Explaining South Africa’s land reform policy failure through its instruments: the emergence of inclusive agricultural business models

ABSTRACT

This paper seeks to explain the emergence of South African inclusive agricultural business models in relation to the land reform policy. We demonstrate that in South Africa such policy instruments linking small-scale and large-scale farmers respond to endogenous dynamics linked to the failure of its land reform policy. We study the land reform policy change induced by its policy instruments. Indeed, introducing the market as the preferred means to implement land reform caused unanticipated side effects, creating constant pressure for change that such inadequate instrument exerted on the set policy objectives during the first phase of policy implementation. After cohabitating uneasily with rather antagonistic policy goals, policy instruments ultimately led to a change in policy objectives, shifting from supporting small-scale black subsistence agriculture to targeting a class of emerging farmers committed to commercial agriculture. Inclusive Business Model’s policy instruments were subsequently identified as the best fit to achieve the re-adjusted policy goal.

KEYWORDS:

• Agriculture
• inclusive business model
• land reform
• policy instrument
• policy change
• South Africa

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Magalie Bourblanc, a political scientist, is a research fellow at the French Agricultural Research Centre for Development (CIRAD), Joint Research Unit on Water Management, Actors and Uses (UMR G-EAU), University of Montpellier, France. She is a specialist of public policy analysis, focusing on water, land and agriculture in Southern Africa. She was seconded to CEEPA (centre for environmental economics and policy in Africa) and GovInn (Centre for the study of governance innovation), at the University of Pretoria (South Africa) between 2010 and 2019. She has published on strategic partnerships and joint venture schemes for poverty alleviation in international journals such as Journal of Southern African Studies and Physics and Chemistry of the Earth.

Ward Anseeuw, a development economist and policy analyst, is a research fellow at the French Agricultural Research Centre for Development (CIRAD). He is currently seconded to the International Land Coalition in 2016 as a Senior Technical Specialist leading the team responsible for supporting Strategic Objective 02, Mobilise. Prior to this and for the last 12 years, he was seconded to the University of Pretoria, as a senior research fellow to the Post-Graduate School of Agriculture and Rural Development and as the co-director of the Center for the Study of Governance Innovations (GovInn) – which he founded in 2012. His work focuses mainly on issues of agricultural and land policies, agrarian and land reforms, large-scale land acquisitions as well as to participatory approaches of data generation, governance and advocacy regarding land.

Notes

1 Five types of inclusive business models that aim at integrating smallholder farmers into commercial agricultural value chains can be identitfied: (share) equity schemes; supply contract farming; collective organisations; lease/management; mentorship.

2 Risk; ownership; voice; rewards.

3 ‘Référentiel’ can be translated into a ‘policy paradigm’. A policy paradigm can be described as a framework of ideas for interpreting the world. Such concepts belong to cognitive approaches that seek to explain policy change through a change of ideas.

4 In 1994, white farmers possessed about 82 million hectares of land, with the objective of the ANC being to redistribute about 30% of this land (i.e. 24.5 million ha) to the black population by 2014.

5 https://www.plaas.org.za/sites/default/files/publications-pdf/PP%2020.pdf

6 ‘South African Agriculture: Structure, Performance and Options for the Future’ (World Bank 1994).

7 Economic distortions could take the form of public interventions in the commodities market, infrastructure construction, credit facilities, and various services to farmers (Van Zyl, Kirsten, and Binswanger 1996).

8 The grants were also means-tested.

9 The ‘neo-liberal camp’ represented by, amongst others, experts of the World Bank; the ‘modernist-conservative camp’ represented by, amongst others, the commercial farmers’ unions, the Freedom Front and the National Party; and finally the ‘radical-populist camp’ close to the ANC.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Development Cooperation of the Government of Flanders.