The land question in smallholder development in South Africa - Institutional Constraints to Small Farmer Development in Southern Africa - page 180

The literature provides other strong indications of stiff resistance on the part of the new
regime to improve conditions for the black population even in the face of evidence that
such improvements were called for. For instance, Government documents reviewed by Van
Schalkwyk (1995) suggest that despite recommendations by the Tomlinson Commission
of 1955 for improvement of economic and agricultural conditions in the black areas,
the government was adamant and rejected these outright. Of particular interest was the
recommendation to introduce freehold tenure in the homelands, and drop the idea of
one-man-one-plot which limited the scope for the black farmer to expand his holding and
improve productivity and output.
Ultimately, the legacy of the era of the apartheid government as far as agricultural
development was concerned was the widening of the gap between the white and black
populations. As more and more favourable support programmes were channelled towards
the white farmers, less and less went to the black farmers within the reserves, resulting in a
widening of the gulf between them and the deepening of black poverty and backwardness.
The support packages channelled to the white farmers included access to research findings
and the most elaborate and sophisticated systems of agricultural extension education and
training, including through the instrumentality of the cooperative system already set up by
the British administration.
9.3.4 The era of deregulation and limited black empowerment
As the apartheid stranglehold tightened around the black farming population there were
signs of resilience and determination to make farming pay within the black homelands.
Bayley (2000) draws attention to the struggle among the black farmers to produce
some food for subsistence purposes as more Acts were enacted that reinforced their
marginalization. Especial mention is made of the 1968 Marketing Act which, while coming
up with some new measures to improve the marketing system, still provided for treating
different geographical areas differently. There was still a high level of state support to
the cooperative sector alongside the emphasis on confining African farming activities to
specified geographical areas. For all practical purposes, the Marketing Act was established in
the context of systematic disempowerment of black farmers. Most agricultural households
in the reserves/homeland areas were reliant on off-farm incomes and food purchases to
supplement their own production. Market interventions designed to benefit white farmers
were sometimes implemented in a way that negatively affected net sellers in homeland areas.
However, in the early 1980s, a stark reality was beginning to dawn on the policymakers in
South Africa. This review has highlighted the considerable amount of state subsidy that
went into the agricultural sector over the years (Van Schalkwyk, 1995). It would have
been too much to expect that these support measures, in the way they were structured
and delivered, would have no macro-economic and environmental consequences. For one