Livelihoods after land reform in Limpopo Province: What have we learned about ‘delivery systems’?

M. Aliber, T. Maluleke, T. Manenzhe, G. Paradza and B. Cousins

Workshop on Redressing the Legacy of the Natives Land Act

7-8 June 2013, Parliament, Cape Town

Study overview

Research questions•What are the implications of land reform for livelihoods and poverty reduction?•How can these implications be understood in relation to the different ways land reform is implemented?•What can we learn about better ways of designing and implementing land reform?

…Study overview

Main research activities•Historical overview – esp literature and agric stats•Project census – Capricorn and Vhembe Districts •In-depth project case studies (13)•‘Locality studies’ (2)

Redistribution – ‘SLAG’ 1 Makhamotse 2 Fanang Diatla 3 Marobala Chicken 4 MmatshehlaRedistribution – ‘LRAD’ 5 Springkaan 6 Sadiki Cattle 7 Karishume 8 Goedgedacht EstateRestitution 9 Munzhedzi 10 Mavungeni 11 Manavhela 12 Levubu cluster 13 Morebene

Main findings re impact of land reform on livelihoods

• Projects often collapse• But many do not (about half), and some recover

(interesting lessons for Recap?)• People derive diverse benefits– Residential, especially if good location– Subsistence production– Commercial production– Freedom, eg to ‘be own boss’

• However, to the extent the poor benefit, it is generally by deviating from ‘the plan’

• Why? Because of our ‘delivery systems’

‘Delivery systems’

• SLAG, LRAD, PLAS, restitution – are programmes which operate according to de facto ‘delivery systems’:– Official elements = grant structure, eligibility

criteria, application procedures, etc., which…– Interact with reality, often in powerful but

unpredictable ways; common practice emerges– Helps explain who is involved, and whether and

how they benefit

…‘Delivery systems’Example 1 – SLAG•‘SLAG’ = Settlement / Land Acquisition Grant (1995-2000)•Official elements:

– Demand-led process (sort of)– R16 000 grant per HH– Only low-income HHs eligible– Original aim: assist HHs establish farming homesteads

•Combined with…:– Planning bias towards large-scale commercial farming (‘LSCF’);

thus no subdivision – intention to continue with previous owner’s land use & production system

– Asymmetric info – esp between land owners and prospective beneficiaries

…‘Delivery systems’• Outcome?– Seller-driven projects in which owners used

redistribution as means of off-loading land, identifying own farmworkers as initial beneficiaries, who in turn recruited additional beneficiaries from villages

– Unmanageable, over-crowded & confused; projects only survived by means of major adjustments – especially ‘member shedding’ and flexible labour practices

• But note: built-in bias ‘in favour’ of farmworkers and communal area dwellers

Example 2 – LRAD•‘LRAD’ = Land Redistribution for Agric Dev’t (2001-2008)•Official elements:– Demand-led process (genuinely)– R16 000-R100 000 grant per adult– No ‘poverty criterion’ (rather more grant for those with

more own contribution); aiming for broad constituency

•Combined with…:– Bias towards LSCF (even more so than w/ SLAG)– Asymmetric info – esp between poor and non-poor

prospective beneficiaries

…‘Delivery systems’

…‘Delivery systems’

• Outcome?– Elite capture– About half of projects survived first few years;

among those that did, evidence of intensification / diversification, and needing less dramatic adjustments than with SLAG

– Virtually no poverty reduction

• And note: farmworkers and communal area dwellers rarely featured as beneficiaries; beneficiaries typically city-based

…‘Delivery systems’

PLAS?•We did not study PLAS, but it seems to have many of the features of LRAD, if not more so– 2009/10 thru 2011/12, about 830 HHs benefitted

per year, at a cost of R1.7 million each

Underlying theme? – ‘Viability’

• Idea: if implementers adhere to principle of viability – understood esp as enough land to practice modern agriculture – projects more likely to work

• By definition, benchmark for viability = LSCF sector; thus emphasis on maintaining previous owner’s production system

• Overheard at DRDLR:– ‘I’m not a fan of subdivision’

– ‘[If we subdivide this farm] it won’t be economically viable’

…‘Viability’• Story of replacing SLAG with LRAD, and then LRAD with

PLAS, is largely about the search for viability – by trying to adopt the LSCF model more and more closely

• Consequence? Despite significant expenditures, redistribution has become less and less relevant for poverty reduction– Very few redistribution beneficiaries per year– Not oriented towards poor, nor towards labour-intensive

agriculture – Concept of ‘agrarian transformation’ under threat– Beneficiaries must adapt to government’s preferred land use,

rather than adapting land use to the needs and abilities of beneficiaries

So what’s the point?

• SLAG was phased out long ago; LRAD was also phased out

• But wrt poverty reduction, at least SLAG was trying – large numbers of beneficiaries, and in sync with predominant land demand….

• Question to which we must return is: how do we make land reform relevant to poverty reduction? Or, how do we correct the delivery system of SLAG so that the results are better?

A pro-poor delivery system for redistribution?

1. Requires a pro-active land acquisition aspect like PLAS, but informed by understanding of local land demand/needs– Must ensure that the poor are not disadvantaged by

lack of info– Must work with groups, but not assume that people

can coordinate themselves

2. Need to challenge the ‘LSCF belief system’; rather recognise diverse needs, and different ways of benefitting from land reform

…A pro-poor delivery system?

3. Must root land reform in understanding of local area, including local black farming practices

Conclusion• Land reform has lost its way regarding poverty

reduction, and by the same token, in respect of agrarian reform

• This is most obvious regarding redistribution, which is inherently quite flexible

• Fear of experimenting, related to fear of deviating from LSCF model

• Need to develop new delivery systems that take poverty seriously, while avoiding pitfalls of earlier approaches.

Thank you