Well-off black men win big in land reform

• Research shows beneficiaries mostly not the poor, nor women

A new report on land reform by researchers at the University of the Western Cape shows that at least half those who obtained leases on farms are well-off black businessmen and that 80% of beneficiaries of land reform are male.

A new report on land reform by researchers at the University of the Western Cape shows that at least half those who obtained leases on farms are well-off black business men and that 80% of beneficiaries of land reform are male.

Land-reform beneficiaries currently access land through the leasehold system.

The report, by Farai Mtero, Nkanyiso Gumede and Katlego Ramantsima and published by the Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies, provides compelling evidence that the wealthier classes have benefited most from land reform.

The redistribution of land is a central pillar of ANC policy, but government progress has been slow and lags well behind the target to redistribute 30% of land by 2014. The rate of failure of land-reform projects has also been high. The slow progress has made land reform a politically charged issue with a parliamentary process under way to amend the constitution to explicitly allow expropriation without compensation.

Sixty-two farms in five provinces were covered by the study. Of the 81% of farms that went to male beneficiaries, nearly half (44%) “are being leased by well-off men who are diversifying into farming by stepping in with their own resources. These are often urban-based businessmen, traders and rural transport operators with significant investments outside of farming”, says the report. Only 14% of beneficiaries were farmworkers.

In its early stages in the 1990s, land-reform policy was targeted exclusively at poor households, which had to pass a means test to qualify as beneficiaries. During the Mbeki administration this focus shifted towards supporting emerging commercial farmers.

The “means test’ was removed and the emphasis shifted to the need for commercial success. This has been intensified through various iterations of land-reform policy.

However, the research finds that it is not only this shift in policy that allowed well-off beneficiaries with access to resources, knowledge and information to gain access to most land-reform opportunities but that political influence and corruption by government officials have played a large role.

“State bureaucrats and the politically powerful often capture resources in land reform through the soliciting and payment of bribes, fronting, the imposition of politically connected beneficiaries and bailing out politically connected people.

“State bureaucrats have, in some cases, withheld leases and threatened noncompliant beneficiaries with eviction,” says the report.

In one example cited by the researchers, the rightful beneficiary of a lease reported being unable to gain access to the farm that was being unlawfully occupied by somebody else, who was being protected by officials high up in the administration. The farm had also been recapitalised by the government to the tune of R2m.

“We allocated him Crestview farm and the farm is still there. Department of rural development and land reform officials have simply not signed the papers,” a lower level official is quoted as saying.

The report by the presidential advisory panel on land reform and agriculture, which reported to President Cyril Ramaphosa earlier in 2019, made several recommendations on landreform policy, including that beneficiaries must be more equitably selected.

It recommended that 30% of the budget be allocated to poor households; 30% to smallholders; 30% to medium-scale farmers; and 10% to large-scale, commercial farmers. Half of all land-reform projects should be allocated to women, it stated.

Ramaphosa has not yet responded to the report’s recommendations.