Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
114 farmers were mostly selected from Agriqwa, a non-profit government corporation,
which was founded for the sole aim of establishing these 'emerging' or 'beginning' farmers.
The agency provided financial and technical assistance to the newly settled farmers each of
which had been allocated between 350 and 450 ha of farmland. Infrastructure for improved
modern farming was also installed and farmers received frequent advisory visits from
officials who provided them with every assistance needed to turn farming into a profitable
endeavour. Value adding activities seemed to be popular and profitable among emerging
farmers. This experiment seemed to debunk the notion of the black farmer as not being
responsive to economic incentives and was actually so steeped in tradition that he would
be unable to be weaned from a subsistence mode of production. It was clear that these
emerging farmers possessed the will and ingenuity to make a success of agriculture in the
area (Claasen, 2000).
Similar schemes were initiated in the other former black areas of the country. A review of
the post-1994 agricultural development revealed the phenomenal and innovative actions
taken in the North West Province to irrigate communal arable lands that were managed
under a mixture of tribal tenure systems and freehold with a highly sophisticated irrigation
infrastructure. Golder Associates (2004) has completed an assessment of the scheme
undertaken during that era and produced a comprehensive document that provides insights
into the scheme in terms of its objectives, scope, operational details and problems especially
with the inception of pluralistic democratic dispensation and the integration of the former
'homelands' into the rest of South Africa.
According to Golder Associates (2004), the irrigation scheme was established on land that
existed under communal tenure arrangements where user rights were allocated by the tribal
leadership on a hereditary basis. No payments were made for the acquisition of user rights
to land. The development within the Taung area of the province possesses characteristics
that are considered typical of what prevailed in the erstwhile Bophutswana Republic, as this
former 'homeland' was known. The particular scheme analyzed comprises 4,000-5,000 ha
of communal arable land which has been partitioned among 411 farmers who, as explained
earlier, do not have to pay anything for the user rights in keeping with the precepts of the
communal tenure systems prevailing in the traditional black areas of the country.
When the scheme took off in the period 1980-1989, candidate farmers were selected from
the rural communities by tribal/communal leaders in cooperation with the public agencies
created for agricultural development within this self-governing homeland. When the
scheme began, participating farmers were each allocated 1.7 ha of land within a circular
piece of land described as a 'circle' which was served by a rotary irrigation infrastructure
or 'pivot' that consisted of pipe-fed irrigating 'machinery' on wheels that delivers water
on participating fields according to a predetermined format. Today this scheme has been
expanded and each participating farmer is allocated 10 ha of land within the circle on which
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