Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
three other farmers (making 4 farmers in all) own same-sized parcels and sharing one pivot
for irrigating their fields. An additional area comprising 1000-1,500 ha arable land is now
being cultivated with sprinkler irrigation (Golder Associates, 2004).
Contemporary discourse on the land question within South Africa's troubled past has largely
ignored this limited, even if half-hearted attempt to empower the black population and
integrate them into the nation's agricultural economy. Not many commentaries have seen
this effort in charitable terms. Some commentators have actually gone as far as suggesting
that the apartheid regime, realizing that the day of reckoning was in the horizon, needed
to have in place arrangements that would not be lost on the historians of the apartheid era.
Whatever the intention of the apartheid government was in establishing the agricultural
development programmes in the former homelands at this time, the fact remains that it
happened. And its significance and practical implications are even further heightened by
what has happened to the schemes with the advent of democratic rule. In his study, Claasen
(2000) tracked the progress of the Qwaqwa scheme up to the post-apartheid era and has
made a number of interesting revelations. For instance, it was found that after 1994, official
policies regarding the previous homelands changed dramatically. The support agency
Agriqwa was dissolved and replaced by another one named Agri-Eco.
It was not long before the restructuring and rationalization of Agri-Eco implied the end of
financial and agricultural assistance to the emerging farmers in Qwaqwa (Claasen, 2000).
As a result of this process of restructuring, the emerging farmers now have to compete
independently in a free market environment. These emerging farmers have suddenly
been exposed to a competitive market environment without having much experience or
preparation for it. The result has been very serious managerial problems for these farmers.
The study also found that a number of farmers are experiencing serious financial problems.
The refusal of commercial banks and agricultural cooperatives to grant production loans for
planting purposes, underlines the extent of the financial difficulties experienced by emerging
farmers in the area. A major conclusion of the study is that the success of similar projects is
largely dependent on basic support structures in training and agricultural extension work
from government and development agencies.
Without question, Government needed to embark on location- and commodity-specific
programmes (infrastructure and training) designed to increase the capacity of black farmers
to compete meaningfully in a deregulated market. More importantly, government should
devote efforts towards facilitating:
• competition along the marketing chains;
• the provision of agricultural information;
• a legally secure framework within which agricultural trade can take place;
•
the maintenance of the physical marketing infrastructure.
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