The Land Act of 1936 restricted the ownership of rural land to white farmers only.
With the change to a democracy in 1994, one of the key goals of the new government was to address the land issue. The Department of Land Affairs contracted the University of Limpopo to undertake research to assist the formulation of land reform policy. The final White Paper identified three objectives: the restitution of land rights, the transfer of land and the upgrading of land use rights. Due to poor implementation, the land reform programme did not meet the goals and targets. As with other cases in the “new” South Africa, where the state failed, the private sector moved in to repair damages. Today, an integrated support structure provides services to white and black farmers, and a number of joint venture projects continue the land reform programme.
Background
With the change to a full democracy in South Africa, one of the important issues was the need to address the unequal racial ownership and use of rural land. The Native Trust and Land Act of 1914, as amended in 1936, restricted land allocation and use in “white” areas for white ownership only and was also used to effect land evictions of black communities in these areas. One statistic which was often quoted was the fact that in apartheid South Africa, 14% of the population owned 86% of the rural farmland. In black tribal areas, land to this day is not under private ownership but owned by the state.
In addition to its sole property rights, the white farming sector also benefited from a comprehensive state support system. The Land Bank provided loans for purchasing farms, and financing for production. The Department of Agriculture provided subsidies for land infrastructure improvements, extension officers (advisors) provided a range of technical and management support to address farmer needs, and marketing boards handled the marketing of agricultural products.
In its Freedom Charter, issued in 1955, the ANC stated that the land in South Africa must be available for ownership and use by people from all racial groups. This call was confirmed by its document “Ready to govern” prior to the 1994 elections.
The formulation of a policy on land reform
The new government appointed the Department of Land Affairs to formulate and implement the land reform programme. This department contracted the University of the North (renamed Limpopo in 2005) to undertake research to assist the political process to formulate a land reform policy. The three-year research programme, titled the Land Management and Rural Development Programme (1994-1997), was funded by the Commission of the European Union. The commission specified that a university from Europe should be involved, and identified the Vrije Universiteit of Amsterdam in the Netherlands as partner for the project. A senior academic from the Centre on Development Research of this university was seconded to the University of the North as research coordinator, and I was appointed as programme manager.
A brief background on the University of Limpopo: the University of the North was established in 1958 as an apartheid institution for black students, but the academic, administration and management staff was and is, to this day, racially integrated, and staff have always been appointed, promoted or fired on merit. It was a positive experience to work in a team, side by side colleagues from different races on an equal basis.
At the University of the North, academics from the economics, management, law and agricultural schools volunteered to participate in the land reform research programme on a part-time basis, still continuing with normal lecturing duties. In addition, colleagues from the agricultural sciences at the University of Pretoria and the University of Natal; officials in policy analysis from the Development Bank; officials from the Departments of Agriculture of the former homelands of Lebowa, Gazankulu, Venda and KwaZulu; and an environmental consultant from the Council on Scientific and Industrial Research, also participated. By stroke of good fortune, two academics in geography from the University of West Virginia in the United States with contact with the University of Limpopo, also requested to join the team. In total, 26 academics, government officials and consultants shared knowledge and insights and participated in case study research on different farmland use and reform models.
The focus of the different studies was to investigate different rural land use arrangements and support cases to formulate proposals for a land reform programme. Case studies were investigated in Swaziland, Zimbabwe and the previous homelands. In Swaziland, a selected group visited development projects of the British Commonwealth Development Corporation. A selected group also visited Zimbabwe, before the land invasions and the implosion of the economy. Useful insights were obtained from contacts with colleagues at the University of Harare and officials in the Department of Agriculture.
The research results and experience with existing case studies were presented and discussed at workshops and conferences attended by the researchers, government officials, members of farmer unions and politicians. The whole process was monitored by a management group from the Department of Land Affairs. A selection of these presentations was published in two books:
De Villiers, A, and Critchley, W (editors): Rural land reform issues in southern Africa. University of the North, 1997.
Critchley, W, Versfeld, D, and Mollel, N (editors): Sustainable land management: Signposts for South Africa. University of the North, 1998.
The Department of Land Affairs used the research results to formulate a working paper for a select committee in Parliament, which finally issued the “White paper on the South African land policy” in 1998. The White Paper focused on three aspects, namely: the redistribution of land in the commercial agricultural sector from white farmers to new commercial black farmers, the restitution of land rights to communities evicted from their land, and the allocation of land use rights to existing subsistence farmers in the tribal areas.
To achieve the first objective, the White Paper specified that the 1936 Land Act had to be scrapped. Secondly, the Department of Land Affairs was tasked to identify suitable white commercial farms to be bought on a willing buyer-willing seller basis for settlement of new black commercial farmers. In terms of the traditions of the community’s approach in black tribal areas, Community Property Associations were registered to manage the farming activities of the community members as the new settlers, but without land ownership titles. Thirdly, the Land Bank would provide funding for the purchase of these farms and production finance. Finally, the Department of Agriculture was tasked to provide the required technical and management support to the Community Property Associations to continue with commercial production on the transferred farms.
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To achieve the second objective on the restitution of land rights, communities who had been evicted from land through the application of the 1914 and 1936 Land Acts, were invited to submit claims to the Department of Land Affairs for the restitution of their former land rights. If these claims were approved, the Department of Land Affairs would expropriate the identified farm(s) and pay market-related compensation to the owner(s). If the white owners contested the expropriation, the matter was settled by a Land Claims Court. As with the first objective, the Land Bank would provide the funding for the compensation, and the Department of Agriculture was tasked to provide the technical and management support to Community Property Associations to farm the land, but again without private title ownership. In addition, successful claimants were allowed to choose either the land or cash compensation.
An overall target of 30% was set for the transfer of white-owned farms to black ownership within a five-year period through the redistribution and restitution process. The implication was that the new government recognised the contribution of the white commercial farming sector to the economy, allowing for the larger segment of farmland (70%) to remain under the ownership and control of the white commercial farming sector.
The third objective of the new land reform policy was to improve land use security for subsistence farmers in tribal areas. Rural land in these areas (former homelands) was owned by the state, and local tribal authorities provided land use permission to the small-scale subsistence farmers. The proposal in the White Paper was that the tribal authorities would be required to provide specific user rights for land to farmers involved in or requesting support to achieve commercial production. As with the other two programmes, the Department of Agriculture was tasked to provide the technical and management support to these new commercial farmers.
The researchers and consultants supported the main policies in the White Paper, except for two key aspects: firstly, the need to provide ownership titles to the land reform beneficiaries for the allocated land so that they could qualify for funding from commercial banks, as the basis for commercial farming was the ownership of land, supporting funding and investment for production. The second disagreement with the proposed policy was the fact that claimants for land restitution could claim either land or cash payments, which did not support land transfers for the beneficiaries.
Results of the land reform programme
After five years of the implementation of the new land reform programme, there was a general consensus among commentators that the land reform programme had not achieved the stated objectives and targets and was a failure. The sad story of a number of failed land reform projects has been extensively documented. (See: Du Toit, P: The great South African land scandal. Legacy Publications, 2004.)
The first indication of the failure was that within a relatively short period, commercial production ceased on a large number of the transferred farms. In a number of cases, infrastructure was vandalised and the management control of the Community Property Associations collapsed. In some cases, the situation was made worse by the invasion of land by additional people not formally registered as members of the associations.
The second indication of the failure of the land reform programme was that the majority of restitution claimants chose cash and not the land compensation. As a result, the total transfer of land through redistribution and restitution did not reach the target of a 30% transfer of farms. Estimates indicate that by today, 20-plus years after the launch of the land reform programme, only 20% of farms have been redistributed, with an estimated 13 million hectares of land still owned by the state and without title ownership having been given to the new farmers. In addition, some 2,5 million hectares of land purchased by the state for redistribution and restitution have not yet been settled by land reform beneficiaries.
The third indication of the failure of the land reform programme was that very little change in land right use security for farmers in the tribal areas took place. The majority of the local tribal authorities were not willing to allow individual rights use of land to the small-scale farmers, as this would reduce their political control over their communities. As a result, only limited progress has been made to encourage the investments required for commercial production in the tribal areas.
A post-land reform review recognised that the projections had, in many cases, been unrealistic. The extent of land hunger had not been properly recognised, as illustrated by the huge growth of participant numbers with the property associations, and often also land invasions, making economically sized land units per household impossible. It soon became clear that both the Land Bank and the Department of Agriculture had largely failed in their tasks to deliver the required support services to the new farmers. In hind sight, researchers, officials and consultants had to admit that they had been too optimistic in expecting a political struggle organisation to progress seamlessly to efficient administration of the programme without cadre deployment and corruption.
In tandem with the failure of the land reform programme for new black farmers, the face of the white commercial farming sector changed from comprehensive government support, to operation in a free market economy environment with no government support. With the introduction of the land reform programme, the government withdrew support to white commercial farmers, with marketing boards dismantled and subsidies discontinued, and the Land Bank and Department of Agriculture served only the new black farmers.
A new beginning – an integrated commercial farming sector
As with many examples in the new (real) South Africa, where the state failed, the private sector moved in to repair the damage and continue services. New initiatives were started in the racially integrated commercial farming sector. A number of private producer organisations took charge of the functions of the old marketing boards. The commercial bank sector took charge of specialised funding services from the failed Land Bank. This was followed by the large-scale increase of technical and financial support services from private sector companies and agricultural cooperatives. A new organisation, the Agricultural Business Chamber, now coordinates the range of support and marketing services. The different central and provincial agricultural unions and producer organisations serve the interests of all commercial farmers on a non-racial basis. A positive sign of progress is that the specialised staff in these new private sector organisations include both white and black staff members, who are qualified and are appointed and function on merit.
A number of white farming companies have also started to assist failed land reform projects, where such farmers request assistance, through mentorship programmes as well as formal joint venture business arrangements. A specific coordination organisation named Partners in Agriculture Land Solutions (PALSA), to date, have formed 47 joint venture projects.
The new phase in private sector agriculture coincided with a wave of new technologies, specifically improved seeds, computer technology supporting precision planting, fertilising and irrigation, and minimal tillage and conservation crop production, leading to lowering of production costs. This is illustrated in the fact that despite the size reduction of land under production due to transfers, the value of agricultural output doubled between 1994 and 2023.
The role of government through the Department of Agriculture has been reduced from its original comprehensive support role to limited legal assistance with trade permits and animal disease control measures. A positive indication of the theoretical support of government for the integrated agriculture sector is the formulation of cooperation policy between government and the agricultural sector in 2021. Unfortunately, no action from government has yet materialised.
The unified commercial agricultural sector still faces specific challenges in climate extremes, unreliable electricity provision, poor security on farms against attacks and theft, poor support from provincial governments in providing and maintaining road and water infrastructure, and the poor state of the national rail and harbours. The integrated commercial farming sector demonstrates how a common focus is now continuing the land reform programme.
Andre de Villiers
