Abstract
Land reform has traditionally had two objectives: equity and productivity. Food insecurity and the need for agriculture to contribute to development emphasise the need to maintain and improve productivity while improving equitability. Land must foster production and agriculture must attract good human material. The following areas need to be considered in policy formulation and delivery: an effective institutional framework involving all the relevant public and private bodies; efficient fiscal planning is essential; potentially successful farmers must be selected and given special support, including extension and adult education; complementary services and infrastructure are needed; prioritisation of functions and land tenure reform is often necessary. In addition, international agricultural markets are very important for Africa. Wealthy nations should cease trade-distorting protection of their own farmers.
Highlights
Successful land reform has certainly been one of the largest challenges in agricultural development practically all over the Third World in Africa, Asia, Central and Southern America and Eastern Europe, agriculture has been plagued with problems such as uneven access to land resources, severe rural poverty, unproductive use of land and resources and social, economic and political inequality
A need exists to determine the costs for government of all actions to be taken in a land reform programme, including the additional demands on the fiscus stemming from these actions, including private firms contracted to execute some actions
For example, been reported in the press that land reform was seriously retarded in the Western Cape Province of South Africa because in 2003 funds for acquiring land had been depleted during the first half of the fiscal year
Summary
Successful land reform has certainly been one of the largest challenges in agricultural development practically all over the Third World in Africa, Asia, Central and Southern America and Eastern Europe, agriculture has been plagued with problems such as uneven access to land resources, severe rural poverty, unproductive use of land and resources and social, economic and political inequality. Land issues have in most parts contributed to the lack of progress. In some parts of Africa, ethnic issues have been important contributors to social, political and economic unrest, including those impacting on the use, distribution and productivity of land resources. South Africa and Namibia are certainly two prominent examples. This short paper will largely concentrate on South Africa, but most of the principles could apply elsewhere in Africa
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