Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Following multi-party elections in 1994, the incoming ANC government launched a multi-
pronged land reform programme that promised to return land to persons dispossessed
by apartheid land laws, redistribute existing land to enhance greater access of the black
population to land, and change customary tenure arrangements in communal areas (Bryceson,
2002). Unfortunately, facts reveal that the pace of land redistribution has been slow and its
quantum is inadequate to the extent that the target of completing the transfer of 30% of land
to Black people by 2014 is under threat. The reform has been delayed by protracted court
and administrative issues (Xingwana, 2008). More importantly, farm activities have been
operated in several rural communities of South Africa but poverty still persists. Climatic
variability, inadequate infrastructure, extension services and markets pose serious challenges
to plans for agricultural development for previously disadvantaged black rural communities
(Obi, 1984). The high hopes of reducing poverty seem elusive as the predicament of poor
households has not improved significantly, despite promotion of agriculture. This poses
a general pessimism about agriculture's potential to reduce poverty in rural South Africa.
Thus, it is widely assumed that increased participation in rural non-farm development is
critical for the country's growth, raising living standards and reducing poverty.
Nonetheless, studies on rural non-farm activities reflected their varied effects on rural
livelihoods, poverty level and income growth. Kirsten (1995) has recorded quite a number
of non-farm activities in rural South Africa but analysis of the 2001 census data reveals that
high levels of poverty still persist in the same rural areas (StatsSA, 2001). In Latin America,
rural non-farm activities have been actively promoted in response to the strong advocacy
work of policymakers although this does not seem to have relieved the serious poverty
situation (Avarez and Naglar, 1995; Davis and Pearce, 2001). In Bangladesh, studies by
Nargis and Hossain (2006) found that income growth during the period 1988-2004 was
due to successful participation in non-farm activities. Generally, in all the afore-mentioned
countries and the world as a whole; little progress has been made in reaching the MDG
of reducing by half the number of the poor. Therefore, it is unclear which forms of capital
should be made available to the rural population and which activities should be pursued by
rural households that have the potential to reduce poverty and improve rural livelihoods.
Optimal public policy can be achieved by adopting the right mix of activities to facilitate
more effective programming and sequencing of government support. It is also important to
know what is responsible for the trend in non-farm income diversification, activity choice
and income received from each activity practised. Besides, studies on non-farm activities in
South Africa have remained a by-product of poverty studies (Machethe, 2004). Without
a more explicit focus on these activities, it will not be possible to more precisely determine
their relative importance and the specific ways in which they can be deployed as a veritable
vehicle for poverty reduction and linking of the rural areas into the mainstream of the
country's economy and finally put to rest the aberrant notion of a 'second economy' in
South Africa.
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