South African land reform in 2014: what is at stake?

1. South African land reform in 2014: what is at stake? Ben Cousins DST/NRF Chair in Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies

2. New policies adopted in 2013/14 • Redistribution: state leasehold, re-capitalisation and development, agricultural landholdings • Restitution Amendment Act • Communal Tenure – the wagon wheel • Farm workers: equity shares *

3. WAGON WHEEL Outer Boundary: Single Title Title Holder: Traditional Council. COMMUNALLY OWNED: • Roles: • Title Holder • Adjudication of • disputes on • allocation and use • Reference Point GRAZING CROPPING * * * COMMUNALLY OWNED: Democratically managed / social sector * 1 2 * * FORESTRY * * * ROYAL HOUSEHOLD * * * * * * • Residential • Economic • Social • Services 3 * TRADITIONAL MANAGEMENT * * * * * * * 7 4 MINING COMMUNITY-PUBLIC-PRIVATE-COLLABORATION 1 – 7 HOUSEHOLD SECTOR MANUFACTURING 6 5 TOURISM INFRASTRUCTURE ROLES: TRADITIONAL COUNCIL/ MUNICIPAL COUNCIL / CPA / TRUST: TBA PRINCIPLE: COMPLEMENTARITY ACROSS TRADITIONAL & DEMOCRATIC INSTITUTIONS

4. Agribusiness/ white farmers New land redistribution policies in 2013 State (Subject to farm size limits) 1 Re-Cap funds (for 5 years) 4 Committees (national, provincial, district) Mentors Strategic Partners/ Equity share holders (Consultants?) Leases, which require: Legal entity, bank acct notarial bond, 5 year probation period, asset register, permission for improvements 3 2 Business plan Projected income = key criterion for assessing lessee performance) Select beneficiaries, Allocate leases and funds Assess progress (against business plan) Terminate leases Determine upper and lower farm size limits by district Beneficiaries = black farmers 1 = limited land for subsistence 2 = subsistence + sale 3 = medium-scale commercial farmers 4 = large-scale commercial farmers Perpetual lease, nominal rental No option to purchase (Labour tenants and farm workers who acquire land will also lease from state at nominal rental) 30+20 yr lease Rental @5% projected income p.a. Option to purchase

5. Key features • Populist rhetoric • Real benefits to elites: ‘emerging’ black commercial farmers and agribusiness companies; chiefs; white farmers & consultants • State control of land and resources (eg re-cap funding = post-settlement support) • Weak forms of property rights to land reform beneficiaries • Unquestioned model of farm ‘viability’ based on large-scale farming models

6. Real-world outcomes and effects • Very few policies will be implemented at scale due to budgetary and capacity constraints • A small number of well-connected members of the emerging black middle class and bourgeoisie will benefit • Chiefs helped to become ‘tribal landed property’ on a larger scale • White commercial farmers useful as a scapegoat for slow progress but no real threat to their dominance of agriculture • The redistributive and poverty-reducing thrust of land reform is blunted

7. Explanations • Fear of failure (land is politically sensitive) • Development as trusteeship (Cowen and Shenton) and as ‘will to improve’ (Li) > Nkwinti’s sincerity • Populism and ‘tradition’ to secure support & legitimacy • Lack of rural mobilisation to counter concentrations of power in state, chiefs and capital • Class character of SA society (and of the ANC): rising black middle class and bourgeoisie linked to the state, no real challenge to corporate capital • ‘Law’ as sole lens on land is too narrow: law as embedded ‘in society’ more useful • Vocabularies: Okoth-Ogendo (1989) on ‘access’ and ‘control’; Sally Falk Moore on regelementation, indeterminacy and situational adjustment