Path Dependence in Nebo Plateau: Strategic Partnerships and Rural Poverty Alleviation in South African Small-Scale Irrigation Schemes

Abstract

To address the challenges associated with under-utilised smallholder irrigation schemes located in former homeland areas in South Africa, strategic partnerships between black farmers and white, established commercial farmers have been implemented by the Limpopo Provincial Department of Agriculture since the 2000s. This article aims to explain the adoption, and then the resilience over time, of this policy instrument, despite its failure to meet its objectives. We first demonstrate that policy instruments rarely result from an objective assessment of the situation at stake, and more often simply recycle previously used policies that were designed in attempts to provide solutions to other scenarios, which may not reflect the same characteristics as the situation currently under investigation. We then argue that the resilience of the particular policy instrument called ‘strategic partnership’ has been ensured thanks to a mechanism of ‘path dependence’ that is derived from previous policy decisions. Indeed, we demonstrate how the legacy of these earlier, primary policy choices makes it difficult to re-evaluate policy decisions favourable to strategic partnerships. Building on neo-institutionalist theories (sociological, historical and rational) that emphasise continuity within public policies, it will be made clear how strategic partnerships ultimately imposed themselves as a foregone policy ‘choice’, despite their disappointing results.

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Dr Maxim Bolt for his incisive and meticulous editing, which helped to improve this article.

Notes

¹ As characterised by the government’s Integrated Sustainable Rural Development Programme (ISRDP).

² Limpopo total irrigable land area within the former homelands is about 48,000 hectares.

³ J. Denison and S. Manona, Principles, Approaches and Guidelines for the Participatory Revitalisation of Smallholder Irrigation Schemes, Volume 2: Concepts and Cases (Pretoria, Water Research Commission Report TT 309/07, 2006), p. 162.

⁴ G. Makombe, R. Meinzen-Dick, S.P. Davies, R.K. Sampath, ‘An Evaluation of Bani (Dambo) Systems as a Smallholder Irrigation Development Strategy in Zimbabwe’, Canadian Journal of Agricultural Economics, 49, 2 (2001), pp. 203–16.

⁵ ‘Policy instruments’ are the precise mechanisms used by a government to achieve a desired policy objective.

⁶ D. Mayson, ‘Joint Ventures’, in R. Hall (ed.), Evaluating Land and Agrarian Reform in South Africa Series, No 7 (Cape Town, PLAAS, University of the Western Cape, 2003).

⁷ W. Anseeuw and W. Chamberlain, An Assessment of Inclusive Business Models in South Africa (Cape Town, SUN publishers, forthcoming). The five business models are: (share) equity schemes; contract farming (initially promoted by the World Bank in its Berg Report in 1982); collective organisations; lease/management; mentorship. Note that outside South Africa mentorship arrangements have been preferred to Joint Venture Scheme arrangements or to contract farming. This is the case, for instance, in Botswana. Mentorship remains, however, still limited in Botswana.

⁸ Anseeuw and Chamberlain, An Assessment of Inclusive Business Models.

⁹ See M. Rein and L. Stott, ‘Working Together: Critical Perspectives on Six Cross-Sector Partnerships in Southern Africa’, Journal of Business Ethics, 90, 1 suppl. (2009), pp. 79–89.

¹⁰ N. McKeon, The New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition: A Coup for Corporate Capital? (Amsterdam, Transnational Institute’s Agrarian Justice Programme, Policy Paper, 2014).

¹¹ G.J. Veldwisch, W. Beekman and A. Bolding, ‘Smallholder Irrigators, Water Rights and Investments in Agriculture: Three Cases from Rural Mozambique’, Water Alternatives, 6, 1 (2013), pp. 125–41.

¹² S. Vermeulen and L. Cotula, Making the Most of Agricultural Investment: A Survey of Business Models that Provide Opportunities for Smallholders (Rome/Bern, IIED/FAO/IFAD/SDC, 2010).

¹³ B.N. Tapela, ‘Livelihoods in the Wake of Agricultural Commercialisation in South Africa’s Poverty Nodes: Insights from Small-Scale Irrigation Schemes in Limpopo Province’, Development Southern Africa, 25, 2 (2008), pp. 181–98.

¹⁴ Interview with manager, Agribusiness Development/Co-operatives, LDA, Polokwane, February 2013. All interviews for this article were, unless otherwise stated, conducted by the authors.

¹⁵ See L.A. Picard, The State of the State: Institutional Transformation, Capacity and Political Change in South Africa (Johannesburg, Wits University Press, 2005). In 2010, for instance, the LDA Head of Department was suspended under an allegation of corruption.

¹⁶ P. Pierson, ‘Increasing Returns, Path Dependence, and the Study of Politics’, American Political Science Review, 94, 2 (2000), pp. 251–67.

¹⁷ P. Lascoumes and P. Le Galès, ‘Understanding Public Policy through its Instruments: From the Nature of Instruments to the Sociology of Public Policy Instrumentation’, Governance, 20, 1 (2007), pp. 1–21. On the links between public policy instrumentation and neo-institutionalism, see also M. Bourblanc, ‘Emancipated Instruments’, Revue Française de Science Politique, 61, 6 (2011), pp. 1073–96.

¹⁸ Lascoumes and Le Galès, ‘Understanding Public Policy’, p. 8.

¹⁹ Ibid., p. 4.

²⁰ P.A. Hall and R.C.R. Taylor, ‘Political Science and the Three New Institutionalisms’, Political Studies, 44, 5 (1996), pp. 936–57.

²¹ For a historical perspective, see B. van Koppen, B. Tapela and E. Mapedza, ‘Gender, Rights and the Politics of Productivity: The Case of the Flag Boshielo Irrigation Scheme, South Africa’, in B. Hellum, P. Kameri-Mbote and B. van Koppen (eds), Water Is Life: Women’s Human Rights in National and Local Water Governance in Southern and Eastern Africa (Harare, Weaver Press, 2015), pp. 535–74.

²² Focus group interviews were conducted by T. Motsi. See T. Motsi, Water and Land Access in the Nebo Plateau (Report Cirad–University of Pretoria, 2012).

²³ M. Bourblanc, Pro-Poor Policies for Water and Land Access in Flag Boshielo Irrigation Scheme (Report Cirad–University of Pretoria, 2013). All of the research findings stem from a research project conducted between 2010 and 2013 on ‘pro-poor mechanisms in access to land and water in the Limpopo river basin (Botswana, Zimbabwe, Mozambique and South Africa)’ funded by the Challenge Program Water and Food (CPWF)–Limpopo Basin Development Challenge (LBDC), CGIAR Consortium of International Agricultural Research Centres.

²⁴ Black economic empowerment is a policy instrument aimed at increasing the number of black people that manage, own and control enterprises and productive assets (Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment Act, No. 53 of 2003).

²⁵ P. Sithole, ‘Joint Venture Schemes in the Limpopo Basin: Case Studies from the Flag Boshielo Irrigation Scheme’ (unpublished report of field appraisal, Pretoria, IWMI, 2011), p. 31.

²⁶ Interview with a former member of the irrigation committee, also part of the new irrigation committee, who presents himself as the CEO of the committee, Setlaboswana, May 2013, translated from SePedi.

²⁷ P. Delius, The Land Belongs to Us: The Pedi Polity, the Boers, and the British in the Nineteenth-Century Transvaal (Los Angeles, University of California Press, 1984).

²⁸ Van Koppen, Tapela and Mapedza, ‘Gender, Rights and the Politics of Productivity’.

²⁹ Ibid., pp. 540–43.

³⁰ Ibid., p. 550.

³¹ With an average age of 63 years in Setlaboswana and 60 years in Mogalatjane. E. Mapedza, Mogalatjane and Setlaboswana Irrigation Scheme (Pretoria, CPWF–Limpopo Basin Field Report No 3, IWMI, 2012), p. 130.

³² H.S. Small and C.M. Stimie, An Investigation into Water Use at the Arabie–Olifants Irrigation Scheme (Colombo, IWMI, South Africa Policy Paper No 4, 1999), p. 9.

³³ Interviews with tribal authorities, Mogalatjane, October 2013.

³⁴ Ibid.

³⁵ The governing board of the irrigation committee are village members (either farmers or non-farmers) elected by the farmers of the irrigation scheme to represent them.

³⁶ Interview with traditional authorities’ council, Mogalatjane, October 2013.

³⁷ Interview with senior official, LDA local branch, Marble Hall, May 2013.

³⁸ Interview with on-site LDA extension officer, Mogalatjane, February. 2013.

³⁹ Ibid.

⁴⁰ Indeed, although the irrigation canals were designed for irrigation only, they served other purposes as well, including access by the growing number of inhabitants without plots. People also used the canal water for domestic purposes, livestock, fisheries, and so on.

⁴¹ This had been allocated based on domestic water use only.

⁴² Fieldwork, Setlaboswana and Mogalatjane, February 2013.

⁴³ B. Tapela, ‘Assessment of Formal and Informal Hydraulic Property Rights Creation at Local Level: Case Study of Phetwane and Selected Arabie/Olifants Communities in Limpopo Province, South Africa (unpublished research report, PLAAS, University of the Western Cape, Report for CGIAR Challenge programme 66, Part 2 of the consolidated report, 2009), pp. 58–60.

⁴⁴ Denison and Manona, Principles, Approaches and Guidelines, p. 297.

⁴⁵ Input costs will be deducted before sharing the remaining benefits 50–50. These input costs include fertilisers, seeds, technical assistance with tractors, and fuel.

⁴⁶ LDA, ‘Policy and Strategy Guidelines for Agricultural Irrigation in Limpopo’, 2005.

⁴⁷ J. Denison and B. Tapela, ‘Discussion Note on Joint Ventures’ (unpublished paper presented for Network on Irrigation Research and Extension for Small-Scale Agriculture [NIRESA] Workshop, Taung, South Africa, 13–15 October 2009).

⁴⁸ Fieldwork, February 2013.

⁴⁹ For instance, in the case of potato production, it is usually considered that up to R78,000 per hectare has to be invested (interview with LDA, Polokwane, February 2013).

⁵⁰ Tapela, ‘Assessment of Formal and Informal Hydraulic Property Rights Creation’, pp. 58–60.

⁵¹ Mogalatjane, third focus group discussion, 17 August 2012, translated from SePedi.

⁵² Interview with a former member of the irrigation committee, also part of the new irrigation committee, who presented himself as the CEO of the committee, Setlaboswana, May 2013, translated from SePedi.

⁵³ Interview with a female member of the new irrigation committee board, Setlaboswana, May 2013, translated from SePedi.

⁵⁴ Setlaboswana, second focus group discussion, group 2, 24 August 2012, translated from SePedi.

⁵⁵ Mogalatjane, fourth focus group discussion, 24 August 2012, translated from SePedi.

⁵⁶ A. Fraser, ‘Hybridity Emergent: Geo-History, Learning, and Land Restitution in South Africa’, Geoforum, 38, 2 (2007), pp. 299–311 , see especially p. 305.

⁵⁷ E. Lahiff, N. Davis and T. Manenzhe, Joint Ventures in Agriculture: Lessons from Land Reform Projects in South Africa (London/Rome/Cape Town, IIED/IFAD/FAO/PLAAS, 2012).

⁵⁸ There have been isolated successful joint venture schemes. Most of these success stories concern the sugar and forestry industry, i.e. sectors that have had long-term experience with this kind of arrangement since the 1970s.

⁵⁹ R. Hall, P. Jacobs and E. Lahiff, Evaluating Land and Agrarian Reform in South Africa: No 10 Final Report (Cape Town, Programme for Land and Agrarian Studies, University of the Western Cape, 2003).

⁶⁰ D. Cooper, ‘Agriculture in Bantustans: Towards Development Policies’, in M. de Klerk (ed.), A Harvest of Discontent: The Land Question in South Africa (Cape Town, IDASA, 1991).

⁶¹ M.J. Bigman Maloa and S.A. Nkosi, ‘Agricultural Development through Contract Agents – Appropriate for Smallholders?’, Development Southern Africa, 10, 4 (1993), pp. 515–34.

⁶² Its project leader co-wrote a report on the practical challenges related to the choice of irrigation techniques and agricultural models in small-scale irrigation farming in 2000: C.T. Crosby, M. de Lange, C.M. Stimie and I. van der Stoep, A Review of Planning and Design Procedures Applicable to Small-Scale Farmer Irrigation Projects (Water Research Commission report, No 578/2/00, 2000), p. 279.

⁶³ A. Hellum and B. Derman, ‘Government, Business and Chiefs: Ambiguities of Social Justice through Land Restitution in South Africa’, in F. von Benda-Beckmann, K. von Benda-Beckmann and J. Eckert (eds), Rules of Law and Laws of Ruling: On the Governance of Law (Farnham, Ashgate, 2009), pp. 125–50, see especially pp. 133–35.

⁶⁴ See also W. Van Averbeke, J. Denison and P.N.S. Mnekeni, ‘Smallholder Irrigation Schemes in South Africa: A Review of Knowledge Generated by the Water Research Commission’, Water SA, 37, 5 (2012), pp. 797–808, see especially p. 805.

⁶⁵ G. Veldwisch and J. Denison, From Rehabilitation to Revitalisation: The Evolution of a Smallholder Irrigation Revitalisation Approach in the Limpopo Province, South Africa (Pretoria, Water Research Commission project K5/1463/4, 2004).

⁶⁶ Skills development pertaining to crop production information, agricultural know-how in general, but also markets, finance and management qualifications that condition the success of agri-business projects.

⁶⁷ Veldwisch and Denison, From Rehabilitation to Revitalisation, p. 153.

⁶⁸ Denison and Manona, Principles, Approaches and Guidelines, p. 33.

⁶⁹ Interview, LDA official, Polokwane, February 2013. The project team running RESIS was not part of the department staff organogram but comprised consultants hired on a short-term contract. The consultants’ interpretations of the best way to go about the project proved to be too much at odds with the conception that the new HoD had of RESIS.

⁷⁰ Interview, LDA official, Polokwane, February 2013.

⁷¹ Phone interview, ex-consultant running RESIS programme on behalf of LDA, August 2013.

⁷² Ibid.

⁷³ Denison and Manona, Principles, Approaches and Guidelines, p. 37.

⁷⁴ Interview with LDA official responsible for the running of strategic partnership programme, Polokwane, February 2013.

⁷⁵ Interview with an agricultural consultant and close collaborator of the LDA, Polokwane, February 2013.

⁷⁶ Two major contracts for in-field irrigation equipment for 23 schemes covering 2,800 hectares were issued in the first phase in early 2005 (Denison and Manona, Principles, Approaches and Guidelines, p. 18).

⁷⁷ Denison and Manona, Principles, Approaches and Guidelines, p. 37.

⁷⁸ Interview with LDA, Polokwane, February 2013.

⁷⁹ LDA, ‘Managing Agricultural Natural Resources’ (Polokwane, LDA, 2005).

⁸⁰ LDA, ‘In-Field Irrigation Technology Policy’ (Polokwane, LDA, 2005).

⁸¹ B. Cousins, ‘Smallholder Irrigation Schemes, Agrarian Reform and “Accumulation from Above and from Below” in South Africa’, Journal of Agrarian Change, 13, 1 (2013), pp. 116–39, see especially p. 126.

⁸² Phone interview, ex-consultant running RESIS programme on behalf of LDA, August 2013.

⁸³ LDA, ‘Managing Agricultural Natural Agricultural Resources’, 2005.

⁸⁴ Interview with Deputy Director, Extension Services, National Department of Agriculture, Pretoria, April 2014.

⁸⁵ LDA, ‘In-Field Irrigation Technology Policy’, 2005.

⁸⁶ Transfer of management, operation and maintenance of the schemes. See D.L. Vermillion, Impacts of Irrigation Management Transfer: A Review of the Evidence (Colombo, International Water Management Institute, Research Report 11, 1997), available at http://www.iwmi.cgiar.org/Publications/IWMI_Research_Reports/PDF/pub011/REPORT11.PDF?galog=no, retrieved 16 January 2017.

⁸⁷ G. Backeberg and J. Groenewald, ‘Lessons from the Economic History of Irrigation Development for Smallholder Settlement in South Africa’, Agrekon, 34, 4 (December 1994), pp. 167–71.

⁸⁸ J. Van Zyl, J. Kirsten and H. Binswanger (eds), Agricultural Land Reform in South Africa: Policies, Markets and Mechanisms (Cape Town, Oxford University Press, 1996). Economic distortions could take the form of state interventions in output markets, public provision of infrastructure, agricultural credits, and services.

⁸⁹ E. Lahiff, Land Tenure on the Arabie–Olifants Irrigation Scheme (Colombo, IWMI, South Africa Working Paper No. 2, 1999), p. 16.

⁹⁰ See LDA, ‘Managing Agricultural Natural Resources’, 2005, p. 4: ‘As a general rule, infrastructure capital investment on such projects will be funded by the Government’.

⁹¹ Denison and Manona, Principles, Approaches and Guidelines, p. 39.