plan to accelerate orderly land reform in South Africa<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/179156/original/file-20170721-14731-14fz5gm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Land reform remains a divisive subject 23 years after democracy in South Africa.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Filckr</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>A more than 365 year history of <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/article/history-slavery-and-early-colonisation-south-africa">colonialism</a> and <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/article/history-apartheid-south-africa">apartheid</a> have indelibly affected land, heritage and human rights in South Africa. </p>
<p>Among the vast array of discriminatory laws was the <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/topic/natives-land-act-1913">Land Act of 1913</a> that spatially segregated people through land dispossession. It amplified the vast canyon of inequality, further shattered the social fabric of <a href="http://www.saha.org.za/billofrights/property.htm">communities</a> and radically compromised economic development of the black majority.</p>
<p>It was only after the <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/article/south-african-general-elections-1994">1994 democratic elections</a> that the vast majority of citizens could hope for constitutional restitution of their land.</p>
<p>Significant socio-economic advances have been made <a href="https://www.idc.co.za/reports/IDC%20R&I%20publication%20-%20Overview%20of%20key%20trends%20in%20SA%20economy%20since%201994.pdf">since 1994</a>, but several challenges need to be overcome as indicated by <a href="https://www.idc.co.za/images/2017/IDC_RI_publication_Key-trends-in-SA-economy_31-March-2017.pdf">recent trends</a>. Much more needs to be done. This is particularly true when it comes to land distribution and restitution. </p>
<p>The 2013 state <a href="http://www.ruraldevelopment.gov.za/phocadownload/Cadastral-Survey-management/Booklet/land%20audit%20booklet.pdf">land audit report</a> illustrates why. By 1994 about 87% of the land was owned by whites and only 13% by black people. By 2012 only 7.95 million hectares had been transferred to black owners through land reform. This represented only 7.5% of <a href="http://www.plaas.org.za/sites/default/files/publications-pdf/No1%20Fact%20check%20web.pdf">formerly white-owned land</a>. </p>
<p>Land reform was discussed with understandable intensity during the recent <a href="http://www.anc.org.za/content/5th-national-policy-conference-2017">National Policy Conference</a> of the governing African National Congress. Debates centred on whether land should be <a href="http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/more-drama-at-anc-policy-conference-over-land-20170705">expropriated without compensation</a>. </p>
<p>It’s within this context that a <a href="http://nationalforum.nmmu.ac.za/">National Forum</a> was established for dialogues on land reform. The National Forum is made up of a network of organisations that includes three universities, the <a href="https://www.sahrc.org.za/">South African Human Rights Commission</a> and <a href="https://www.fhr.org.za/">Foundation for Human Rights</a>. </p>
<p>The National Forum focused on whether it was possible to achieve effective land reform through <a href="http://www.gov.za/documents/constitution/chapter-2-bill-rights#25">Section 25 of the South African Constitution</a>, which deals with property rights. The National Forum also examined the bureaucratic, legal and constitutional constraints that slow down land redistribution and restitution. It also explored the policy and legislative options necessary to address the complex challenges.</p>
<p>The National Forum concluded that South Africa’s constitution doesn’t stand in the way of land reform. However, it’s clear that <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africas-problems-lie-in-political-negligence-not-its-constitution-80474">political negligence</a> has fuelled undue bureaucracy, mismanagement and corruption, which have severely hampered meaningful land reform. It reached consensus on a 10-point plan for constitutionally accelerated land reform. The hope is that it can help break the long-standing impasse over land, and move the country toward radically inclusive socio-economic growth. </p>
<h2>Accelerating land reform</h2>
<p>Aspects of the 10-point plan include:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>A human rights approach to land redistribution, grounded in the effective implementation of Section 25 of the Constitution. This could still guarantee a life of dignity, equality and freedom for all citizens. </p></li>
<li><p>Existing land reform legislation is not effectively implemented. The <a href="http://www.ruraldevelopment.gov.za/339-land-claim/685-re-opening-of-land-claims#.WW-Xr01f34g">Land Claims Commission</a> and <a href="http://www.justice.gov.za/lcc/">Land Claims Court</a>, which were created through the<a href="http://www.justice.gov.za/lcc/docs/1994-022.pdf"> Restitution of Land Rights Act (1994)</a>, have not been effective. Unnecessary bureaucratic bungling, significant corruption and limited expert skills have been exacerbated by cadre deployment. This is the practice of appointing party political loyalists to government positions irrespective of ability. In addition, these institutions have yet to be made more accessible and more representative.</p></li>
<li><p>The possibility of adopting further laws to accelerate land reform is not being used. This is the case even though Section 25(8) of the Constitution specifically indicates that it can be done.</p></li>
<li><p>The possibility of repealing existing legislation that’s inconsistent with or hampering land reform is not being pursued. This should be rectified.</p></li>
<li><p>There is a need for national legislation on expropriation. A bill is before Parliament – the <a href="http://www.gov.za/sites/www.gov.za/files/b4-2015_150213_edited.pdf">Expropriation Bill</a> – but it’s been introduced late and processed without urgency. The possibility of effecting appropriate amendments to the <a href="http://www.did.gpg.gov.za/Acts/saf9927.pdf">1975 Expropriation Act</a> should also be considered. </p></li>
<li><p>There should be improved communication and coordination between various government departments. Currently, the location of relevant land reform mandates and competencies are spread across several departments. These should be aligned to accelerate the pace of the process.</p></li>
<li><p>A draft bill on cultural and spiritual access to land must be developed to enable citizens’ access to cemeteries and related holy sites where their family members are buried. </p></li>
<li><p>The courts should pronounce on the meaning of “just and equitable” compensation in Section 25 of the Constitution, to provide for better definition and interpretation of this provision within the context of land reform.</p></li>
<li><p><a href="http://www.cls.uct.ac.za/usr/lrg/downloads/Factsheet_CPAs_Final_Feb2015.pdf">Communal Property Associations</a>, community and traditional leader tensions must be resolved through meaningful engagement. Communication channels must be open, all role-players included and all relevant information made available to every stakeholder. Furthermore, all affected parties must be able to influence the decisions taken. In addition, skills training for officials dealing with land restitution is necessary, whilst an updated land audit is required. </p></li>
<li><p>There is need for a Land and Economy Convention, similar to the Convention for a Democratic South Africa <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/article/convention-democratic-south-africa-codesa">(CODESA)</a>. This was held to negotiate the country’s peaceful transition to democracy. A role for the new convention would be to address poverty, inequality and unemployment. The aim would be to restore citizens’ dignity, strengthen the economy and advance democracy.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>The National Forum envisions the 10-point plan being effected within the context of the country’s <a href="http://www.gov.za/sites/www.gov.za/files/Executive%20Summary-NDP%202030%20-%20Our%20future%20-%20make%20it%20work.pdf">National Development Plan’s Vision 2030</a>. The plan was drawn up to provide a roadmap for the country to 2030. Its central aims are to reduce unemployment, poverty and inequality. </p>
<p>If land reform is realised, South Africa could present a more humane, just, peaceful, prosperous and democratic face to the world.</p>
<p><em>Key dialogue leaders at the National Forum were:
Retired Justice <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/people/judge-albert-louis-albie-sachs">Albie Sachs</a>, <a href="http://www.thenewage.co.za/president-zuma-appoints-prof-bongani-majola-chairperson-of-human-rights-commission/">Professor Bongani Majola</a>, <a href="https://www.pa.org.za/person/mathole-serofo-motshekga/">Professor Mathole Motshekga</a>, <a href="http://advocatesgroup21.co.za/staff/la-makua-leks/">Advocate Leks Makua</a>, <a href="http://www.derebus.org.za/retirement-ceremony-of-justice-johann-van-der-westhuizen/">Retired Justice Johan van der Westhuizen</a>, <a href="https://eiuc.org/education/global-campus-regional-masters/university-of-pretoria/programme-director.html">Professor Frans Viljoen</a>, <a href="https://za.linkedin.com/in/victor-mavhidula-544236b6">Victor Mavhidula</a>, <a href="https://za.linkedin.com/in/makgatho-motshekga-35689910a">Makgatho Motshekga</a>, <a href="http://democracyworks.org.za/who-we-are/our-people/associates">Koogan Pillay</a>, <a href="http://saintzadvertising.wixsite.com/hkkinc/elson-kgaka">Elson Kgaga</a> and <a href="https://www.fhr.org.za/index.php/about/staff/">Advocate Hanif Vally</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/80841/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The South African Human Rights Commission and Foundation for Human Rights have provided support for the National Forum Dialogues. </span></em></p>After South Africa’s first democratic election in 1994, the previously oppressed and dispossessed black majority hoped for constitutional restitution of their land. This has largely failed.Quinton Johnson, Campus Principal: Strategic Leadership and Management, Nelson Mandela UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/804742017-07-04T14:18:31Z2017-07-04T14:18:31ZSouth Africa’s problems lie in political negligence, not its Constitution<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/176764/original/file-20170704-32624-4jke48.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Many are questioning South Africa's constitutional democracy amid high poverty and unemployment.
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters/Mike Hutchings</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>South Africa is witnessing another wave of disillusionment with the constitutional arrangement that followed the end of apartheid in 1994. As the country advances towards the third decade of democracy the sentiment is that the constitution is an obstacle to meaningful <a href="https://businesstech.co.za/news/business/152627/scrap-the-constitution-and-let-the-majority-decide-manyi/">economic transformation</a>. It’s roundly criticised for putting a brake on much needed wealth redistribution, following centuries of colonialism and apartheid oppression of the black majority.</p>
<p>President Jacob Zuma has even alluded to the need to <a href="http://city-press.news24.com/News/zuma-calls-on-black-parties-to-unite-on-land-20170303">amend the constitution</a> to enable accelerated radical land reform.</p>
<p>Why, indeed, has the country not made the kinds of social and economic advances that were promised in the <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/article/timeline-20-years-democracy-1994-2014">negotiated settlement</a> and incorporated in the <a href="http://www.gov.za/DOCUMENTS/CONSTITUTION/constitution-republic-south-africa-1996-1">1996 constitution</a>?</p>
<p>South Africa’s <a href="http://www.gov.za/DOCUMENTS/CONSTITUTION/constitution-republic-south-africa-1996-1">constitution</a> is admired globally. It incorporates hard fought for political and civil rights, and a generous range of social and economic rights that can be enforced by courts. Why then do so many South Africans, mostly black, still live amid widespread poverty? Why do they continue to live in segregated spaces that reinforce <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africa-urgently-needs-to-rethink-its-approach-to-housing-78628">apartheid geography</a>? </p>
<p>With a constitution locating equality and dignity as its preeminent principle, why do so many women and children still suffer from such disturbing levels of violence? Why is unemployment so <a href="https://www.timeslive.co.za/news/south-africa/2017-06-01-sas-unemployment-rate-hits-a-13-year-high/">alarmingly high </a> in the face of vivid affluence and consumerism? </p>
<p>These questions go to the heart of the South African dilemma, namely, persistent economic inequalities and poverty. Some even perceive this as the failure of the South African constitutional project.</p>
<p>But has the constitutional project failed? And is the country’s constitution the problem? I believe not. The provisions in the constitution, if properly implemented and enforced, have the capacity to change the lives of the majority of South Africans.</p>
<h2>What’s failed</h2>
<p>There are many reasons for the country’s inability to realise the rights set out on the constitution. They include a lack of political will on the part of all spheres of government (national, provincial, and local), bureaucratic <a href="https://www.timeslive.co.za/news/south-africa/2017-06-21-who-knows-how-huge-irregular-expenditure-is-in--municipalities-auditor-general/">indifference or incompetence</a>, <a href="http://pari.org.za/betrayal-promise-report/">corruption</a> and mismanagement. </p>
<p>Other problems concern either ineptitude of the so-called <a href="http://www.constitutionalcourt.org.za/site/constitution/english-web/ch9.html">Chapter 9 institutions</a>, established to strengthen the country’s constitutional democracy, including the Human Rights Commission and the Gender Commission. And the failure of government to implement their recommendations. </p>
<p>The reasons also relate to the failure of government to implement court decisions. </p>
<p>But a narrow focus on only law and the courts will yield only limited results and constrict the transformative possibilities of the constitution.</p>
<p>The ability of the constitution to change the lives of the majority of South Africans is particularly true if enforcement involves a broad spectrum of societal actors. This includes government, the corporate community and civil society, the media and the various professions, the trade union movement and religious bodies. </p>
<p>The range of social and economic rights in the constitution include the right of access to education, health care, food, water, social security, a clean environment and housing. Many have been litigated, often with judgments in favour of the applicants. But often the judgements haven’t been properly been implemented and enforced. </p>
<p>The most successful cases have been those where the plaintiffs have worked closely with civil society advocates to ensure that the court’s decision is implemented. A good example is the <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-south-africans-can-use-their-constitution-to-fight-for-social-justice-54927">Treatment Action Campaign case</a> that forced government to roll out anti-retroviral medication to HIV positive pregnant women in public hospitals. </p>
<h2>The property hot potato</h2>
<p>Arguably the land question is the most pertinent in South Africa. Not surprisingly the section of the constitution that’s viewed as the greatest impediment to “radical” economic transformation is Section 25 – the so-called property section. </p>
<p>The right to property ownership is often seen as protecting the interests of white property owners over poor black South Africans. Is this fair? </p>
<p>I don’t believe so.</p>
<p>The protection of the right to property should protect everyone in a market economy. And most people want their property protected. But these protections don’t preclude the possibility of addressing the colonial and apartheid legacy of land theft from black South Africans.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/176774/original/file-20170704-23217-1e8hw2e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/176774/original/file-20170704-23217-1e8hw2e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=393&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176774/original/file-20170704-23217-1e8hw2e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=393&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176774/original/file-20170704-23217-1e8hw2e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=393&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176774/original/file-20170704-23217-1e8hw2e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=494&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176774/original/file-20170704-23217-1e8hw2e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=494&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176774/original/file-20170704-23217-1e8hw2e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=494&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Grinding poverty is forcing many young South Africans into scavenging.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters/Siphiwe Sibeko</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Section 25 allows for land to be expropriated for a public purpose or in the public interest. The definition of public interest includes “the nation’s commitment to land reform and to bring about equitable access to all SA’s natural resources”. The clause sets out the terms (“just and equitable”) for compensating owners of land earmarked for expropriation. Most significantly, Section 25 provides that</p>
<blockquote>
<p>property is not limited to land.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Section 25 also provides for land reform through restitution and redistribution. It does this by enabling “a person or community whose tenure of land is insecure as a result of past racially discriminatory laws or practices” to tenure that is legally secure, or of comparable redress, as provided for in legislation. </p>
<p>In addition, government is mandated to take affirmative action, within its available resources, to</p>
<blockquote>
<p>foster conditions which enable citizens to gain access to land on an equitable basis. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>These provisions create great possibility for addressing land shortage, security of tenure and other deprivations as a result of South Africa’s colonial and apartheid history. </p>
<h2>Failure to act</h2>
<p>That successive African National Congress governments have clearly not implemented the provisions of section 25 shows political negligence, a betrayal of its own policies and a failure of governance. </p>
<p>Section 25 provides government with a clear directive that must be matched with a solid commitment to act. Section 237 of the constitution directs that “all constitutional obligations must be performed diligently and without delay”. </p>
<p>The government clearly has not satisfied its constitutional obligations – and must do so with substantive thought and with urgency. </p>
<p>The Constitutional Court has on several occasions called on the government to take action. For example, in the <a href="http://www.saflii.org/za/cases/ZACC/2010/10.pdf">Tongoane case in 2010</a> Justice Ngcobo noted the priority that land restitution and security of tenure must be given. He noted:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We are mindful that Parliament’s legislative plate is overflowing. These matters, have, however now become pressing and should be treated with the urgency that they deserve. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>In light of government’s failure to fulfil its side of the bargain, it would be foolhardy to consider amending the constitution without considering the findings of the <a href="http://www.engineeringnews.co.za/article/motlanthe-appointed-to-chair-legislative-review-panel-2016-01-19">Motlanthe Commission</a>. Set up by the National Assembly, the commission will investigate the impact of key laws passed by the South African parliament since 1994 with a special focus on eradicating economic inequality. It could provide a blueprint for government action if, as expected, it sets out recommendations on social and economic rights, including land. </p>
<p>While the untold misery and deep humiliation that people endured under colonialism and apartheid cannot be fully compensated, they may have their rights to dignity and equality restored through government laws and other actions. If government doesn’t act, then civil society actors and key institutions should consider interventions that may force its hand. </p>
<p>It’s not the constitution’s failure to deliver “radical economic” transformation, but a lacklustre government that has forgotten its promises – first adopted in the <a href="http://scnc.ukzn.ac.za/doc/HIST/freedomchart/freedomch.html">Freedom Charter</a> and then again in the constitution.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/80474/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Penelope Andrews does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Has South Africa’s constitutional project failed? Is the country’s constitution an obstacle to meaningful redistribution and land reform?Penelope Andrews, Dean of Law and Professor, University of Cape TownLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/763552017-05-23T14:40:45Z2017-05-23T14:40:45ZThe pros and cons of commercial farming models in Africa<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/170298/original/file-20170522-25082-38am7t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Workers harvesting from a commercial farm in Ethiopia. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters/Barry Malone</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Colonialism brought large-scale farming to Africa, promising modernisation and jobs – but often dispossessing people and exploiting workers. Now, after several decades of independence, and with investor interest growing, African governments are once again promoting large plantations and estates. But the new corporate interest in African agriculture has been criticised as a “<a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03066150.2011.559005">land grab</a>”.</p>
<p>Small-scale farmers, on family land, are still the mainstay of African farming, producing <a href="http://www.fao.org/fileadmin/templates/est/Investment/Agriculture_at_a_Crossroads_Global_Report_IAASTD.pdf">90% of its food</a>. Their future is increasingly uncertain as the large-scale colonial model returns. </p>
<p>To make way for big farms, local people have lost their land. Promises of jobs and other benefits have been slow to materialise, if at all.</p>
<p>The search is on for alternatives to big plantations and estates that can bring in private investment without dispossessing local people – and preferably also support people’s livelihoods by creating jobs and strengthening local economies. </p>
<p>Two possible models stand out. </p>
<p><a href="https://boydellandbrewer.com/africa-s-land-rush-pb.html">Contract farming</a> is often touted as an “inclusive business model” that links smallholders into commercial value chains. In these arrangements, smallholder farmers produce cash crops on their own land, as ‘outgrowers’, on contract to agroprocessing companies.</p>
<p>Then there is growth in a new class of “<a href="https://boydellandbrewer.com/africa-s-land-rush-pb.html">middle farmers</a>”. These are often educated business people and civil servants who are investing money earned elsewhere into medium-scale commercial farms which they own and operate themselves.</p>
<p>So what are the real choices and trade-offs between large plantations or estates; contract farming by outgrowers; or individual medium-scale commercial farmers? </p>
<p>These different models formed the <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03066150.2016.1263187">focus of our three-year study</a> in <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03066150.2016.1259222">Ghana</a>, <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03066150.2016.1260555">Kenya</a> and <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03066150.2016.1276449">Zambia</a>. Evidence suggests that each model has different strengths. For policy makers, deciding which kind of farming to promote depends on what they want to achieve. </p>
<h2>Plantations are ‘enclaves’</h2>
<p>Our cases confirm the characterisation of large plantations as being “enclaves” with few linkages into local economies. They buy farming inputs from far afield, usually from overseas, and in turn send their produce into global markets, bypassing local intermediaries.</p>
<p>Plantations are large, self-contained agribusinesses that rely on hired labour and are vertically-integrated into processing chains (often with on-farm processing). They’re usually associated with one major crop. In Africa, these started with colonial concessions, especially in major cash crops such as coffee, tea, rubber, cotton and sugarcane. Some of these later became state farms after independence while others were dismantled and land returned to local farmers. </p>
<p>Many plantations do create jobs, especially if they have on-site processing. Plantations may also support local farmers if they process crops that local smallholders are already growing. For example, we found an oil palm plantation in Ghana that buys from local smallholders, giving them access to processing facilities and international value chains they would otherwise not reach. </p>
<p>But, typically, plantations have limited connections into the local economy beyond the wages they pay. Where production is mechanised, they create few jobs, as we found in Zambia: the Zambeef grain estate employs few people, and most of these are migrants whose wages don’t go into the local economy. And the jobs that are created are invariably of poor quality.</p>
<p>The main story is that plantations take up land and yet often don’t give back to the local economy. In the cases we researched, all the plantations led to local people losing their land. For instance, the establishment and later expansion of the 10,000-hectare Zambeef estate led to forced removals of people from their cropping fields and grazing lands.</p>
<p>There are some benefits from plantations and estates. But, given more than a century of bad experience, it may be time to concede they seldom – if ever – live up to their promises.</p>
<h2>Contract farming brings benefits for some</h2>
<p>Contract farming has a <a href="http://www.fao.org/uploads/media/FAC_Working_Paper_055.pdf">long history in Africa</a>, dating back to colonial times. As with plantations, these arrangements were largely for the major cash crops, including cocoa, cotton, tobacco and sugarcane. </p>
<p>Contract farmers are smallholders who enter into contracts with companies that buy and process their crops. Sometimes members of outgrowers’ households might also get jobs on larger “nucleus” estates run by the companies. Whether or not they benefit, or get mired in debt and dependence, depends entirely on the terms of these contracts. Our study looked at contract farming in Ghana’s tropical fruit export sector, in French bean production in Kenya and in sugarcane farming in Zambia. </p>
<p>Contract farming has been hailed by some as the “win-win” solution, enabling commercial investment for global markets without dispossessing local farmers. Farmers farm on their own land, using their own family labour, while also accessing commercial value chains – rather than being displaced by large farms. But we found that this is not necessarily the case. Crucially, there are different kinds of arrangements that determine who benefits. </p>
<p>In Kenya, <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03066150.2016.1260555">contract farmers</a> are poorer than most farmers around them. For them, farming on contract provides a crucial livelihood, especially for poor women, who cultivate French beans for the European market and combine this with seasonal jobs on big farms.</p>
<p>In one <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03066150.2016.1276449">Zambian</a> block scheme all outgrowers gave up their land to Illovo, a South African company that grows sugarcane. The company pays them dividends. Here, the landowners, typically the old patriarchs, benefit from cash incomes. Young people lose out: they neither inherit the land nor control the cash incomes. </p>
<p>Contract farming clearly provides one effective avenue for smallholders to commercialise. It means, though, that smallholders take on both the risks and the benefits of connecting to commercial value chains. </p>
<h2>Medium-scale farming: a promising option</h2>
<p>Between the large plantations and the small contract farmers is another model: medium-scale commercial farms owned by individuals or small companies. We studied areas where medium-scale farms were dominating: mango farmers in Ghana, coffee farmers in Kenya and grains farmers in Zambia. While this kind of medium-scale farming also has colonial origins, the past two decades have seen massive growth in new “middle farmers”. Many of them are male, wealthy, middle-aged or retired, often from professional positions.</p>
<p>The medium -scale commercial farming model has a lot to offer. We found that they create more jobs and stimulate rural economies more than either big plantations or smallholder contract farmers. Yet cumulatively, such farms may threaten to dispossess smallholders, just as the big colonial and more recent plantations and estates have done. </p>
<p>The push behind the explosion of the “middle farmers” in the countries we studied has been investment by the educated and (relatively) wealthy. In <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03066150.2016.1259222">Ghana</a> in particular, we found, their expansion has displaced smallholders. Cumulatively, even modest-sized farms have led to substantial dispossession and reduced access to land. </p>
<p>Their informal employment patterns mean poor working conditions and few permanent jobs. But, unlike the plantations, these farms are well connected with the local economy. Building on social networks, these “middle farmers” often buy inputs and services from local businesses. At least some of their produce is sold into local markets. </p>
<h2>Winners and losers</h2>
<p>While policy choices are of course political, they can and should be informed by research about the implications of these different pathways of agricultural commercialisation. What is clear from our research is that different kinds of commercial farming will have different effects on the economy. It’s not just about efficiency. Ultimately, it’s about who wins and who loses.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/76355/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ruth Hall received funding from the Economic and Social Sciences Research Council (Grant ES/J01754X/1) which made possible the research reported in this article. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dzodzi Tsikata received funding from the Economic and Social Sciences Research Council (Grant ES/J01754X/1) which made possible the research reported in this article. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ian Scoones received funding from the Economic and Social Sciences Research Council (Grant ES/J01754X/1), which made possible the research reported in this article</span></em></p>Many African countries are still searching for inclusive commercial farming models that can bring in private investment without dispossessing local people.Ruth Hall, Professor, Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies, University of the Western CapeDzodzi Tsikata, Associate Professor, University of GhanaIan Scoones, Professorial Fellow, Institute of Development Studies, University of SussexLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/736142017-03-12T10:19:29Z2017-03-12T10:19:29ZThe needs of the land and the needs of the people can’t be separated<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/159996/original/image-20170308-24204-12lw4d2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">About three-quarters of South Africa's land is used for agriculture.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/robwallace/2248191697/in/photolist-9hCwL4-8Zgz6L-9hFC3Q-mw9TAx-JB41ba-4qEz4P-dXfPxN-3rpgfo-eheVbq-4qEz9a-pknkM-4bNyKZ-e93QuC-4eG29K-e93NbC-4eKZ9y-e8Xa5g-4eKZgG-e93PWQ-e93NRN-e93Sxw-e93Mrw-4bSzvL-4bNyUc-4eKZiU-e8Xfna-rKmFu2-e8XcLP">Robert Wallace/Flickr</a></span></figcaption></figure><blockquote>
<p>I am the Lorax. I speak for the trees. For the trees have no tongues – Dr Zeuss</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The national conversation about land, always simmering in South Africa, has come to <a href="http://www.timeslive.co.za/politics/2017/02/28/WATCH-Dutch-gangsters-took-our-land-%E2%80%93-Julius-Malema-debates-to-take-land-back">the boil again</a>. What’s often missing is a voice for the unrepresented party – the land. I’d like to be that voice. </p>
<p>The arguments are always over the land, but seldom about what it needs to remain healthy and productive. The state of the land – its capacity to deliver benefits to people, such as food, water, amenities, cultural meaning and protection from hazards – isn’t independent of how it’s managed. </p>
<p>Unlike inert resources such as ore bodies, the rate at which living, renewable natural resources like grass, forests, animal populations and soil are used, greatly influences the amount which is ultimately delivered. They can provide a sustained flow of benefits forever if treated right, or collapse irreversibly if abused.</p>
<p>How is this relevant to the political question of who owns the land? There are three points of connection: the tenure system which determines the rights under which the land is managed; the effective size of the properties; and use intensity. </p>
<p>The legal form under which the land is held has profound consequences for its ecology. Broadly there are <a href="http://www.fao.org/docrep/005/y4307e/y4307e05.htm">four types of land property regimes worldwide</a>: freehold (private), state owned, lease-hold and communal. In South Africa most land is freehold. The <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2013-09-05-up-to-21-of-land-is-state-owned-says-surveyor-general">state owns about 21%</a> in national parks, military training areas and through state-own enterprises.</p>
<p>Leasehold is not very common outside of urban areas, which make up less than 2% of the land surface. About 12% of South Africa is under communal ownership, where the land is used and managed collectively by a defined group, but a third of the population <a href="http://www.cls.uct.ac.za/usr/lrg/downloads/Factsheet_CommunalTenure_IPILRA_Final_Feb2015.pdf">use this resource</a>. </p>
<p>About three-quarters of South African land is used for agriculture, of which one fifth is cropland, and the rest is grazed. Close to a fifth of the land is currently under some form of wildlife-based use, mostly as private game farms, with a large area of state-owned conservation land, and a few examples of communally-owned wildlife areas.</p>
<h2>The impact of ownership systems on ecology</h2>
<p>An example of the ecological consequences of different legal forms of land use can be observed in Australia. In the middle of Australia - a notably homogenous environment - several states abut, each with different tenure systems: freehold, one-generation or multi-generation leasehold, state land under rental, and communal land. All have affected the condition of the land. Generally speaking, freehold and long-term leasehold perform similarly in terms of sustained productivity, and fare better than shorter-term leasehold or short-term rental of state land.</p>
<p>The logic is that when the land-user has confidence that he or she, or their descendants, will benefit from careful stewardship of the land, they are willing to forgo short-term gain in favour of long-term performance. </p>
<p>This shows that when land reform results in ownership transfer, it is important that it’s accompanied by long-term security of tenure. The worst outcome is where the land is used without a sense of long-term responsibility.</p>
<p>This also applies to communally owned land. The merits and demerits of communal land ownership is <a href="http://www.onthecommons.org/magazine/elinor-ostroms-8-principles-managing-commmons">a much-debated issue</a>. Historically, common ownership was the norm worldwide, and does not automatically lead to degradation provided that there’s a strong set of institutions to define and enforce fair and wise use. </p>
<p>Communal ownership isn’t the same as open-access, a system under which no use constraints apply. Under this system there’s little incentive for an individual to limit their use, a condition described as “<a href="http://science.sciencemag.org/content/162/3859/1243.full">the tragedy of the commons</a>”. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/159997/original/image-20170308-4078-w2riwe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/159997/original/image-20170308-4078-w2riwe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/159997/original/image-20170308-4078-w2riwe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/159997/original/image-20170308-4078-w2riwe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/159997/original/image-20170308-4078-w2riwe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/159997/original/image-20170308-4078-w2riwe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/159997/original/image-20170308-4078-w2riwe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/159997/original/image-20170308-4078-w2riwe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Close to a quarter of the land in South Africa is currently under some form of wildlife-based use.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/south-african-tourism/20324463249/in/photolist-wY1bQa-wY1ksa-xd8pZL-xd7pp9-wiDFne-xfqz7M-wXRCbY-qw2a1w-6PzJXm-fTaAt8-qLhrLY-qw8fvr-oNqpYr-pRNoqK-qNxgFz-qw1c5G-qLheC9-h9ZoGP-jjkJ3m-qw6atM-5T9H4-qNzwyX-qw1muJ-ij895V-gSpzw6-oUQ2qg-GDc9hh-qw28HG-pRzmpY-qLh9zo-qw2hPN-oUyksg-qw8AQK-qLfssS-qvYgeC-qw2bf5-qw1eCC-qw24f3-oDe5KC-6TTbU1-gSoSRb-qNt8hW-gSp4C1-qLhmeW-qNv4Uj-oLowEQ-qNo7YP-pRzkE1-owM2Hm-h9YP4M">South African Tourism/Flickr</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The size of land parcels</h2>
<p>The scale at which land is managed includes the question of the financial size of the enterprise. “Economies of scale” accrue to larger operations, which are also better equipped to survive climatic vagaries. But the main concern in this article is ecological scale. The processes which keep land healthy and productive work at characteristic scales in both time and space. When the scale of management is much smaller than the scale of ecological function, problems of land degradation often arise. </p>
<p>For instance, in the pre-colonial period, much of southern Africa supported migratory wildlife. The herds, numbering millions, ranged over hundreds of uninterrupted kilometres. In the past two centuries, the land has been subdivided into progressively smaller, individually-managed farms; each fenced, provided with permanent water from boreholes, and stocked with sedentary herds of cattle or sheep. Thus, the spatial scale of keeping animals changed to just a few kilometers, and the time scale from infrequent to continuous grazing. </p>
<p>Sometimes a landscape can be tricked into functioning ecologically at the scale under which it evolved, despite being owned and managed at smaller scales. Rotational grazing, and destocking at times of drought, are two such tricks. </p>
<p>Land reform programmes which divide large properties among a large number of claimants tend to lead to settlements being spread over the landscape in a way that fragments ecological processes. Since each parcel is too small to support a decent livelihood, the risk of overuse increases. </p>
<h2>Use intensity, ownership and scale</h2>
<p>How hard the land is used in relation to its inherent productive capacity – or “use intensity” – is important in its own right. But it also has links to ownership and scale. </p>
<p>It’s true of any renewable resource that there is an optimum use intensity for a given objective. For example, the question of overgrazing has been strenuously debated in <a href="http://archive.bio.ed.ac.uk/illius/noneq.pdf">Africa </a>.</p>
<p>If land is persistently overstocked, the result is degradation – with adverse consequences for the land user and society as a whole. </p>
<p>Similarly, it’s possible to have under-intensive management regimes. For instance, crop agriculture where the inputs of seed, nutrients and cultivation are small may produce sufficient yield to support a family, but not enough surplus to feed the nation. South Africa is an agriculturally marginal land, where national food sovereignty requires most of the limited arable land to be under high input, high technology cropping. But there are also over-intensive cropping regimes which damage the soil, atmosphere and rivers. </p>
<p>The intensity applied by a given land user depends on the knowledge, expertise, capital and resources they have available to them, as well as the presence of perverse incentives to over-exploit the resource or positive incentives to conserve it. These are all affected by the support context in which land reform takes place.</p>
<p>The discussion of how best to use the South African landscape shouldn’t only include land owners and claimants. Society as a whole has expectations from its land: to grow affordable and healthy food, yield clean water, support tourism and recreation, sustain abundant biodiversity and provide a sense of place for all. </p>
<p>These objectives cannot be satisfied unless the ecological needs of the land are considered together with the social and political needs of its people.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/73614/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Robert Scholes receives funding from the National Research Foundation</span></em></p>The ecological needs of the land need to be considered together with the social and political needs of its people.Robert (Bob) Scholes, Professor Bob Scholes is a Systems Ecologist at the Global Change Institute (GCI), University of the WitwatersrandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.