A Response to ‘The Elusive “Fair Deal” in South Africa's Land Reform’

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Notes

¹ I am familiar with several but there is not space here to discuss them in detail. Some revolve around competing claims for the same commercial farm, others involve loss of grazing land, farm land or residential land when new communities moved on top of older ones. Limpopo had more than 35 percent of its total land area in former Homelands which were the locations for forced resettlement of Africans from rural and urban areas.

² There is not space here to analyze the shift in land reform policies from Minister Hanekom to Minister Dzidza which meant that agriculture was to be seen as a business not a livelihood, a profit making enterprise, not an activity essential for supporting families. Given land and water scarcity in South Africa it is argued that maximum use must be made of these critical resources.

³ There is a large literature on the successes and failures of these programs from the Institute of Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies, University of Western Cape.