In the Shadow of Policy. Robert Ross
farms and the absence of any thrust to subdivide. Group size declined in some provinces, but remained large in others. Grant size was not adjusted for inflation, yet land prices across the country increased in the early 2000s, and grants decreased in value in real terms as a result (Hall 2010: 181). Available evidence suggested the persistence of ‘the dichotomy of large group projects for the poor and small (household or individual) projects, albeit with relatively large per capita land areas, for the better-off’ (Lahiff 2008: 26).
Inadequate post-settlement support continued to be a problem, in part because investment in farm infrastructure through the Comprehensive Agricultural Support Programme (CASP) was not ‘synchronised’ with LRAD (Lahiff 2008: 37), suggesting that poor coordination between different government departments and different levels of government had not yet been addressed. Within the programme, bureaucratic and time-consuming processes for lodging and approving applications, establishing legal entities, identifying farms for sale, writing business plans, negotiating prices, reaching sale agreements and paying for land meant that the process of acquiring land was daunting for beneficiaries, the so-called willing buyers, and unattractive to landowners, the ‘willing sellers’ (Lahiff 2007: 1585–1589). It was also challenging for officials, who were expected to meet numerical targets for land transfer rather than for well-planned projects likely to be sustained over time (Walker 2008: 144).
Dissatisfaction with land redistribution continued to be expressed by beneficiaries, the NGO sector, commercial farmers, analysts and commentators, and this led to the organisation of a National Land Summit in 2005. The summit agreed on a review of the ‘willing seller, willing buyer’ approach, the expanded use of expropriation, and a more prominent and proactive role for the state in land redistribution. The following year saw several new policy thrusts: area-based planning, a proactive land acquisition strategy, a review of ‘willing seller, willing buyer’, a draft Expropriation Bill designed to help speed up restitution, and reports being commissioned on foreign land ownership, land ceilings and land taxes (Lahiff 2008: 7–9). The radical tone was maintained in a resolution adopted at the ANC’s National Conference in Polokwane in December 2007, which emphasised the need for an ‘integrated programme of rural development, land reform and agrarian change’; support for smallholder farmers, farm dwellers and women and a review of market-based land redistribution.2
Nothing came of the review of ‘willing seller, willing buyer’, or of proposals for land ceilings and land taxes, and the draft Expropriation Bill was withdrawn after receiving a hostile reception from landowners, farmers and opposition parties. Area-based planning, which was intended to integrate land reform into local development plans drawn up by municipalities, was implemented from 2007, and the proactive land acquisition strategy (PLAS) was adopted as policy in 2006. In the latter, the state purchases farms directly from landowners rather than providing grants to beneficiaries, and these are then allocated to redistribution applicants on the basis of three- to five-year leasehold agreements, after which the lessee may be offered an option to purchase outright (Lahiff 2008: 8). The LRAD grant range was increased to a maximum of R431 000 in 2007 (Aliber and Hall 2010: 20), indicating renewed attention to the needs of emerging farmers.
These new programmes fared little better than their predecessors. The impact of large increases in the land reform budget from 2003/04, perhaps due to political pressure arising from numerous reports of failure, was eroded by rising land prices (see figures 3 and 4 in Greenberg 2010: 5–6), and underspending on redistribution continued to be a problem.3 Area-based planning was outsourced to consultants, a common response to capacity weaknesses in government, and there was little indication that land reform had been integrated into the development plans of local government bodies, which are also often undertaken by consultants, reflecting the continuing crisis of capacity within rural local government. By late 2009 the area-based process was still in the planning stage, with no plans having been implemented as yet (Umhlaba Rural Services 2009: 111).
Funding for agricultural development by provincial departments increased considerably after 2005 while remaining a very small proportion (less than 3 per cent) of the national budget (Aliber and Hall 2010: 5). Spending took various forms, including spending on extension services, infrastructure development via CASP, loans through the Micro-agricultural Financial Institutional Scheme of South Africa (MAFISA), and research. In relation to the first three of these, around 13 per cent derived benefits from 58 per cent of provincial spending. Aliber and Hall (2010: 8) estimate that between 2005 and 2008 there was an annual average of 61 000 CASP beneficiaries and about 2 500 farmers per annum received loans from MAFISA. These figures mask a highly skewed distribution: in 2009, for 322 national CASP projects, 50.7 per cent of funds went to 2.6 per cent of beneficiaries; taking all small-scale farmers into account, ‘the lion’s share of state funding … goes to less than 0.02 per cent of them’ (Aliber and Hall 2010: 12). The bulk of funds went to land reform projects, and communal areas were largely excluded. The implicit criterion for CASP funding was ‘commercial viability’, and the imperative to spend large budgets resulted in officials scaling down the number of projects and scaling up the size of each project (Aliber and Hall 2010:16).
Redistributive land reform and rural development under the Zuma government, 2009–2012
After the elections of 2009 the Zuma government identified rural development, food security and land reform as priorities, and a Comprehensive Rural Development Programme (CRDP) was launched (DRDLR 2009). At its core was a job creation model through which para-development specialists would train community members to be gainfully employed in rural development projects. The overall goal is to create ‘vibrant and sustainable rural communities’. The new Department of Rural Development and Land Reform (DRDLR) was to have a key coordinating role in partnerships with other government departments and local government bodies. A series of CRDP pilots was launched in selected sites, one in every province. New land reform policies had not been announced by the end of 2012, but a moratorium on LRAD projects was imposed in 2010 and only the PLAS programme appears to be operational at present. Restitution claims continued to be approved, but in 2011 spending on new projects was suspended due to the mounting backlog of unpaid claim settlements (Kleinbooi 2011: 7).
The long-promised Green Paper on Land Reform was finally published for comment in August 2011, but was only eleven pages long and contained only general statements of principle. Its main focus was on a possible alternative, ‘fourtier’ tenure system, comprising leasehold on state land; freehold ‘with limited extent’, possibly implying restrictions on land size; ‘precarious’ freehold (that is, with obligations and restrictions) for foreign owners; and communal tenure. It also contained proposals for several new institutions such as a Land Management Commission, a Land Rights Management Board, and a Valuer-General. Two of the measures proposed – a recapitalisation programme aimed at investing in failing land reform projects, and partnerships with commercial farmers – do not resolve the systemic failure to provide effective support to smallholder farmers. Only a few sentences in the 2011 Green Paper address the connections between land reform and agriculture, and these are extremely vague.
Land redistribution continued to falter. Aliber and Hall (2010: 10) show that in 2007/8 the PLAS programme contributed the largest share of land acquired for redistribution, but it benefited ‘larger-scale beneficiary farmers’. A midterm review report released in May 2012 reports that a total of 882 238 hectares was redistributed to 10 447 beneficiaries between 2009 and 2012, but does not disaggregate these by type of programme (DRDLR 2012: 20). Case studies suggest that many PLAS beneficiaries are relatively well off and have other business interests, but nevertheless often fail to pay rent, without this proving to be a barrier to renewal of their leases (Ranwedzi 2011). The midterm review reports that a number of established (white) commercial farmers are acting as either ‘strategic partners’ or ‘mentors’ (264 and 117 respectively) to land reform beneficiaries, and that some have been appointed in order to ‘graduate smallholder farmers into commercial farmers’ (DRDLR 2012: xx). The underlying presumption that large-scale, capitalist agriculture is the desirable norm is clear.
An early assessment of the CRDP pilots (Umhlaba Rural Services 2009: 7–8) found the following weaknesses: lack of an agreed overall vision and strategic plan; insufficient conceptual understanding of the CRDP; lack of clarity on the constitutional mandate and legislative