Backgrounder-Land and Agrarian Reform in South Africa
January 21, 2003
In South Africa, land is presently not only one of the most defining political and development issues, but also perhaps the most intractable. The continuing racial maldistribution of land will either be resolved through a fundamental restructuring of the government's land reform programme, or it will be resolved by a fundamental restructuring of property relations by the people themselves. Which direction the country follows depends to a large degree on the urgent and immediate responsiveness of the government to the needs and demands of the country's 19-million mostly poor, black and landless rural people.
1.
Introduction
In
South Africa, land is presently not only one of the most defining
political and development issues, but also perhaps the most
intractable. The continuing racial maldistribution of land will
either be resolved through a fundamental restructuring of the
government's land reform programme, or it will be resolved by a
fundamental restructuring of property relations by the people
themselves. Which direction the country follows depends to a large
degree on the urgent and immediate responsiveness of the government
to the needs and demands of the country's 19-million mostly poor,
black and landless rural people.
The
past few years have given some disturbing indications of the
government's intentions in this regard, from the narrowing of the
redistribution programme – the main vehicle for reversing the
racially-skewed landscape inherited from apartheid – to
targeting the creation of a small African commercial farmer elite
instead of the large population of poor landless Africans, to the
laissez-faire attitude towards the growing demands of landless
people and their civil society allies for a Land Summit to address
the country's land crisis.
Not
only is land reform critical in terms of providing historical redress
for centuries of settler dispossession, but also to resolving the
national democratic revolution in South Africa. This is so, because
it is through land reform that social and economic relations
(embodied in property relations) in rural areas are to be
transformed. This is central to the national democratic struggle to
transform the colonial class formation in South Africa that combines
capitalist development with national oppression.
2.
Historical Basis for Land Reforms in South Africa
Relocation
and segregation of blacks from whites started as early as 1658, when
the Khoi were informed that they could no longer dwell to the west of
the Salt and Liesbeck rivers, and in the 1800's, when the first
reserves were proclaimed by the British and the Boer governments
(Human Awareness Programme 1989).
The
Native Land Act was also passed in 1913. This Act restricted the
area of land for lawful African occupation, and stripped African cash
tenants and sharecroppers of their land and consequently replaced
sharecropping and rent-tenant contracts with labour tenancy. The
Native Land Act resulted in only 10% of the land reserved for
blacks. In 1923, a principle of separate residential areas in
urban locations was established, and the Group Areas Act of 1950
extended this principle. In an attempt to deal with problems of
forcing more people to live on small areas of land, betterment
planning was introduced. This included cattle-culling, fencing off of
fields and grazing land from residential areas, and the moving of
people into villages set away from farming areas.
In
1936, the Development Trust and Land Act was passed. This
Act allocated already promised land to the reserves. Squatting was
also made illegal. In 1937, the Natives Laws Amendment Act was
also enacted to prohibit Africans from buying land in urban areas.
Furthermore, the Group Areas Act was promulgated in 1950. This
Act racially segregated areas with respect to residence and business,
and controlled interracial property actions. In a further attempt to
ensure separate and unequal development, the Bantu Authorities Act
was passed in 1951. This Act allowed the establishment of tribal,
regional and territorial authorities. Also, to ensure complete
illegality of squatting, the Prevention of Illegal Squatting Act
was passed in 1951. This Act allowed the government to establish
resettlement camps for surplus people evicted from white farms.
The
Blacks Resettlement Act was also passed in 1954 to give the
state the authority to remove Africans from any area in the
magisterial district of Johannesburg and adjacent areas. The
Promotion of Bantu Self-Government Act was also enacted in
1959, to establish the Bantustans and make the reserves the political
homeland of black South Africans. In the early 1960's, the first
relocation camps were established. This was an attempt to remove
displaced labour tenants, unwanted farm workers and unemployed urban
people. In 1964, the Black Laws Amendment Act was enacted.
This, alongside the Native Trust Act, was used to finally
abolish labour tenancy and squatting on farms.
The
Land Acts and other related land laws -- settlement planning, forced
removals and the Bantustan system -- contributed to overcrowding in
the former homelands. It is estimated that more than 3.5 million
Africans were forcibly removed and relocated to the homelands and
black townships between 1960 and 1980 (Human Awareness Programme,
1989). As a result, the population in black areas increased
drastically. For example, the population in QwaQwa increased by 4900%
between 1970 and 1983 from 25,334 to 500,000 (Indicator SA, 1989).
Whereas the population density for the homelands averaged 151 people
per sq. km., the population density for the rest of South Africa was
only 19 people per sq. km. In QwaQwa, population density was as high
as 500 people per sq. km.
Furthermore,
88% of all whites compared to 39% of black South Africans lived in
urban areas in the 1980. It was also estimated that in 1985, whites
had a housing surplus of 37,000 units. On the other hand, black South
Africans in urban areas and homelands had a backlog of at least
342,000 units and 281,269 units respectively (Human Awareness
Programme, 1989).
This
historical summary indicates the extent of inequality in resource
allocation in South Africa. However, the state began to acknowledge
that black people should have permanent land rights in urban areas,
and thus introduced the 99-year leasehold system in 1978, and
abolished the Influx Control Act in mid-1980 (Department of
Land Affairs, 1997). This however, did not affect land rights in
rural areas where the status quo remained. There is therefore
no doubt of the need for redistribution of resources and hence
wealth.
The
land dispossession of the black population in South Africa was driven
by the need to reduce competition to white farmers and to create a
pool of cheap labour to work on the farms and mines and, later
industry. The pattern of land ownership and control also
fundamentally structured the social mechanism of control over black
workers and the population surplus to the needs of the capitalist
economy. As such, the highly unequal access to land was, and remains,
an integral component of the political economy of South Africa as a
whole. It must be emphasised that any post-apartheid land reform
would be dependent on the extent and character of economic
reconstruction.
3.
Socio-Economic Profile
The
historical dispossessions and segregation in South Africa also
contributed to a serious neglect of human rights and dignity and
acute inequalities in the country. It further led to differentiated
social strata within the country. This section is aimed at providing
an overview of the social and economic conditions prevailing in
different parts of South Africa. It will provide an assessment of the
degree of inequality in the country, and thus also form a
basis for discussing the rationale and appropriateness of the
different approaches to land redistribution.
- 3.1
Population
The
estimated South African population for 1995 was between 41.9 million
and 44.7 million.
It is estimated that the South African population grew by 2.32%
between 1990 and 1995 (South African Institute of Race Relations,
1996). However, the preliminary estimates for 1996 by the Central
Statistical Services (CSS) indicate a decline in total population to
about 38 million.
It has been stated by the Centre for Population Studies at University
of Pretoria, that the country's population is expected to increase to
57.5 million and 70.08 million by 2010 and 2025 respectively (South
African Institute of Race Relations, 1996). CSS estimates also
indicate that about 54% of all South Africans reside in
Kwazulu-Natal, Gauteng and Eastern Cape. Kwazulu-Natal alone
constitutes 21.1% of the total population. Only 1.8% of the
population is in the Northern Cape.
- Population
Density
Increases
in population imply pressure on the available land. The population
density for South Africa almost doubled between 1970 and 1995, from
almost 19 people per km2 in 1970 to 34 people per km2
in 1995. Population density also varies considerably between
provinces. Estimates by CSS indicate that in 1995 five provinces
(Eastern Cape, Mpumalanga, Northern Province, Kwazulu-Natal and
Gauteng) had population densities above the national average. The
population density of Kwazulu-Natal (94.5 people per km2 )
was almost three times that of the national average, whereas that of
Gauteng (374.7 people per km2) was about eleven times that
of the national average. Northern Cape had the lowest population
density of 2 people per km2. This is because, although
Northern Cape constitutes about 30% of the total land area in South
Africa (the largest in area), it accounted for only 1.8% of the
population.
3.3
Population by Race
Out
of the over 41 million people in South Africa in 1995, over 31
million were blacks (CSS, 1995). This represented about 76% of the
population. White South Africans constituted only 13% of the
population. About 57% of all black Africans lived in Kwazulu-Natal,
Eastern Cape and Northern Province. Kwazulu-Natal alone accounted for
almost 23% of the black population with Gauteng accounting for 41% of
white South Africans.
The
distribution of population by race also differs among provinces. In
1995, almost all the people in Northern Province were blacks (97%).
With the exception of Western Cape, blacks dominated in all the
provinces. The 1995 population estimates by CSS indicated that
Western Cape was the only province where there were more whites than
blacks. The whites made up almost 24% of the population in Western
Cape as opposed to 18% blacks.
3.4
Rural Versus Urban Population
In
1995, the Centre for Development Enterprise (CDE) estimated that 48%
of South Africans lived in rural areas. Preliminary estimates for
1996 by the CSS, however, indicated that only 44.6% of the population
was rural. These figures were a slight decline from the 1993 and 1994
estimates, when the rural population accounted for 51.7% of the total
population in each year.
According to CDE estimates, the proportion of the population residing
in rural areas and small towns will decrease to 46.6% in 2011,
whereas the proportion of the population in the urban and
metropolitan areas will increase to 53.4% by 2011 (South African
Institute of Race Relations 1996).
According
to DBSA estimates, Kwazulu-Natal had the highest rural population of
5.6 million people in 1995. Eastern Cape and Northern Province also
had a relatively large rural population of 4.9 million and 4.8
million respectively. Gauteng had the highest metropolitan population
of 7.3 million people. About 83.6% of the people in the Northern
Province lived in rural areas in 1995.
Northwest, Eastern Cape, Kwazulu-Natal and Mpumalanga all had 60% or
more of their population living in rural areas in 1995. Only 3.1% of
the population in Gauteng were considered rural. Most of the people
in the Western Cape were also residing in metropolitan areas (83.5%).
There were no metropolitan areas in the Free State, the Northwest,
the Northern Cape and the Northern Province in 1995 (South African
Institute of Race Relations, 1996).
3.5
Population by Gender
The
I994 population estimates by CSS indicated that women constituted
50.5% of the South African population. The Eastern Cape, Northern
Province and Kwazulu-Natal had more than 50% of the population being
women, at 54.1%, 53.8% and 52.1% respectively. The other six
provinces, Gauteng, Free Sate, Mpumalanga, North-West, Northern Cape
and Western Cape all had more men than women in 1993.
3.6.
Social Indicators
In
a World Bank Report, it was stated that South Africa has one of the
worse records in terms of social indicators among comparable
middle-income developing countries. Nearly 95% of South Africa's poor
are black Africans (South African Labour and Development Research
Unit, 1995). Black South Africans have the highest unemployment rate
in the country. In 1995, the unemployment rate for black South
Africans was 37%, which is nearly seven times the unemployment rate
of 5.5% for whites (CSS, 1996). Africans have the worse unemployment
rate compared to all races in South Africa. Poverty is also strongly
linked to rural areas. Rural areas account for about 75% of South
Africa's poor. Most of the poor are concentrated in the former
homelands and TBVC states. Nearly 63% of South Africa's poor are
residing in the Eastern Cape, Kwazulu-Natal and Northern Province
(SALDRU, 1995).
Unemployment
also varies from province to province. The Eastern Cape and Northern
Province have the highest unemployment rate in the country, both with
rates as high as 41%. KwaZulu-Natal and Mpumalanga have unemployment
rates of 33% each, and the Northern Cape has an unemployment rate of
30%. Western Cape has the lowest unemployment rate of 8% (DLA, 1997).
Poverty
also has a strong relationship to gender and age. The poverty rate of
female-headed households is 50% higher than male-headed households.
Furthermore, whereas the unemployment rate among men is 25%, that of
women is 35% (SALDRU, 1995).
There
is also inequality in income distribution. The average total monthly
wage per household varies from R281/month among the poorest black
African, to R5055/month among the whites (SALDRU, 1995). In 1993, the
per capita income for black South Africans and whites were R2,717 and
R32,076 respectively (South African Institute of Race Relations,
1996). This implies a disparity ratio of 11.8 between blacks and
whites. Income also varies among provinces.
Income
inequality in South Africa is even more striking if you look at the
Gini-coefficient.
The Gini-coefficient of 0.61 is one of the highest among
middle-income countries (SALDRU, 1995). Another inequality measure is
household consumption. The lowest 40% of households, representing 53%
of the population, account for less than 10% of consumption, whereas
the top 10% of households, accounting for only 5-8% of the
population, account for over 40% of consumption (SALDRU, 1995).
These
social differences form a strong basis for redistributing wealth
among South Africans.
The
historical dispossessions and the socio-economic profile discussed
above indicate serious inequalities in incomes and standards of
living in South Africa. The most vulnerable are the rural people and
women. In rural areas, land is considered a major asset and input in
the agrarian system. One cannot start farming without land. Provision
of shelter also requires land. Agriculture continues to be the main
source of income to many agrarian economies and consequently rural
communities in many parts of the world. A reformation of rural
economies to improve standards of living therefore has a strong
relationship to agrarian reform. Land redistribution is a very
important component of agrarian reform and consequently
redistribution of wealth in rural areas. In South Africa, agriculture
currently forms a small share of total incomes of rural Africans.
However, agricultural incomes are higher for those Africans with
access to land than for the whole rural African population (LAPC,
1997). To redistribute income and improve standards of living in
rural areas therefore require access to land.
Furthermore,
the high population growth rates in rural areas have led to a
movement of people from rural areas to informal settlements on the
outskirts of cities. As indicated earlier in this Chapter, the rural
population accounted for 51.7% of the total population in 1994.
However, this is expected to decline to 46.6% by the year 2011. This
has severe socio-economic implications for the country with respect
to overcrowding in urban areas and the associated socio-economic
ills.
Land reform may
therefore mean a lot to rural incomes and seems to be a rational
start to addressing the huge imbalances and inequalities that have
existed for many years. Land reform that can lead to some equality in
land access and use is also critical in ensuring economic growth in
rural areas in particular, and preventing severe social and political
instability in the country.
4. The
Negotiated Roots of South Africa's Land Reform
As early as 1993,
the World Bank, arguably the institution most dedicated to the
protection of private property rights in the world, warned that if
post-apartheid South Africa did not undertake "a major
restructuring of the rural economy centered on significant land
transfers and smaller scale agricultural production units", the
country faced the danger of rural violence, and possibly even civil
war. It was against this backdrop – and amid growing concerns
about the need to inspire the confidence of foreign investors in a
rapidly globalising world economy – that South Africa's
multiparty constitutional negotiators approached the thorny question
of whether and how to reverse the centuries old racial
maldistribution of the country's 122 million hectares of land.
The challenge was
tremendous: On the one hand, the African National Congress
government-in-waiting needed to fulfill its 1955 Freedom Charter
promise to reverse the apartheid landscape which had put 87% of land
in the hands of 60,000 white farmers and the state, while millions of
black people eked out a living in overcrowded conditions on the
remaining 13%. On the other hand, transforming the rural landscape –
and the racially-separated urban settlement patterns – while
ensuring continued food self-sufficiency, creating an
investor-friendly environment, promoting economic growth and
fostering national racial reconciliation presented multiple and
interlinked challenges. The balance of forces at the time of the
negotiations nevertheless ensured that the fledging Constitution that
emerged from the multiparty talks contained a series of exacting
state commitments to the country's landless. These included three
fundamental rights clauses on land reform, as follows ( South African
Constitution, 1996):
Section 25
(5): "The state must take reasonable legislative and other
measures, within its available resources, to foster conditions which
enable citizens to gain access to land on an equitable basis;
Section 25
(6): "A person or community whose tenure of land is legally
insecure as a result of past racially discriminatory laws or
practices is entitled, to the extent provided by an Act of
Parliament, either to tenure which is legally secure or to
comparable redress; and
Section 25
(7): "A person or community disposed of property after 19 June
1913 as result of past racially discriminatory laws or practices is
entitled, to the extent provided by an Act of Parliament, either to
restitution of that property or to equitable redress."
While the
enforceability of Section 25 (5) on land redistribution would be open
to challenges on the basis of an "available resources"
determination, Sections 25 (6 and 7) granted secure legal
entitlements to the intended beneficiaries of the remaining two legs
of the government's land reform programme, namely land restitution
and land tenure reform.
Later policy
documents and statutory laws drafted by the new government, including
the 1994 Reconstruction and Development Programme and the 1997 White
Paper on South African Land Policy, further committed the government
to redistribute 30% of agricultural land and complete the
adjudication process on land restitution claims in the first five
years of South Africa's democracy (1994 –1999), and to a land
reform programme that would address "the injustices of
racially-based land dispossession of the past; the need for land
reform to reduce poverty and contribute to economic growth; security
of tenure for all; and a system of land management which will support
sustainable land use patterns and rapid land release for
development," respectively.
While welcoming
these commitments as an important step forward, the National Land
Committee (NLC) and other progressive land sector stakeholders warned
that other underlying commitments – to market-led, willing
seller-willing buyer, demand-driven land reform – would
hamstring delivery by making land reform too costly for the state,
while failing to effectively identify the poorly-articulated demands
of rural people. The colonial and apartheid states had played a
central role in the creation of the existing grid of white-owned
private property and black property exclusion, and the post-apartheid
state needed to intervene to change this, the NLC and other critics
argued.
5. South Africa's
Land Reform Programme in Broad Outline
The post-apartheid
government regarded land reform as a key initiative to redress
unequal patterns of resource distribution. Land redistribution is
being characterized as poverty policy for rural South Africa
(Zimmerman, 2000). Driven by the Department of Land Affairs (DLA),
the new government has planned and legislated and begun implementing
a complex package of land reform measures. Broadly, the land policy
has three components.
5.1 Land
Restitution
Land restitution is
designed to restore land ownership (or provide compensation) to those
who were dispossessed without adequate compensation by racially
discriminatory practices after 1913 (Department of
Land Affairs, 1997). The institutional machinery to implement
the programme includes provincially-based restitution commissions and
Land Claims Court that acts as final arbiter in restitution cases.
5.2 Land
Redistribution Programme
Land
redistribution is aimed at providing the disadvantaged and the poor
with access to land for residential and productive purposes
(Department of Land Affairs, 1997). It is also designed to deal with
the past injustices of land dispossession discussed above, to ensure
equitable distribution of land ownership and to reduce poverty and
contribute to economic growth. It makes it possible for the poor and
the disadvantaged to purchase land with the help of a Settlement Land
Acquisition Grant
5.3
Approach to Land Redistribution
The
South African government has adopted a market-based approach to
redistribute land. The market-based approach utilizes the forces of
the market to redistribute land and largely based on
willing-buyer-willing-seller principles. There is, however, some
state support. The government is committed to make Land Acquisition
Grants available and is obliged to support and finance the required
planning process. The government also assists individual households
or communities to purchase and own land.
5.4
The Rationale for the Market-Based Approach
The
market-based approach to Land Redistribution has been rationalised on
the basis of efficiency. This rationale is to ensure that efficiency
in the agricultural sector is maintained, so as to be able to
maintain or even improve the current production level of the country
and ensure food self-sufficiency. It is also aimed at maintaining or
improving on investor confidence.
Land
is a scarce resource, subject to competing uses. Such competing uses
include agricultural production, residential development, urban
development, public parks and other amenities. However, the most
important implication of economic analysis for policy-making is that
in a world of scarce resources, trade-offs characterize any policy
decision. Relocation of scarce resources also implies a
redistribution of income and wealth in society. The important problem
facing policy makers is to choose among alternative consumption
bundles and their distributions that could result in different public
policies.
Generally
five economic criteria are used to judge the efficacy of policies and
decisions regarding resource allocation. Four of the criteria relate
to efficiency of the economic system, while the fifth one is for
equity considerations. Thus, land can either be redistributed for
purposes of efficiency or equity. These two terms, efficiency and
equity, are opposing economic terms, which are often confused in many
writings. Both of these cannot always be achieved at the same time,
in any one redistribution.
5.5 Land Tenure
Reform
It is designed to
provide security to all South Africans under diverse forms of locally
appropriate tenure (Department of Land Affairs,
1997). This reform includes an initiative to provide legal
recognition and to formalize communal land rights in rural areas; and
a recently legislated programme to strengthen the rights of tenants
on mainly white-owned farms.
6. Seven Years
On: The Crisis of Failure
As of the end of
2001, less than 2% of land has changed hands from white to black
through the land reform programme; and long-awaited legislation to
improve the tenure security of people living in the former Bantustans
in terms of the state's Section 25 (6) obligations had yet to be
released. Of the 68, 878 land restitution claims received, only
12,678 had been settled, benefiting less than 40 000 predominantly
urban households, more than 40% of which received monetary
compensation instead of land restoration. While monetary compensation
is one form of redress, it is not land reform because it does not
involve the transfer of land rights. The urban bias of restitution
delivery also means this programme has so far done little to
transform rural property relations, with most rural restitution
claims still outstanding.
Land redistribution
transferred less than half a million (480, 400) hectares to 45, 454
households by 31 March, 1999, falling far short of the estimated 25.5
million hectares of agricultural land that quantified the
Reconstruction and Development Programme's 30% goal. The entire
redistribution programme was put on hold shortly after the 1999
elections, pending a lengthy period of internal policy development
marked by a total absence of public consultation. When the Land
Redistribution for Agricultural Development Programme (LRAD) was
finally launched in August 2001, it clearly targeted "full-time
farmers" and required beneficiaries to make a minimum R5,000
(US$500) contribution. The NLC and other rural sector organizations
have argued that this requirement will effectively exclude the poor
rural majority, marking a reversal of the White Paper's pro-poor
commitment.
The slow pace of
land reform can be projected to continue, according to budgetary
trends that consistently allocate about one-third of 1% of national
expenditure to the Department of Land Affairs (DLA). Budget analysts
predict that at current spending patterns, it will take 150 years to
complete the restitution process, and 125 years to complete the
redistribution of 30% of agricultural land to black people. While
these projections clearly support the argument that market-based land
reform will prove too expensive for the state, the consistent failure
of the DLA to spend even its existing budget places it in
constitutional jeopardy in respect of Section 25 (5) which requires
the state to effect land redistribution within its "available
resources."
7.
Beyond rights: Why Land Reform in South Africa?
Despite
the inclusion of fundamental rights to land reform in the South
African Constitution, the state has exhibited a lack of political
will to prioritise the fulfilment of these rights within its
macro-economic strategy. This suggests that there is a need to go
beyond the current rights-based discourse surrounding land reform to
demonstrate the socio-economic import ###
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