Edward Lahiff1
Prospects for Agrarian Reform in southern Africa
1.
Introduction
A central element of the European colonisation of Africa was the alienation of land from
indigenous people. In only a minority of colonies, however, were European settlers
established on a significant scale – notably in Algeria and Kenya and across southern Africa,
leading to large-scale land dispossession and a range of coercive labour practices.
Not surprisingly, demands for the return of land constituted an important element within
anti-colonial struggles of the 1950s and 1960s, and agrarian reform of various kinds was
widespread in the first decades after independence (Okoth-Ogendo 1993). In countries
where white settlers had caused large-scale dispossession of native people, as in Kenya,
Zambia and later in Zimbabwe, the redistribution of large-scale commercial farmland was a
priority (Bruce 1993).
Most African countries gained their independence during the 1950s and 1960s, the period
that Bernstein (2003) describes as the high point of ‘developmentalism’, when international
emphasis was placed on the role of the state as manager of national development, which
included state-led agricultural and rural development and poverty reduction. The aim of
agrarian reform was generally the extension and intensification of commodity production,
which was to be achieved by the ‘modernisation’ of agriculture and often included
redistribution of land and wider programmes of integrated rural development. The downturn in the global economy from 1973 brought an end to this period of state-led
development, to be replaced by economic structural adjustment programmes promoted by
the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, which peaked in the 1980s in
response to widespread debt and fiscal crises. State expenditure in much of Africa, as in the
rest of the developing world, was dramatically reduced (or at least redirected), markets
were liberalised and state agencies responsible for both agricultural production and
1
Programme for Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS), University of the Western Cape, South Africa.
distribution were either closed down or privatised (Ghimire 2001). In other words, the key
pillars of state-led development and regulation were systematically removed.
After an absence of many years, agrarian reform returned to the international political
agenda in the 1990s, but in a new market-oriented form (Lahiff, Borras and Kay 2007). A
number of reasons can be put forward for this, among them changes in the international
economy (globalisation), changes in the international political climate (most notably, the fall
of Soviet communism and the end of the cold war), and the persistence of extreme poverty
and inequality in much of the developing world, particularly in rural areas. These ‘new
wave’ land reforms, promoted by multilateral institutions such as the World Bank, the Food
and Agricultural Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) and the International Fund for
Agricultural Development (IFAD), have replaced the centralised, bureaucratic and
confiscatory approaches of the past with a new emphasis on decentralisation, negotiation
and markets. Critics, particularly on the left, point to the very limited gains made by such
policies in Africa, Asia and Latin America, and question the ability of the market to bring
about the kind of fundamental restructuring of power and wealth more usually associated
with interventionist states or popular revolutions.
In line with wider trends, the spectrum of land reforms in Africa has narrowed greatly when
compared with the 1960s, with the focus now being on tenure reforms (effectively,
individualisation of communal or traditional lands), some restitution of ancestral lands
(largely symbolic at this stage) and limited redistribution of large-scale commercial farms via
the market to selected beneficiaries – generally those deemed capable of ‘commercial’
production, either individually or as part of a group. This is heavily influenced by the
recommendations of the World Bank and theorists such as Hernando de Soto, who
emphasise a framework of secure, transparent and enforceable property rights as the critical
precondition for investment and economic growth (de Soto 2000; Toulmin and Quan 2000;
World Bank 2003). Nationalisation of land and collectivisation of agricultural production
have disappeared almost entirely from the international agenda, as has the break up of large
estates, in part due to growing support for private property rights and the political
marginalisation of peasant movements in many countries. Palmer (2000) identifies the
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involvement of a relatively wide range of actors (state and non-state) in recent reforms,
which he attributes to the expansion of civil society following the end of the cold war and
the growth of multi-party democracy. In addition, there has been increased involvement by
agencies from outside the continent – both European donor countries and multilateral
bodies – in programme design and technical support to land reform.
Overall, agrarian reform continues to be a prominent policy issue across much of Africa, but
particularly in the former settler colonies of southern Africa – including Mozambique,
Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe. While conditions vary considerably from country to
country, a number of broad themes can be identified that provide a common context for the
politics of land across the region. First is the shared history of colonialism, dispossession
and impoverishment of rural people, which continues to shape patterns of landholding.
Second is the growing impact of neo-liberal globalisation on the agriculture sector and rural
economies generally, with the deregulation of markets, withdrawal of state support to
agricultural producers and reliance on the private sector as the principal agent of
development. Third is the continuing poverty of much of the rural population and the
extreme precariousness of rural livelihoods. High rates of unemployment, poor returns to
small-scale agriculture, lack of access to social services such as health and education,
recurring drought and the HIV/AIDS pandemic serve to erode existing livelihood activities
and perpetuate relative and absolute poverty in rural areas. Fourth is the re-emergence of
the rural poor as political actors, to varying degrees, throughout the region (Moyo and
Yeros 2005). Mobilisation around the Campanha Terra in Mozambique in 1996-97, the
occupation of commercial farms by war veterans and others in Zimbabwe since 1999, calls
for expropriation of white landowners in Namibia and growing militancy by groups such as
the Landless Peoples’ Movement in South Africa suggest that an important new phase in the
politics of land in southern Africa is underway.
2.
Zimbabwe: from negotiation to land occupations
Land was central to opposition to the white regime in Rhodesia, which developed into
guerrilla warfare from the 1960s. At the time of independence, in 1980, approximately
6,000 white farmers still controlled 42% of the land, with the majority black population
3
confined to the remaining, and generally less fertile, communal areas.
The first decade after independence was dominated by the provisions of the Lancaster
House constitutional agreement, signed between the British government and the incoming
ZANU-PF2 government led by Robert Mugabe. This agreement, which was binding on the
new regime for a period of ten years, protected the property rights of private landowners,
among other things, and stipulated that any redistribution of land would be on the basis of
‘willing seller, willing buyer’, with compensation payable in hard currency. Despite these
conditions, considerable redistribution of land was achieved in the first decade of
independence – 52,000 households were resettled on 2.7 million hectares by 1989, rising to
71,000 households on 3.5 million hectares of land by 1996, representing one-fifth of the
land that was in the hands of white commercial farmers at independence (Palmer 1990).
This, as Kinsey (1999) observes, greatly exceeded any previous redistribution of land in the
region, and, over time, brought significant benefits to resettled households in terms of
incomes and increased scale of production.
Resettlement took various forms, the most common of which involved allocation of
individual (household) plots for residence and cropping, combined with shared grazing land.
The redistribution of former white-owned farms was accompanied by a revival of
agricultural production in the communal areas, assisted by substantial government support
in areas such as technical advice and training, ploughing, transport, supply of inputs and
crop marketing (Rukuni and Eicher 1994). The achievements of the 1980s were not,
however, continued through the second decade of independence, despite the introduction of
a new land policy in 1990 and a new Land Acquisition Act in 1992. A growing economic
crisis and the introduction of a severe economic structural adjustment programme in 1991
denied funding to land reform, which faded as a political priority. By the mid-1990s, land
reform was effectively stalled, and what land was being acquired was being distributed
mainly to party loyalists, often in large units.
Subsequent years, however, saw a dramatic escalation of agrarian struggles, involving mass
2
Zimbabwean African National Union – Popular Front.
4
mobilisation of people in the rural areas and a dramatic reversal of previous policies, driven
by what can be interpreted as both a general economic crisis and a crisis of political
legitimacy for the ruling party. Sachikonye (2002) traces the roots of the economic crisis to
the structural adjustment of the early 1990s, itself a response to a fiscal crisis of the 1980s.
Between 1997 and 2000, major problems arose from the payout of vast amounts of
compensation to the war veterans’ movement in 1997, which precipitated a major budgetary
shortfall and a dramatic decline in the currency, compounded by expensive military
intervention in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. By 2001, the economy was shrinking
dramatically, hyper-inflation has set in, and public-sector debt, both foreign and domestic,
was spiralling out of control.
The economic crisis intensified a growing social crisis, characterised by mass
unemployment, dramatic increases in poverty and inequality, and widespread food shortages
(Moyo 2001). The drought of 2001-2002, the third since Zimbabwe’s independence,
exacerbated these problems, with recurring crop failures, dangerously low strategic grain
reserves and a regime seemingly incapable of implementing effective relief efforts.
The economic crisis confronting Zimbabwe can be seen as both a cause and an effect of its
political crisis. Deteriorating socio-economic conditions led to a growing discontent with
the ZANU-PF government, fuelled by a widespread perception of an authoritarian elite that
was consumed with furthering its private interests and clinging to power at all costs. This
authoritarianism was manifested in increasing intolerance of political opponents and
independent institutions of civil society (notably the press and trade unions), disregard for
the rule of law, and escalating state violence. The intensification of political struggle in
Zimbabwe led to a series of general strikes around both economic and political grievances in
1997 and 1998 and the emergence of the first credible opposition to ZANU-PF in nearly 20
years, in the form of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). The opposition led
mass mobilisation against the government’s proposed changes to the Constitution, leading
to a government defeat in the constitutional referendum of February 2000 and the near
defeat of ZANU-PF in the parliamentary elections of June 2001 and the presidential
elections of 2002.
5
From around 1999, groups of landless people, the unemployed and others, led by veterans
of the liberation war, began occupying commercial farms throughout the country, often with
considerable violence towards owners and farm workers (Alexander and McGregor 2001).
In the run up to, and during, the trio of ballots from February 2000 to March 2002, ZANUPF clearly endorsed the lead shown by the war veterans on land occupations, and elevated
what started as a form of direction action by the politically marginalised into a central
element of state policy. In the process, the war veterans were transformed into the vanguard
of ZANU-PF electoral manipulation, contributing their considerable weight to a vicious
crackdown on political opponents, real or imagined, throughout much of the rural areas,
and extending into the urban townships (Sachikonye 2002). In July 2001, with popular
support for the ruling party at a historic low, the government took the dramatic step of
announcing the ‘fast track’ acquisition of 3,041 farms, through expropriation, within three
months, unleashing a new round of occupations and confrontations with farm owners and
workers.
The scale of properties designated for expropriation, and those actually occupied by new
settlers, was vast, going far beyond what had been achieved since independence. Official
policy aimed to redistribute 9.2 million hectares from the commercial farming sector (or
approximately 80% of the land in this sector) to 160,000 poor beneficiaries and 51,000
small to medium-scale indigenous commercial farmers. According to official records, by
January 2002 a total of 7.3 million hectares on 3,074 farms had been approved by the
Ministry of Land, Agriculture and Rural Resettlement and 114,830 households had already
been resettled on 4.37 million hectares (International Crisis Group 2004). More recent
estimates suggest that of 4,500 white-owned farmers in 2000, up to 2,600 farms (or 5
million hectares) have been redistributed in relatively small units – typically 50 hectare plots,
benefiting up to 100,000 households. Slightly less – an estimated 2,200 farms or 4.9 million
hectares – has been reallocated in much larger units – the so-called A2 schemes - to elite
elements, including many senior officials and part supporters, who have received upwards of
500ha per settler (International Crisis Group 2004). Both small and large scale farmers
resettled on former white-owned farms have, however, struggled to make productive use of
their new land in the face of a general collapse of the formal economy (Chaumba, Scoones
6
and Wolmer 2003). While some farm workers have been incorporated into new settlements,
tens of thousands (possibly hundreds of thousands) have lost their jobs and often their
homes and
many more have to face an uncertain future in the communal areas and
townships (Rutherford 2001).
Recent events in Zimbabwe have brought about a dramatic change in the distribution of land
and raise the prospect of radical change in other countries in the region. While these events
have undoubtedly been fuelled by long-term grievances around inequality in landholding
(the ‘unfinished business’ of the colonial era), it is important to emphasise they have been
greatly influenced by the severe economic and political crisis in the country. A collapse of
economic activity, combined with growing rural poverty, has led to renewed reliance on
land for purposes of survival. Simultaneously, the ruling party, faced with a crisis of political
legitimacy and the prospect of its first electoral defeat, threw its weight behind factions such
as the war veterans who were pushing for more radical action on the land question.
While fast-track reform has succeeded in redistributing the vast majority of white-owned
land, the implications for the wider economy and society, at least in the shorter term, have
been disastrous. The dismantling of large commercial farms has led to a collapse in
production of both food and export crops, while hyper-inflation and shortages of fuel and
other resources have meant that newly resettled farmers have been unable to obtain the
seed, fertiliser and machinery they require to restart production. The lawlessness and
violence associated with land seizures has also contributed greatly to the increasing
authoritarianism of the ZANU-PF regime and consolidated their hold on state power, at
least in the short to medium term. It is not clear what the future holds for the new farmers,
or whether the new land allocation will survive beyond the life of the current regime. There
can be little doubt, however, that recent events have released enormous popular energy
around the land question and fundamentally changed the colonial pattern of landholding, a
change that any new government may find it impossible to reverse.
3.
South Africa: the limitations of market-based reform
The land question in South Africa has many features in common with other countries in the
7
region, but also a number that make it quite exceptional. The extent of land dispossession by
European settlers was greater than any other country in Africa and persisted for an
exceptionally long period.
At the end of apartheid, approximately 82 million hectares of commercial farmland (86% of
all farmland, or 68% of the total surface area) was in the hands of the white minority, and
concentrated in the hands of approximately 60,000 owners. Over thirteen million black
people, the majority of them poverty-stricken, remained crowded into the former homelands
(or Bantustans), where rights to land were generally unclear or contested and the system of
land administration was in disarray. These areas were characterised by extremely low
incomes and high rates of infant mortality, malnutrition and illiteracy relative to the rest of
the country (Wilson and Ramphele 1989). On private farms, millions of workers, former
workers and their families faced severe tenure insecurity and lack of basic facilities. Despite
the coming of democracy, South Africa continues to have one of the most unequal
distributions of income in the world, and income and material quality of life are strongly
correlated with race, location and gender (May 2000; Bhorat and Kanbur 2006).
The commercial agriculture sector in South Africa is highly developed and generates
substantial employment and export earnings. Agriculture's share of GDP declined from
about 20 percent in the 1930s to about 3% by 2002, but still accounts for 30% of
employment and 8% of total exports (Vink and Kirsten 2003). While close to half of the
African population continue to reside in rural areas, most are only engaged in agriculture on
a very small scale, and depend on non-agricultural activities, including migration to cities,
for their survival.
Since 1994, South Africa has embarked on a land reform programme designed to redress
the racial imbalance in land holding and secure the land rights of historically disadvantaged
people through three main programmes:
•
Restitution, which provides relief for certain categories of victims of forced
dispossession;
8
•
Redistribution, based on a system of discretionary grants that assists certain categories
of people to acquire land through the market; and
•
Tenure reform, intended to secure and extend the tenure rights of the victims of past
discriminatory practices.
The 1996 Constitution places a clear responsibility on the state to carry out land and related
reforms, and grant specific rights to victims of past discrimination. It also allows for
expropriation of property for a public purpose or in the public interest, which explicitly
includes land reform, subject to ‘just and equitable’ compensation for owners. Performance
across all aspect of the land reform programme to date, however, has fallen far short of the
vision contained in the Constitution. At the centre of land policy lies the concept of ‘willing
seller, willing buyer’, South Africa’s answer to the market-based land reforms being
promoted by the World Bank worldwide (Borras 2003; Lahiff 2007). Would-be beneficiaries
may apply for a mix of grants and loans that will enable them to negotiate with landowners
for purchase of land at market prices. This approach was not dictated by the South African
Constitution – which allows for acquisition of land by the state at below market value - but
was rather a policy choice, in line with the wider neo-liberal (and investor-friendly) macroeconomic strategy adopted by the ANC in 1996 (Hall, Jacobs and Lahiff 2003). The results
have been extremely slow delivery of land (less than 4% of white-owned land transferred to
date), exclusion of the genuinely poor and landless in favour of better-off (‘commercially
viable’) individuals, and a general failure to provide post-settlement support to new farmers
(Zimmerman 2000; Hall 2004).
Most redistribution projects to date have involved groups of people applying for grants in
order to buy formerly white-owned farms for commercial agricultural purposes. Less
commonly, groups of farm workers have used the grant to purchase shares in existing
farming enterprises. Municipalities have also been assisted to purchase land to be made
available for poor members of the community for grazing and cultivation. State land under
the control of national and provincial departments of agriculture has also been made
available for purchase.
9
The prevalence of group projects (i.e. collective farming) has been largely due to the small
size of the available grant, relative to the size and cost of the typical agricultural holding,
and the refusal of state officials to permit the break-up of large farms (Lahiff and Cousins
2005). Since 2001, however, there has been a move towards smaller groups, including
extended family groups, due to the increased availability of finance in the form of both
grants and credit. In addition, the removal of the income ceiling for grants has facilitated the
entrance of black business people into the redistribution programme, who are able to engage
more effectively with officials and landowners in order to design projects and obtain parcels
of land that match their needs.
Land reform in South Africa has suffered from two major problems to date: slow delivery of
land, and limited benefits for participants in terms of sustainable livelihoods. A total of 3.3
million hectares of land has been transferred by 2006, benefiting an estimated 1.2 million
people (Department of Land Affairs, 2006). Of this, the greatest proportion was delivered
by the redistribution programme (1.5 million ha, or 45% of the total), followed by
restitution (1 million ha, or 30%), disposal of state land (0.8 million ha, or 24%) and tenure
reform (0.1 million ha, or 3%). While these figures represent substantial progress, they fall
far short of the national target which aims to deliver 30% of agricultural land in the period
1994-2014: across all areas of land reform, land delivered to date amounts to only oneeighth of the target. While the government speaks of accelerating its programme in the
coming years, it is difficult to see how this can happen under the current market-based
approach (Lahiff 2007). Demands from civil society organisations for a more interventionist
strategy to acquire large areas of land at below market prices have at times received
rhetorical support from politicians, but have yet to be translated into policy.
Overall, it may be said that despite some successes, the South African land reform
programme has not lived up to its multiple objectives of transforming land-holding,
combating poverty and developing the rural economy. The policies adopted by government
have left the structure of the rural economy largely intact while liberalisation of agricultural
markets and cuts in agricultural support services have contributed to a climate that is hostile
to emerging, resource-poor farmers. Most restitution claimants have ended up with cash
10
compensation, rather than the return of their land, while millions of people residing in the
communal areas and on commercial farms face continuing tenure insecurity. If land reform
is to meet its wider objectives, new ways will have to be found to transfer land on a
substantial scale, and to provide the necessary support services to a much wider class of
land owners.
4.
Conclusion: The future of agrarian reform in southern Africa
The European colonisation of southern Africa dispossessed indigenous people of much of their
land and created a dualistic agrarian economy. Post-independence experience across the region
has shown the difficulties inherent in overcoming structural inequalities, especially where a
racial minority of settler origin continues to hold much of the best land. Early experience in
post-independence Zimbabwe demonstrated that resettled African farmers could achieve
significant improvements in productivity and livelihoods, but required substantial assistance
from the state in both the acquisition of land and the provision of infrastructure and services,
including marketing support. The economic structural adjustment programme of the 1990s
effectively put paid to these efforts, leaving the racial inequality in landholding unresolved until
the convergent political and economic crises of 1999-2001 revived interest among both an
impoverished rural population looking to land as a means of survival and an embattled ruling
party increasingly disposed towards radical actions.
The lessons for countries such as South Africa and Namibia, where white minorities continue
to hold sizable areas of land, and those such as Mozambique and Zambia, which retain much of
the dualistic structure bequeathed by colonialism, are obvious. In the absence of significant
growth in employment in the urban-industrial sectors, much of the population will continue to
look to the land for subsistence, but deregulated markets and a reduced role for the state in the
economy makes it difficult for smallholders to secure a livelihood from agriculture. In the event
of a major economic downturn – as was experienced in Zimbabwe in the 1990s – governments
will come under increasing pressure to break with the neoliberal consensus and intervene more
directly in the economy. How these tensions will be resolved, and the particular direction that
policy will take, will depend on numerous factors, among them the depth of the economic
crisis, the balance of political forces within the country and the underlying ideological
11
disposition of the ruling party.
In South Africa today, the balance of political and economic forces remains strongly in favour
of the free market and further integration into global markets, albeit tempered by policies of
affirmative action (black economic empowerment) that are gradually deracialising the
economic elite and the middle classes (Lahiff and Cousins 2001). Little or no progress is being
made, however, in reducing income inequality or the rate of absolute poverty (Bhorat and
Kanbur 2006). Among the beneficiaries of these market-friendly policies are – somewhat
ironically – the large white landowners who, with some exceptions, have reoriented and even
expanded activity to take full advantage of opportunities domestically, on the continent and
globally. It is now clear that market-led land reform poses no threat to the established agrarian
structure or to the interests of white owners. Those wishing to sell land have an expanded pool
of potential buyers, while those who do not are offered the full protection of the law. Popular
demands for radical redistribution of property have been resisted by the ANC government or
appeased with token restitution of forests, national parks and the odd commercial farm,
purchased at full market value. Black farm workers and tenants continue to face eviction, at
rates higher than under the final decade of apartheid, with minimal protection from the police
or courts. Those who manage to gain access to land commonly find themselves without the
resources or support services necessary to use it productively, leading to minimal impacts on
welfare or employment.
Lack of progress on the land question has not, however, impinged significantly on the
popularity of the African National Congress (ANC), which has twice been returned to
government with increased support, much of it from the rural poor and landless. This political
dominance means that, at least for the foreseeable future, the party is unlikely to be swayed
from its current policy trajectory. The gross inequality in landholding inherited from apartheid
is thus likely to remain a feature of South Africa for some considerable time to come, and its
resolution deferred to some unknown date when economic and political circumstances may be
quite different to what they are today.
Overall, we can say that neither Zimbabwe nor South Africa has yet found a workable solution
12
to its particular post-colonial agrarian question. Yet few would deny that agrarian reform is
necessary and, based on experience elsewhere in the world, could bring multiple benefits in
terms of improved welfare for the beneficiaries and sustainable growth for the wider economy.
For Bernstein (2003), however, the question confronting the region (and much of the
developing world) is no longer the ‘classic’ agrarian question of the transition to capitalism
which, he argues, has been effectively resolved on a global scale. Rather, what remains is the
‘agrarian question of labour’ – the future of millions of peasants dispossessed of their means of
livelihood by force or the ‘dull compulsion’ of economic forces. Countries across the global
South, from India to Brazil, have shown the capacity to sustain high levels of marginalisation
and a large class of the dispossessed for an indefinite period without resolution. Unlike other
regions of the world, however, southern Africa retains a highly visible – and politically
marginalised – landowning class which presents an easy target in times of political or economic
instability. With the benefit of hindsight, one might conclude that had Zimbabwe dealt
decisively (or been allowed to deal with) its agrarian question early in its transition to
independence the outcome might have been quite different. For South Africa, there now exists
the political stability and economic strength necessary to tackle its agrarian question in a way
that can address historical injustices, redistribute wealth and create a more sustainable basis for
social and political development. This will, however, require moving beyond the current
reliance on market-based solutions and accepting a more interventionist role for the state.
Failure to do so will merely defer the resolution of the agrarian question to a future generation.
13
5.
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Author Information
Dr Edward Lahiff holds a B.A. from the National University of Ireland, a Masters in
Development Studies from the University of Manchester and a PhD in Development Studies from
the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. He is currently Senior Lecturer
at the Programme for Land and Agrarian Studies at the University of the Western Cape, South
Africa. His research interests include agrarian reform, rural livelihoods and rural social
movements. Dr Lahiff has published widely on land matters and rural development in southern
Africa, including An Apartheid Oasis? Agriculture and Rural Livelihoods in Venda (Frank Cass,
2000).
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