Land reform - keeping the promise

On the back of an open truck, a team of men are loading bales of what looks like hay. The 'hay' turns out to be lucerne, a nutritious fodder plant, and the bales are being sold under a new monthly contract to a local farmers' organisation. For the people of Witbank, an isolated community located in the hottest and driest part of South Africa's Northern Cape, this first move into commercial agriculture gives hope for financial independence, prosperity even. In the context of land reform in South Africa, their success is bucking a trend.

When the ANC came to power in 1994, nearly 90 per cent of South Africa's farmland was in the hands of white farmers. True to their campaign promise, the government began an ambitious programme of land reform. Communities who had been removed from land to make way for commercial farming, could apply to be given control of the land again; others had land bought for them with government grants under a 'willing seller, willing buyer' land redistribution scheme. The transferred land became the property not of individuals but of Communal Property Associations or trusts. The intention was that management committees would be able to develop commercial agricultural activities on the land which members of the community could invest in and profit from. But in the nine years since the land reform programme began, experience has demonstrated the difficulty of establishing viable farming businesses by emerging farmers. The community at Witbank is providing some of the answers to this problem.

One reason for their success is undoubtedly that they have had more help than most other recipients of land. They are one of ten groups of land reform beneficiaries in the Northern Cape who are being supported, at the request of the provincial government, by the organisation FARM-Africa. According to Kola Kotze, FARM's Programme Manager at Witbank, while the land reform programme has succeeded in redistributing land, most recipients lack the skills or the finance to take advantage of it. In supporting land reform communities, funding and training have therefore been key. At Witbank, for example, a grant of 100,000 Rand (US$15,700) has been used to establish a revolving fund, or community bank, managed by a committee trained under the project. This is now the central funding point for a number of commercial agricultural activities, planned and run by other groups through a series of sub-committees.

One example has been a livestock bank. In 2002 the committee decided to apply for a loan from the revolving fund in order to buy a flock of Dorper ewes and a small number of rams. Their intention was to build up a 'bank' of animals which community members could make loans from, at a fee, in order to establish their own flocks. Under the expert eye of a 'livestock foreman', employed by the committee, the initial 'capital' of 172 ewes, has grown to over 300. Two hundred of these have recently been loaned to five groups of Witbank residents. The groups pay a deposit and a monthly fee, to cover the costs of feeding and tending the sheep, and must pay back the original number of animals loaned, plus an agreed number of extra animals which constitute the interest on the loan, within two years. While this may sound like a heavy burden, the new owners are not perturbed and have surprised the livestock foreman by showing an eagerness to learn about livestock rearing and rangeland management. In a community where most people have survived by depending largely on state hand-outs - a single state pension is often used to support a whole family - the bank's first round of clients are not content to be passive recipients.

The bales being loaded on the truck are from the first cut of a 25 hectare lucerne crop being grown by another group. Down in the irrigated fields, a tractor driver is busy on the second cut. The tractor and cutting tool he is operating are owned and maintained by another sub-committee, who hire out their services to the community. As Kola Kotze points out, nothing is free in Witbank; if you want to make money you have to be prepared to invest. But in this community, having to work within real-world financial constraints has led to both commitment and involvement, two qualities that will be vital for any community that is going to prosper from the land reform process.