The land question in smallholder development in South Africa - Institutional Constraints to Small Farmer Development in Southern Africa - page 171

9. The land question in smallholder development in South Africa
Ajuruchukwu Obi
Abstract
This chapter provides a review of the political, social and economic issues surrounding the
South African land question as it has evolved from the arrival of the European explorers-
turned colonialists to the inception of democratic rule and land reform. Land remains a
highly emotive issue in South Africa and the bulk of government strategies to restructure
the agricultural sector since 1994 have revolved around land. How these strategies are
being implemented and how they fit into the broader and more comprehensive land
reform programme are interesting discussion points. This chapter reviews the land reform
programme and how the various components, namely land redistribution, land restitution
and tenure reform, are being implemented and what obstacles are in the way of achieving
the target goal of transferring 30% of land previously owned by the white population to
the black people as a way of redressing past wrongs. Some proposals for a land tax that
have been made in the past are also reviewed in the context of the on-going reform and the
difficulties in implementing it on a national scale.
9.1 Introduction
From the beginning of creation, land has constituted an important issue in man's existence,
even pre-dating organized agriculture. Modern governance arrangements modified the
conception of land as a mere productive resource, but that was already begun by the
time of colonial rule. An institutional analysis of the land question is easily an attempt to
understand the results of the introduction of politics into the ownership and utilization
of land and how that process led to a view of land as distinct from the other productive
resources such as labour and capital. This is an important discussion for a country like South
Africa, particularly in the light of the history of uneven development that characterized its
recent past, but is equally important for other countries in the region, including those like
Lesotho and Swaziland where traditional tenure systems still predominate.
The central role of land in the South African context is also understandable. In some
way, the liberation struggle was pivoted on the gross inequities in the distribution of land
between the black and white populations of South Africa. For a society where alternative
opportunities for employment outside the farm were limited, insufficient access to land
meant that a large part of the population went without work and thus wallowed in abject
poverty. The enthusiasm with which the land reform programme was launched is therefore
understandable even if little excuse can be made for the inadequate preparation around the
modus operandi for implementing the programme. For instance, while the land redistribution