South African land reform in 2014: what is at stake? Ben Cousins DST/NRF Chair in Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies

New policies adopted in 2013/14 Redistribution: state leasehold, re- capitalisation and development, agricultural landholdings Restitution Amendment Act Communal Tenure – the wagon wheel Farm workers: equity shares *

Residential Economic Social Services Outer Boundary: Single Title Title Holder: Traditional Council. WAGON WHEEL ROYAL HOUSEHOLD COMMUNALLY OWNED: Democratically managed / social sector TRADITIONAL MANAGEMENT 1 – 7 HOUSEHOLD SECTOR ROLES: TRADITIONAL COUNCIL/ MUNICIPAL COUNCIL / CPA / TRUST: TBA PRINCIPLE: COMPLEMENTARITY ACROSS TRADITIONAL & DEMOCRATIC INSTITUTIONS * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * COMMUNALLY OWNED: GRAZING INFRASTRUCTURE CROPPING Roles: Title Holder Adjudication of disputes on allocation and use Reference Point COMMUNITY- PUBLIC-PRIVATE- COLLABORATION MINING FORESTRY TOURISM * * * * MANUFACTURING 3

Beneficiaries = black farmers 1 = limited land for subsistence 2 = subsistence + sale 3 = medium-scale commercial farmers 4 = large-scale commercial farmers State Agribusiness/ white farmers Mentors Strategic Partners/ Equity share holders (Consultants?) Business plan Committees (national, provincial, district) Select beneficiaries, Allocate leases and funds Assess progress (against business plan) Terminate leases Determine upper and lower farm size limits by district Re-Cap funds (for 5 years) Perpetual lease, nominal rental No option to purchase yr lease projected income p.a. Option to purchase (Subject to farm size limits) Projected income = key criterion for assessing lessee performance) Leases, which require: Legal entity, bank acct notarial bond, 5 year probation period, asset register, permission for improvements (Labour tenants and farm workers who acquire land will also lease from state at nominal rental) New land redistribution policies in 2013

Key features Populist rhetoric Real benefits to elites: ‘emerging’ black commercial farmers and agribusiness companies; chiefs; white farmers & consultants State control of land and resources (eg re-cap funding = post-settlement support) Weak forms of property rights to land reform beneficiaries Unquestioned model of farm ‘viability’ based on large-scale farming models

Real-world outcomes and effects Very few policies will be implemented at scale due to budgetary and capacity constraints A small number of well-connected members of the emerging black middle class and bourgeoisie will benefit Chiefs helped to become ‘tribal landed property’ on a larger scale White commercial farmers useful as a scapegoat for slow progress but no real threat to their dominance of agriculture The redistributive and poverty-reducing thrust of land reform is blunted

Explanations Fear of failure (land is politically sensitive) Development as trusteeship (Cowen and Shenton) and as ‘will to improve’ (Li) > Nkwinti’s sincerity Populism and ‘tradition’ to secure support & legitimacy Lack of rural mobilisation to counter concentrations of power in state, chiefs and capital Class character of SA society (and of the ANC): rising black middle class and bourgeoisie linked to the state, no real challenge to corporate capital ‘Law’ as sole lens on land is too narrow: law as embedded ‘in society’ more useful Vocabularies: Okoth-Ogendo (1989) on ‘access’ and ‘control’; Sally Falk Moore on regelementation, indeterminacy and situational adjustment