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https://theconversation.com/how-white-farmers-still-dominate-land-ownership-in-south-africa-in-spite-of-land-reform-new-research-285507>
"More than 30 years after South Africa achieved democracy it remains one of the
world’s most unequal countries. The democratic transition has not produced the
transfer in wealth and ownership from a white minority to Black majority
population that many had hoped for.
Land is at the centre of the debates about this lack of transfer of wealth.
During apartheid, because of racist laws around land ownership, Black South
Africans could only own land in 13% of the country’s territory even when they
made up 80% of the population.
In 1995, the government set an initial target to redistribute 30% of all
white-owned land to Black farmers under a market-based programme, which ensured
the white farmers could choose whether to sell their land and did so at or
above market value. But only between 12% and 20% of the land has been
redistributed so far.
For the last seven years, I have studied the land reform programme as a
political scientist, merging my knowledge of political, social and economic
forces to better understand why land reform has failed to live up to its
initial goals.
In a recent paper I set out to gain a deeper understanding of how land reform
occurred and under what conditions transfers of land from white to Black
farmers had taken place. To do this, I looked at both sides of the process.
On the one hand, I examined what motivated existing landholders to transfer
land, including economic incentives to keep farms productive and social factors
shaped by the legacy of apartheid and segregation. On the other hand, I looked
at the forces driving demand for land reform, including land claims and
pressure from landless people.
I held in-depth conversations with established white commercial farmers and
Black land reform farmers, asking white farmers why they had sold their farms
for the purposes of land reform, or why they had refrained from doing so. I
then asked Black farmers about their experiences as emerging farmers in South
Africa.
I found that landowners’ decisions were shaped by South Africa’s history of
racial segregation. Some white farmers used land redistribution to create a
buffer between their farms and neighbouring Black communities. Others, in areas
with many Black farmers, used land redistribution to bring Black farmers into
their farming businesses.
My findings show that where land ownership is very unequal, land redistribution
doesn’t always reduce old divides. In some cases, it can actually reinforce
them.
These findings are important because the powerful US government has recently
taken strong action against the South African government, with US president
Donald Trump publicly and wrongly accusing the land reform programme of
persecuting white farmers, expropriating their land and encouraging violence
against them.
Based on this, Trump withdrew all aid from South Africa and opened up an asylum
process for South Africa’s white farmers to come to America as refugees.
But as my research shows, land reform does not unfairly target white farmers.
Instead, white farmers find it to be a useful and profitable tool to resolve
longstanding problems that they face. This shows that the best way to
understand land reform is to look at the evidence rather than the political
debate."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
