The lost and forgotten cornerstones: A rural development model

Abstract

Postcolonial South Africa has the world’s widest gap between the poor and the rich, and this gap continues unabated as the prices of commodities go unchecked. Chronic poverty is exacerbated by the unavailability of accessible quality education and training, relevant development and self sustaining skills, appropriate less cumbersome government support, and practical government poverty elevation schemes. The apartheid era had no development strategy for the poor third class black citizens who were relegated to survive with the most mediocre of resources. The colonial era left indelible wealth structures defined by race thereby pre-destining black people to perpetual poverty. Whilst it is understood that the effects of white land seizures had a devastating impact on the black population in general, the focus of this paper is on the marginalised rural folk who comprises 51% plus of the national population. These rural poor are exclusively black, and they have not known anything better than poverty from their ancestry. The type of farming practising on these tribal trust lands is of the lowest form of peasantry, with no income generation from the farming activities. To say the least, they live from hand to mouth with subsistence support from either the government or relatives working in towns. The author posits that academic papers and government wish lists do not reduce poverty, but practical and visionary leadership using ‘projectification’ is the pre-requisite to changing the poverty-demographics of South Africa. A model is developed based on their possession of the most valuable development asset basic to the survival of the human race, the land. The land bank wastes millions buying large farms that become defunct in no time, but leave the cheapest yet most sustainable means of production untapped. A deliberate conglomeration of government, land, land bank and NGOs using ‘projectification’ of rural development can turn around the rural economy. Key words: Poverty, population, ‘projectification’, apartheid and colonia, era rural economy.