The land question in smallholder development in South Africa - Institutional Constraints to Small Farmer Development in Southern Africa - page 195

powers (Lyne and Darroch, 2003). For instance, while the CLARA was still in draft form
being circulated for discussion and debate, the Inkatha Freedom Party which draws strong
support from rural Zulu tribes people, protested that the Act would disempower traditional
leaders (Lyne and Darroch, 2003).
In the area of land tenure, the government has two other related concerns, namely the issue
of labour tenancy, and the frequent problems of eviction of farm workers from commercial
farms. In the first case, namely the labour tenancy issue, this is an arrangement whereby
black farm workers use their labour to pay for usufructuary rights to a portion of a white
farmer's land. This was an arrangement that was worked out to circumvent the apartheid
legislation incorporated in the Natives Land Act of 1913 that prevented blacks from owning
land in areas designated white areas. Even with apartheid laws annulled and a land reform
programme running into its second decade of implementation, some of these practices still
remain and continue to be a source of considerable worry for the government which has
enacted a specific legislation, the Land Reform (Labour Tenants) Act 3 of 1996. The aim
of this Act is to make the land rights of commercial farm workers and labour tenants more
secure on the commercial farms.
The issue of eviction of black farm workers from white farms is clearly a labour relations
question for which a comprehensive set of labour legislations exist outside the agricultural
sector. Since the end of apartheid rule, workers' rights have been strengthened nationally.
But it would seem that the agricultural sector fits into a special category probably due to
the relatively more powers a farm owner would generally be expected to have arising from
the nature of farming, land, etc. The government is of the view that, as part of the overall
programme to redress past wrongs, such employment insecurities should be discontinued.
In pursuance of this, the government has put in process a legal framework in the form of
the Extension of Security of Tenure Act 62 of 1997 (ESTA). The idea of ESTA is to protect
farm workers from unlawful evictions from the farm which have implications for both their
employment and accommodation as many of them live and work on the farms. Many farms
have also built schools for the children of the farm workers. Eviction in this case would no
doubt have far-reaching consequences for the entire family of the farm worker. Hence the
need for protection of land rights to ensure that loss of job and accommodation can only
happen on legal grounds.
A review carried out for the National Department of Agriculture (DoA) by Swanepoel et
al. (2004), suggests that there are serious production problems associated with communal
land use. According to the review, while the provincial departments of agriculture in the
affected four provinces deploy a large part of their budgets and human resources towards
agricultural development in the communal areas, production falls far short of potential.
Findings reported by the Eastern Cape Department of Agriculture show that out of a
potential maize yield of over 4 tonnes per ha, farmers realize only about 200 kg per ha. In