Exporting contradictions: the expansion of South African agrarian capital within Africa

ABSTRACT

Agrarian change in South Africa over the past two decades has seen consolidation of the hegemony of large-scale commercial farming and corporate agribusiness within agro-food systems. Constrained domestic demand and growth opportunities elsewhere have driven both farming and agribusiness capitals to move into other African countries, attempting to reproduce agro-food systems similarly centred on the dominance of large capital. This is evident in five areas: first, the financialization of agriculture and ‘farmland funds’; second, multinational and South African input supply industries; third, large-scale land deals to expand industrial farming systems; fourth, the export of South African companies’ food processing, manufacture, logistics and distribution operations; and fifth, the expanding reach of South African supermarkets and fast food chains. Regional expansion involves South African agrarian capital encountering substantial obstacles to entry, and challenges mounted by competitors in destination markets. Success as a regional hegemon in Africa’s agro-food system is thus far from assured, and even where it does appear to succeed, generates contradictions, and rising social tensions of the kinds experienced in South Africa itself.

KEYWORDS:

• Agro-food system
• land grab
• supermarkets
• financialization
• South Africa
• Africa

Acknowledgements

We thank the journal’s peer reviewers for their constructive and insightful reviews that helped us to improve the quality of this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Standard Bank now also operates in Angola, Botswana, Congo, Ghana, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, Swaziland, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. But through acquisitions it has also extended beyond Africa to the Americas (Brazil, Argentina, and the USA) and to China, Hong Kong, Isle of Man, Japan, Jersey, Singapore, Taiwan, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, and United Kingdom.

2. RCL Foods, formerly Rainbow Chickens Limited, changed its name in 2013 to reflect its wider spectrum of brands, and is majority owned by Remgrow.

3. Brining is the injection of brine – salty water – into the chicken, ostensibly to retain succulence and improve flavour, thereby increasing weight without commensurate nutritional benefit.

4. http://www.unitrans.co.za/customers

5. http://www.unitrans.co.za/about http://www.kap.co.za/about/our-history/ http://www.kap.co.za/ – but contradicted by this: http://www.saflii.org/za/cases/ZACT/2005/9.pdf about Steinhoff and forestry expansion.

Additional information

Funding

This work is based on the research supported by the South African Research Chairs Initiative of the Department of Science and Technology and National Research Foundation of South Africa (Grant No. 71187).

Notes on contributors

Ruth Hall

Ruth Hall is a Professor at the Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS) at the University of the Western Cape, South Africa.

Ben Cousins

Ben Cousins is a Professor at the Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS) at the University of the Western Cape, South Africa, where he holds a DST/NRF chair in Land, Poverty and Agrarian Studies under the South African Research Chairs Initiative (SARChI).