Farm Dwellers Research Articles

Applying the Fit-for-Purpose Land Administration Concept to South Africa

What potential will the fit-for-purpose land administration concept have of working in the Republic of South Africa? This question is asked against the existence of a high-quality cadastre covering most of the South African landmass. However, a large proportion of the people living in South Africa live outside of this secure land tenure system. Many citizens and immigrants reside on communal land, in informal settlements, in resettled communities, in off-register housing schemes, and as farm dwellers, labour tenants and other occupants of commercial farms. Reasonable estimates suggest that there are more than 5 million land occupations that exist outside the formal land tenure system and hence outside the formal land administration system. This paper looks at the current bifurcated system and considers how the application of the fit-for-purpose land administration system can expand the existing cadastral system and provide security of tenure that is beneficial and acceptable to all. It demonstrates that, not only could it work, but it is also considered to be necessary. This paper uses South Africa as a case study to demonstrate how adjustments to institutional, legal and spatial frameworks will develop a fully inclusive, sufficiently accurate land administration system that fits the purpose for which it is envisioned. These country-specific proposals may well be of international interest to assist with the formulation of fit-for-purpose land administration systems being developed in other countries.

Realising the right of access to water for people living on farms: The impact of the KwaZulu-Natal High Court decision in Mshengu v uMsunduzi Local Municipality

SUMMARY Access to water is a constitutionally-protected right in South Africa and an energetic flow of laws, policies and programmes have been initiated to address historical inequalities in the supply of water since the dawn of democracy. Yet despite this, millions of people living in South Africa still have inadequate access to water. Access to water is a particular challenge for people living on farms. By providing an analysis of the case of Mshengu & Others v uMsunduzi Local Municipality & Others, decided by the High Court of South Africa, KwaZulu-Natal Division, Pietermaritzburg, this article seeks to make two key contributions. First, it highlights the challenges experienced by farm dwellers in realising their right to water and locates these challenges within a legal framework which places obligations on both municipalities and private land owners to provide access to water on farms. In particular, the mechanism of water services intermediaries envisaged in the Water Services Act 108 of 1997 is explored as a way to delineate and facilitate the role of private land owners in realising the right to water for farm dwellers. Second, drawing on debates around how the value of public interest litigation can be understood, the article interrogates the value of the litigation in the Mshengu case. Key words: right to water; water services intermediaries; farm workers; labour tenants; public interest litigation

Living on Other People’s Land; Impacts of Farm Conversions to Game Farming on Farm Dwellers’ Abilities to Access Land in the Eastern Cape, South Africa

This contribution analyses the impacts of conversions of commercial – mainly white-owned – farms to wildlife-based production on access to land for farm workers and dwellers in South Africa. They depended on informal arrangements with landowners for access, hence the notions of ‘abilities to access’ and ‘bundles of power’ are more appropriate concepts to analyze their access than bundles of rights. In post-apartheid South Africa, the state attempted to formalize farm dwellers’ land rights, but simultaneously deregulated the agricultural sector, which stimulated land concentration and land investments, and changed social relations on commercial farms. These contradictory interventions impact negatively on farm dwellers’ abilities to access to land on commercial farms. The paper furthermore demonstrates that conversions to wildlife-based production constitute one response by landowners to the changes in the agricultural sector, but also play a role in struggles about identity and belonging in post-apartheid South Africa.

The everyday violence of eviction

abstractIn the first ten years after the transition to democracy in 1994 over one million farmworkers, farm dwellers and labour tenants were displaced and evicted from white commercial farms across South Africa. This briefing focuses on the violence of farm evictions and its impact on farmworker women in South Africa. It views these forced removals as a violent dislocation, uprooting and separation of farm workers and farm dwellers from land and their livelihoods. It contextualises the evictions in terms of commercial farming and the apartheid legacy and identifies the current legislation relating to farm evictions. The ongoing evictions highlights the inadequate nature of these policies. It illustrates the everyday violence these women experience by drawing on interviews, conversations, reports from farmworkers and research as well as the author’s observations as an activist working on farms and with farm workers and farm dwellers mainly in the Western Cape, but also in the Eastern Cape, Free State and Limpopo for the past 10 years.

A Slipping Hold? Farm Dweller Precarity in South Africa’s Changing Agrarian Economy and Climate

The paper investigates whether farm dwellers in the KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) province of South Africa are subject to a “double exposure”: vulnerable both to the impacts of post-apartheid agrarian dynamics and to the risks of climate change. The evidence is drawn from a 2017 survey that was undertaken by the Association for Rural Advancement (AFRA), which is a land rights Non-Governmental Organization (NGO), of 843 farm dweller households. Data on the current living conditions and livelihoods was collected on 15.3% of the farm dweller population in the area. The paper demonstrates that farm dwellers are a fragmented, agricultural precariat subject to push and pull drivers of mobility that leave them with a precarious hold on rural farm dwellings. The key provocation is that we need to be attentive to whether the hold farm dwellers have over land and livelihoods is slipping further as a result of instability in the agrarian economy? This instability arises from agriculture’s arguably maladaptive response to the intersection of structural agrarian change and climate risk in post-apartheid South Africa. While the outcomes will only be apparent in time, the risks are real, and the paper concludes with a call for agrarian policy pathways that are both more adaptive and achieve social justice objectives.

Power and politics in stakeholder engagement: farm dweller (in)visibility and conversions to game farming in South Africa

CITATION: Brandt, F., Josefsson, J. & Spierenburg, M. 2018. Power and politics in stakeholder engagement : farm dweller (in)visibility and conversions to game farming in South Africa. Ecology and Society, 23(3):32, doi:10.5751/ES-10265-230332.

Seroprevalence of Bartonella species, Coxiella burnetii and Toxoplasma gondii among patients with hematological malignancies: A pilot study in Romania

Patients receiving immunosuppressive cancer treatments in settings where there is a high degree of human-animal interaction may be at increased risk for opportunistic zoonotic infections or reactivation of latent infections. We sought to determine the seroprevalence of selected zoonotic pathogens among patients diagnosed with haematologic malignancies and undergoing chemotherapeutic treatments in Romania, where much of the general population lives and/or works in contact with livestock. A convenience sample of 51 patients with haematologic cancer undergoing chemotherapy at a referral clinic in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, was surveyed regarding animal exposures. Blood samples were obtained and tested for evidence of infection with Bartonella species, Coxiella burnetii and Toxoplasma gondii, which are important opportunistic zoonotic agents in immunocompromised individuals. 58.8% of participants reported living or working on a farm, and living or working on a farm was associated with contact with livestock and other animals. 37.5% of participants were IgG seroreactive against one or more of five Bartonella antigens, and seroreactivity was statistically associated with living on farms. Farm dwellers were 3.6 times more likely to test IgG seroreactive to Bartonella antibodies than non-farm dwellers. 47.1% of the participants tested T.gondii IgG positive and 13.7% tested C.burnetii IgG positive, indicating past or latent infection. C.burnetii IgM antibodies were detected in four participants (7.8%), indicating possible recent infection. These results indicate that a large proportion of patients with haematologic cancer in Romania may be at risk for zoonotic infections or for reactivation of latent zoonotic infections, particularly with respect to Bartonella species. Special attention should be paid to cancer patients' exposure to livestock and companion animals in areas where much of the population lives in rural settings.

Childhood asthma, asthma severity indicators, and related conditions along an urban-rural gradient: a cross-sectional study

BackgroundAsthma prevalence is generally lower in rural locations with some indication of an urban-rural gradient. However, among children with asthma, certain rural exposures thought to protect against the development of asthma could aggravate the condition. We examined childhood asthma prevalence and related conditions along an urban-rural gradient and also examined the characteristics of those with asthma along the urban-rural gradient.MethodsIn 2013 we completed a cross-sectional survey of 3509 children aged 5–14 years living in various population densities of Saskatchewan, Canada. Location of dwelling was identified as belonging to one of the following population densities: large urban region (approximately 200,000), small urban (approximately 35,000), or rural (small town of <1,500 or farm dweller). Physician-diagnosed asthma and asthma-related symptoms were ascertained from responses in the parental-completed questionnaires.ResultsOf the study population, 69% lived in a large urban region, 11% lived in a small urban centre and 20% were rural dwellers. Overall, asthma prevalence was 19.6% with differences in asthma prevalence with differences between locations (large urban = 20.7%; small urban = 21.5%; rural = 15.1%; p = 0.003). After adjustment for potential confounders, the association between location of dwelling and asthma remained significant. Despite a lower prevalence of asthma in the rural area, the prevalence and risk of ever wheeze and having more than 3 wheezing episodes in the past 12 months among those who reported asthma, was higher in rural locations after adjustment for potential confounders.ConclusionsThe results of this study support the evidence of a difference in childhood asthma prevalence between urban and rural locations and that once a child has asthma, certain rural exposures may aggravate the disease.

The meaning of compliance with land and labour legislation: understanding justice through farm workers’ experiences in the Eastern Cape

This paper explores the social meanings and uses of formal labour legislation on commercial farms in the Eastern Cape. Farm workers’ and dwellers’ experiences expose ongoing land and labour struggles on South Africa’s commercial farms. We focus on the ways that farm workers resist and negotiate persistent power imbalances, how they access justice, and the role of mediators. The empirical material was generated through long-term research with farm workers and dwellers on farms, including on land-reform farms, in the semi-arid Karoo. In this area, the farming sector is dominated by large sheep, cattle, game and crop farms with relative low labour demands. Historically, authority and notions of justice have been negotiated through personalised relations and interdependencies between black workers and white farmers. New landowners build on existing understandings of authority and power entrenched in private property relations in rural society.

A Longitudinal Assessment Of Asthma And Wheeze Among Rural Dwelling Children

Introduction: There is evidence that farm dwelling children are at lower risk of asthma than urban children. However, longitudinal investigation has been rare in rural populations. The aim of our study was to determine if farm dwelling and farming exposures were associated with incident asthma or wheeze among Grade 1 to 8 students. Methods: We conducted a longitudinal study in a rural region of Canada. Baseline (2011, n=2383) and follow-up (2014, n=859) data was collected using parent completed surveys. Baseline surveys were distributed through the schools while follow-up surveys were distributed using postal methods. Outcomes of interest included report of wheeze or a physician diagnosis of asthma at follow-up. Associations between these outcomes with farm dwelling and farming exposures (e.g. haying, feeding livestock) were examined while adjusting for potential confounders. Longitudinal analyses were conducted with children without a history of asthma or wheeze on the baseline survey (n=612). Results: Mean baseline age was 10.0 years (SD=2.6). Farm dwellers had a lower incidence of asthma (Non-farm: 4.0 per 100/3 years; Farm: 2.1 per 100/3 years) but not wheeze (Non-farm=3.8 per 100/3 years; Farm=4.2 per 100/3 years). Farm dwelling was inversely associated with incident asthma [adjusted Relative Risk (aRR)=0.33; 95% confidence interval (CI)=0.11-0.99; p0.05). Presence of a dog at baseline increased the risk of incident asthma while prior daycare attendance was protective of incident asthma (p

Hospitalized head and spine injuries on Saskatchewan farms.

With over 44,000 individual farms, farm dwellers account for 11% of the population of Saskatchewan. There is limited data on brain and spine injuries acquired on farms. The objective of this study was to evaluate the epidemiology of head and spine injuries on Saskatchewan farms to assist the development of injury prevention initiatives. Using the Canadian Centre for Agricultural Health and Safety's Saskatchewan Farm Injury Surveillance Database, farm-related head and spine injuries hospitalized > 24 hours were examined (1990-2007). We collected information regarding the type and mechanism of injury as well as the geographic location of both the injury and treatment. The database captured 390 brain injuries and 228 spine injuries, including 16 spinal cord injuries. The majority of patients were male (73.3% of head injuries and 84.2% of spine injuries). The highest risk age groups were 50-59 years, with 24.1% of the spine injuries, and 40-49 years, with 19.2% of the head injuries. The most common causes of injury were falls and/or machinery-related. The average annual incidence of farm-related spine and head injury were 10.8 and 17.6 per 100,000 farm population, respectively. All patients included in this study were hospitalized for over 24 hours, with 44.7% of spine injuries spending over one week in hospital, and 20% of head injuries spending over three days in hospital. Injury prevention initiatives should be targeted towards males aged 40-59 years residing in the southern areas of the province, with increased awareness towards the dangers of falls and operating tractors.

Game fences in the Karoo: reconfiguring spatial and social relations

In this article, we discuss how farm conversions to wildlife habitats result in the reconfiguration of spatial and social relations on white-owned commercial farms in the Karoo region of the Eastern Cape in South Africa. Farmers and landowners justify such conversions stressing economic and ecological rationales. We illustrate how conversions are (also) a reaction to post-apartheid land reform and labour legislation policies, which white farmers and landowners perceive as a serious threat. They seek to legitimate their position in society and reassert their place on the land by claiming a new role as nature conservationists. We argue that game farms should be interpreted as economically and politically contested spaces for three reasons: (1) whereas landowners present the farm workers' displacement from game farms as the unintended by-product of a changing rural economy, the creation of ‘pristine’ wilderness seems designed to empty the land of farm dwellers who may lay claim to the land; (2) game farms further disconnect the historically developed links between farm dwellers and farms, denying them a place of residence and a base for multiple livelihood strategies; (3) this way the conversion process deepens farm dwellers' experiences of dispossession and challenges their sense of belonging. Game fences effectively define farm workers and dwellers as people out of place. These dynamics contrast government reform policies aimed at addressing historical injustices and protecting farm dwellers' tenure security.

An anatomy of dispossession: post-apartheid land rights and farm dweller relocation in the context of a private game reserve initiative, northern KwaZulu-Natal

This article is a detailed examination of the impact that the development of a private game reserve initiative in northern KwaZulu-Natal had on the lives of farm dwellers in the late 1990s. The reshaping of this landscape for ecotourism purposes – a decision taken by a group of private landowners – meant that the residents of the former cattle farms were relocated, a process which had serious consequences for them. The outcomes of relocation from the farms are explored through conversations with the relocated farm dwellers. In an attempt to convey the texture of the emotional geography of dispossession, we document both the tangible and the less tangible losses suffered from the farm dwellers' point of view, as well as their experience with the state bureaucracy. The legal and bureaucratic process leading up to the relocation is then retraced through court documents and other archival evidence. At one level, this case raises questions about the capacity of the post-apartheid South African land reform programme to secure the land rights of marginalised groups such as farm dwellers, despite legislation passed to protect them. At a deeper level, this article is about the conceptual inadequacies of the law. While the law finds it easy to render visible and to protect (saleable) private property, it struggles to fully recognise more complex land relationships. The people whose experience is described in this article felt disempowered, their lives effectively invisible. We problematise the continuing primacy of private property in post-apartheid South Africa and argue that the voices of those with other histories on the land should receive more serious attention.

Game farm conversions and the land question: unpacking present contradictions and historical continuities in farm dwellers' tenure insecurity in Cradock

This article addresses farm workers and farm dwellers' tenure insecurity and its relationship with farm conversions in the agricultural district of Cradock, located in the Eastern Cape Karoo. It argues that consequences of farm conversions for farm workers/dwellers' tenure security must be understood within the context of regional land and labour histories. Its main contention with existing positions that ‘blame’ farm conversions for increased evictions and an efflux of workers/dwellers from farms is that there is a correlative rather than causative relationship between farm conversions and farm worker/dweller displacements in the semi-arid areas. It argues that the extreme nature of the historical land question and the continued dominance of a historically white land-owning class in the semi-arid areas render farm workers/dwellers structurally vulnerable to having their residential arrangements on farms terminated at any given moment. Drawing on fieldwork conducted in Cradock between 2009 and 2011, the article shows that game farm conversions tend to perpetuate existing land and power relations on farms as they have prevailed over time. However, it also argues that the distinctiveness of game farm conversions lies in their near ‘irreversibility’ as a land use form which creates more permanently securitised and sealed-off pockets of consolidated land in the countryside. These transformations increase the erosion of farm workers/dwellers' embedded social histories and cultural imprint as a labouring class on the landscape.

Private game farming and its social consequences in post-apartheid South Africa: contestations over wildlife, property and agrarian futures

Spaces of privatised wildlife production, in the form of game farms, private nature reserves and other forms of wildlife-oriented land use, are an increasingly prominent feature of the South African countryside. Whilst there is a well-developed literature on the social impacts of state-run protected areas, the outcomes of privatised wildlife production have thus far received little attention. It is argued here that the socio-spatial dynamics of the wildlife industry, driven by capitalist imperatives related to the commodified production of nature and ‘wilderness’, warrant both in-depth investigation in their own right, and contextualisation in terms of broader processes of agrarian change locally as well as globally. The growing influence of trophy hunting and the wildlife industry on private land can be seen as a significant contributing factor to processes of deagrarianisation that are mirrored in other parts of the African continent and elsewhere. In South Africa, these developments and their impacts on the livelihoods of farm dwellers take on an added dimension in the context of the country's efforts to implement a programme of post-apartheid land reform. Two decades after the formal end of apartheid, contestations over land rights and property ownership remain live and often unresolved. This theme issue explores these dynamics on private land partly or wholly dedicated to wildlife production, with special emphasis on two South African provinces: KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Cape.

Organization and (De)mobilization of Farmworkers in Zimbabwe: Reflections on Trade Unions, NGOs and Political Parties

This paper examines the ‘labour question’ in light of the wider agrarian questions, with a focus on the ways to understand activities of trade unions, NGOs and political parties as key actors in seeking to mobilize farmworkers. Drawing on research on farmworkers in Zimbabwe and engaging with literature concerning farm labour in the drastic changes to large‐scale agriculture in this country since 2000, the paper emphasizes the importance of examining the wider terrain of politics that influences the actions and abilities of extra‐farm organizations to operate with farmworkers. Through critically engaging with the wider literature concerning the political economy of farm labour, the paper proposes the importance of attending to what it calls the ‘cultural politics of belonging’, which strongly shapes both the forms of attachment of farmworkers and farm dwellers to the farms and the strategies of mobilization and demobilization taken by these organizations. Through attending to such relationships and the wider terrain of politics, this paper proposes an alternative analysis to those currently found in the polarized literature on farmworkers and the Fast Track Land Redistribution Programme in Zimbabwe.

Ser embruxado: notas epistemológicas sobre razão e poder na antropologia

After an ethnographic account on a South African farm dweller simultaneous relation to a social movement and to the realm of his ancestors, the paper highlights how State and Witchcraft share conceptual features in anthropology since both are drawn upon categories like rationality, power, relativism, culture, and universalism – among others.

Farm Workers and Farm Dwellers inLimpopo Province,SouthAfrica

One of the less studied legacies of settler colonialism and agrarian dualism inSouthAfrica is the substantial population of people living and working on (still mostly) white‐owned commercial farms – a feature distinct from most other countries inSouthernAfrica. Many farm workers and farm dwellers inSouthAfrica experience precarious tenure, and poor housing and labour conditions. This paper explores what is happening to farm labour and to agricultural capital inLimpopo province. Findings from field research on four horticultural and livestock/game farms illustrate how economic pressures, combined with land restitution and labour migration, have produced new and contested trajectories of agrarian change – largely cementing a historical shift from independent land tenure to wage labour but also prompting diversification of livelihoods. We explore the ways in which actors on farms – workers, dwellers, owners and managers – have responded with regard to three spheres of contestation: ownership, production and employment; tenure and livelihoods; and family, gender and children. We argue that, contrary to official visions of reform, long‐term processes of agrarian change predating political transition – proletarianization, casualization and the externalization of farm labour – are being accelerated. These processes, and the ways in which they are producing new contours of social differentiation, are illustrated at farm level.

Gender, Generation and the Experiences of Farm Dwellers Resettled in the Ciskei Bantustan, South Africa, ca 1960–1976

This paper examines the experiences of farm dwellers resettled in rural townships in the Ciskei Bantustan during the decades of the 1960s and 1970s. Drawing on the oral testimonies of elderly residents of Sada and Ilinge townships, the paper shows how gendered and generational inequalities within households were crucial factors shaping individuals' experiences of resettlement from the farms. The paper engages with an older literature that regarded the abolition of labour tenancy and linked resettlement programmes as the final stage of farm tenants' proletarianization. It highlights the problems of this linear narrative, and argues that men and women experienced and understood this process in radically different ways. Male labour migration and the remnants of farm paternalism meant that while resettlement cemented the status of migrant men, for women and non‐migrant men this process was characterized by contradiction: on the one hand, escape from the spatial hegemonies of farm paternalism and, on the other, heightened economic exposure.

Factors contributing to risks for pediatric asthma in rural Saskatchewan

BackgroundRural children have lower reported rates of asthma compared with urban children. Although reasons for these differences remain unclear, 3 possible explanations exist: (1) environmental differences, (2) variations in health care access, and (3) variations in health risk behaviors. ObjectiveWe investigated asthma among children living on farms and in small towns and its potential determinants, including personal, behavioral, and environmental factors. MethodsSchool children (n = 842, ages 6–13; participation rate = 72.0%) were involved in a 2003 cross-sectional study. Their parents completed a lung health survey that included questions about asthma, asthma-like symptoms, and potential determinants of asthma (demographic, environmental, health risk behaviors). Participating children were classified into farm dwellers (live on farm or acreage) and small town dwellers. Multiple logistic regression was used to investigate the association between asthma and wheeze with demographic, environmental, and behavioral exposures with simultaneous adjustment for confounders. ResultsAsthma and wheeze prevalence was not significantly different between farm and small town areas (current asthma: 16% vs 13%, respectively; current wheeze: 27% vs 21%, respectively) and followed consistent patterns. Factors associated with diagnosed asthma were dampness (odds ratio [OR] = 1.85; 95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.08–3.17), with enrollment in daycare found to be protective (OR = 0.53; 95% CI = 0.33–0.85). Being obese or overweight was associated with wheeze (OR = 1.77; 95% CI = 1.06–2.97). ConclusionGiven the differences between areas and the associations between environmental risk factors and obesity with asthma and wheeze, the study findings support environment and health risk behavior explanations for the observed geographic variations.