Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
9.2 Land, economics and politics
As indicated, this review will comprehensively examine the land question in a broad socio-
political and economic context. The global experience will be discussed before attention
is directed to the South African experience to examine what role land has played in the
economic history of the country as well as how it has featured in the process of agricultural
development of the country. This will be useful in order to properly situate the whole issue
of land price formation and the interaction between agricultural restructuring the value of
agricultural lands. The international literature on land in general, and agricultural land in
particular, has devoted ample space to the role of land in the development process and how
policies about its distribution and use have influenced some of the most interesting political
developments in history.
There is a lot of interest in the role of land as a factor of production and what determines
access to land for agricultural and other purposes as well as the process by which prices are
formed in the agricultural land market. There is equally a rich literature on the land market
in general but for purposes of the present study, the review will be limited to the agricultural
land markets and how they function. Although relevant research will consist mainly of
studies accomplished within related geographical settings, there is value in establishing
theoretical and methodological patterns, irrespective of where such work is done.
9.3 Land in South African economy and politics
In a very fundamental sense, South Africa's history has been more about land than much
else. Although much of the recent discussion on the land question trace the discriminatory
policies to the Land Act of 1913, the events that built up to it date back several centuries
to the arrival on the South African shores of Jan van Riebeeck. This section will briefly lay
out the historical details as they relate to land and how South African land policies have
evolved since then.
9.3.1 From the conquest to 1913
The arrival on 6 April 1652 of the Dutch East Indian Company led by the legendary Jan
van Riebeeck marked the beginning of the land problems in South Africa (DBSA, 2005;
Plaatjie, 2005). Purportedly en route to more distant lands in East Asia, the group made
what was reported as a temporary stopover but found the conditions conducive to farming
activities and in 1654 the first piece of land was obtained for farming purposes. Accounts
vary as to the initial reaction to the use of land by the Dutch. By one account, the Dutch
settlers had met an indigenous population whose primary economic activity was trading
in merchandise brought in by the seafarers (Van Schalkwyk, 1995). There may have been
some black indifference to the acquisition of land which they did not need anyway. But
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