Early in 1981, Professor S. Bekker of Rhodes University was invited to attend a meeting of the Amatola Basin Steering Committee of the Agricultural and Rural Development Research Institute (ARDRI) at the University of Fort Hare. At this meeting, Professor Bekker was invited to undertake a socio-economic survey of the Amatola Basin. The Board of the Institute of Social and Economic Research at Rhodes University gave Professor Bekker permission in February 1981 to undertake the research project on condition that it was conducted in the fashion this Institute usually requires. It was subsequently agreed that the survey, known as 'Amatola Basin VII: Socio-economic survey', was to establish the basic demographic, kinship, consumption and employment patterns of the residents of the Amatola Basin. Practices and traditions related to dry land agriculture would also be identified / Digitised by Rhodes University Library on behalf of the Institute of Social and Economic Research (ISER)

A rural development project is currently under way in the Amatola Basin, Ciskei. This paper introduces the project and outlines the socio-economic and agricultural conditions current in the area. An overview of present project activities is included. It then attempts to identify a number of potential and actual human and structural constraints operating on the implementation of the project. Such constraints arise out of the existing agricultural system in the project area, as well as out of the state bureaucratic structures operating in Ciskei, and the agency implementing the project itself. One aim is to identify the units involved in dryland cultivation. This is done by tracing ties of cooperation between cultivating households in one Amatola village. It will be shown, in this village at least, that the household does not form the main unit of cultivation. A second aim of this paper is to show that checks on rural development in general should not be sought solely within the area under consideration, but derive to an important degree from outside sources. / Digitised by Rhodes University Library on behalf of the Institute of Social and Economic Research (ISER)