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PLAAS was founded in 1995 as a specialist unit in the School of Government, Economic and Management Sciences Faculty at the University of the Western Cape (UWC), Cape Town. Since then, PLAAS has developed a proven track record of undertaking high-quality research on land and agrarian reform, poverty, and natural resource management in South Africa and the southern African region.
Besides research and postgraduate teaching, PLAAS undertakes training, provides advisory, facilitation and evaluation services and is active in the field of national policy development. Through these activities, and by seeking to apply the tools of critical scholarship to questions of policy and practice, we seek to develop new knowledge and fresh approaches to the transformation of society in southern Africa.
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Displaying 41 - 45 of 54State, Market or the Worst of both? Experimenting with Market-based Land Reform in South Africa
Paper reviews the South African experience with land reform, and land redistribution in particular, up to the end of 2005. Looks at various aspects of market-based land reform – landowner veto on participation in land reform; payment of ‘market prices’ for land; self-selection of beneficiaries; focus on ‘commercial’ forms of production; prominent role for the private sector in provision of credit, extension, and other services.
Redistributive land reform and poverty reduction in South Africa
At the end of Apartheid, approximately 82 million hectares of commercial farmland (86% of total agricultural land, or 68% of the total surface area) was in the hands of the white minority (10.9% of the population), and concentrated in the hands of approximately 60,000 owners (Levin and Weiner 1991: 92). Over thirteen million black people, the majority of them poverty-stricken, remained crowded into the former homelands, where rights to land were generally unclear or contested and the system of land administration was in disarray (Hendricks 1990; Cousins 1996; Lahiff 2000).
Rural People do need Land for Farming
A critique of the CDE report, Land Reform in South Africa, which, the author claims, underestimates the potential of smallholder agriculture in a country with a large domestic market for food products. Far too much is claimed in the report for the private sector and agribusiness. Government needs new and better conceived policies. Insists that rural land reform remains an urgent priority for South Africa as does tenure reform in urban and peri-urban areas. There is need for an integrated rural and urban approach.
Land and Agrarian Reform in South Africa: A Status Report 2004
Includes a retrospective of 10 years of land reform, restitution, redistribution, farm tenure reform, communal tenure reform, debating the future of land and agrarian reform, conclusions. Argues that there is a need for the state to intervene to make suitable land available to meet local needs, rather than relying wholly on land markets.
Budgeting for land reform
The primary purpose of land reform in South Africa is to redistribute agricultural and other land to address the racially skewed pattern of landholding and promote development. Slow progress in land reform over the past decade underscores the urgency of finding ways to accelerate the process. The state has adopted a market-assisted approach to redistribution. This means that land is usually bought at full market price. In addition, substantial funding is needed for the implementation of the programme and for post-settlement support to beneficiaries.