The Agribusiness Model in South African Land Reform? Land Use Implications for the Land Reform Beneficiaries

Abstract

The land reform programme of the South African government aims, among other things, at generating large-scale employment, increasing rural incomes and combatting poverty. However, the programme equally enforces an agribusiness model that promotes large-scale production through failure to subdivide the large farms, and encouraging the beneficiaries to use the land in the manner that the former white landowners did. The article demonstrates the unsuitability of large-scale production for the land reform beneficiaries, given its unsustainable production costs. On the contrary, the limited costs associated with the small-scale model allow the beneficiaries, including those relying on off-farm income, to produce with better effect.