Abstract
Since the beginning of South Africa’s land reform programme in 1994, much concern has been expressed about the uneven performance of newly settled farmers, which has typically been explained by weak ‘post-settlement support’. In 2009, the government launched the Recapitalisation and Development Programme (RADP) in order to assist farms that have received little or no support, especially land reform farms. One salient aspect of the RADP is that it links recipient farmers with strategic partners or mentors, often as a condition of receiving financial support. Qualitative research was conducted in the form of seven in-depth case studies of RADP-supported land reform projects, together with interviews with four RADP mentors and three government officials. Some of the challenges in the farms before RADP funding was received included little or no income, high mortality rate of livestock, and lack of skills. The study revealed that the RADP mentorship remains a vital practice to be considered in capacitating land reform beneficiaries. It is recommended that funds should be made available for mentors to have an agreement of at least three to five years in a single project. Keywords: Land Reform, Mentors, Recapitalisation
Highlights
Land dispossession during the colonial era and the decades of apartheid rule produced a highly unequal pattern of land ownership and widespread rural poverty in South Africa (Jacobs, Lahiff & Hall, 2003)
In 1994, under the new government led by the African National Congress (ANC), South Africa embarked on an ambitious land reform programme with two broad objectives in mind, namely restorative justice and economic empowerment
Even though there were challenges, they acknowledged the assistance from Recapitalisation and Development Programme (RADP) which allowed them to resuscitate their agricultural operations
Summary
Land dispossession during the colonial era and the decades of apartheid rule produced a highly unequal pattern of land ownership and widespread rural poverty in South Africa (Jacobs, Lahiff & Hall, 2003). In 1994, under the new government led by the African National Congress (ANC), South Africa embarked on an ambitious land reform programme with two broad objectives in mind, namely restorative justice and economic empowerment. Even though government has transferred (or otherwise made available) approximately 10% of commercial farmland to black people, and spent almost R100 billion (at constant 2016 prices) in doing so, it is widely acknowledged that land reform has accomplished neither, as emphasised by the former President Jacob Zuma in the 2017 State of the Nation Address (SONA, 2017). According to the land audit by AgriSA, from 1994 to 2016 the available agricultural land had decreased by 4%, from 97 million hectares to 93.3 million hectares.
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