Magister Philosophiae (Land and Agrarian Studies) - MPhil(LAS) / The study adopted qualitative research methods because the issues to be researched are complex social matters. The approach was three-pronged. Firstly, a desktop assessment of the claim was done. Secondly, semi-structured interviews were conducted with selected households in the community to understand their experiences after dispossession and their perception of the restitution claim. Thirdly, a combination of desktop analysis and household interviews was employed to understand the socio-economic dynamics and evaluate the feasibility of the community's perceptions. / South Africa

Magister Philosophiae (Land and Agrarian Studies) - MPhil(LAS) / Land reform in South Africa emerged as one of the important policies for reconciliation, reconstruction and development of the country after years of racial segregation. Its implementation has been three-fold i.e. land restitution, redistribution and tenure reform. The initial sub-programmes of land redistribution i.e. Settlement Land Acquisition Grant (SLAG) and Land Redistribution for Agricultural Development (LRAD) have been confronted with numerous challenges and they have been criticised for influencing group owned projects due to their grant funding models. SLAG required beneficiaries to qualify as households and its failure to date has been largely attributed to unresolved conflicts amongst group members. Under LRAD, although beneficiaries qualified as individuals, the number of grants continued to be challenged by the increasing land prices, and as a result, group-owned projects continued to be created to match the land prices. Both models were demand-driven under the ‘willing buyer, willing seller’ principle. In 2006, government introduced a new model called the Proactive Land Acquisition Strategy (PLAS) which is a ‘supply-driven’ model but operating within the ‘willing buyer, willing seller’ principle. The structural changes introduced in 2010 placed PLAS as the sole land acquisition model under land redistribution. This research investigates the manner in which the implementation of this model assisted to resolve the gaps identified in its predecessors and the reasons thereof. Additionally, the research also investigates characteristics which persisted throughout and why such features persisted. The policy shift from a ‘demand-driven’ to a ‘supply-driven’ model has brought changes in terms of planning, implementation and resource mobilization. To achieve this, the researcher identified three cases where indepth research was conducted, and interviewed key roles placers from the national and provincial departments, and the local municipality. A questionnaire and semi-structures interviews were used to collect the data.

The purpose of this study is to explore the role of NGOs in land reform and post-settlement support in the Albany district of the Eastern Cape using a qualitative case study of Masifunde. To discover this role, civil society, land beneficiaries, Department of Agriculture and Department of Rural Development and Land Reform were proved to have interwoven relationships. The interactions and relationships between these entities underpinned their perceptions of each other. This study is set against the backdrop of a weakening land reform program due to frequent policy changes. Evidence presented showed how out of sync land reform is with its original mandate whilst civil society organisations have remained firmly rooted by theirs. The inability to have twin perspectives on this matter diverges the direction civil society and institutions involved in land reform take on. This separation in direction demonstrates the need for engagement between government and civil society in an attempt to assist in areas government is unable to reach or address. This thesis contends that there is definitely a role that NGOs do play and need to take on when it is evident that relevant actors are unable to deliver. Themes emerging from interviews necessitate civil society and government departments to combine their resources so as to maximise the impact for desired outcomes. These are views of both civil society and government, demonstrating that NGOs indeed do play a role in land reform and post-settlement support and need to continuously do so in an attempt to cushion the blows of uneven implementation of land reform policies.

During the apartheid era, Black South Africans in large numbers were forced to live in overcrowded reserves, which were impoverished, homelands and townships through decentralization. Because of the high level of poverty, people could not afford quality seeds and fertilizers for good harvests. A government initiative known as the National Land Reform programme was established to address the issue of redressing the injustice of forced removals and historical denial to access land that was created by the apartheid policies. The initiative had to ensure security of tenure for rural dwellers, decongest overcrowding and supply of residential and productive land to the poorest section of the rural population, raise income and productivity, build the economy through the provision of support services by generating large scale employment, and increase rural incomes. The international experience of land reform has broadened the issue of injustice and denials to access land by reversing the problems to create solutions. Land reform is a policy and legal understanding to increase access to land by giving poor people ownership rights and ensuring sustainable land use. Most of the objectives of land reform in other countries included improving the agricultural efficiency, distributing land equitable, uplifting the standard of living, reducing poverty, and achieving equitable land redistribution. The occurrence of land redistribution has been part of land reform in many developing countries. From land redistribution, it has been learnt that there should be greater emphasis on supporting productivity and access to input and product markets. On the other hand, land tenure reform aimed at motivating individual land ownership, increasing and protecting peoples land rights, and introducing more security by using effective system of cadastral surveys and title registration. The source of revenue for local governments has been land taxes. Land tax does not discourage investments in land improvements. Although land reform has been unsuccessful at some point, its success has been achieved by addressing the equity in land distribution and upgrading livelihood and raising a number of successful Black agricultural producers. Land dispossession is an ancient issue that still has an effect even in contemporary times. Because of the necessity for land reform to be utilized, it will promote equity as well as efficiency in South Africa. The equitable growth patterns created by land reform shifted income and power to the poor. Land reform promotes efficiency through redistribution of agricultural land to smallholders. Smallholders become more efficient than large holders because they are more responsible for most farming activities. The land reform success in South Africa should be measured against its ability to address equity in land redistribution and livelihood upgrading, reduction in poverty, creation of rural employment, and income generating opportunities. Land restitution programme is concerned with the communities who were victimised by the past racially discriminatory legislation. The programme provides specific compensation to victims of forced removals. The major outstanding issue is the level of compensation to which claimants should be entitled. A programme called tenure reform promotes security of tenure to all citizens of the country and prevents evictions by the state or landowners. One of the aims of the tenure reform programme is to increase tenure security for about six million households. The impact of land reform on the lives of people is that there has been an improvement on the quality of lives. Though within a restricted scale, the agricultural and non-agricultural productions are taking place; and there is better service delivery. Because of excessive bureaucracy and over centralization of the land reform programme, the implementation of the process has been slow. A baseline study of the quality of live of land reform beneficiaries was undertaken in Limpopo Province at Gertrudsburg. The community of Gertrudsburg was forcibly removed from their land in 1963. They lodged a claim to the farm, Ledig 289 LS, in 1995 and succeeded in 2001. Gertrudsburg forms part of the Makhado Municipality in the Vhembe District. The area experiences a dry climate with consistent summer rainfall. Occasionally, summers are very hot while winters are cold. The baseline study of Gertrudsburg has four basic steps that were followed that include determining what to measure, designing the questionnaire, fieldwork and data collection and data analysis. For the baseline study to be successful, important questions had to be answered, and the general information was gathered in a form of questionnaires and fieldwork. Using both qualitative and quantitative approaches did data analysis. The two approaches were used in order to put more emphasis on the data of the quality of life of land reform beneficiaries. Qualitative approach has two phenomena in which one focuses on the natural settings, while the other involves studying the complexity. The quantitative approach was carried out in order to strengthen the importance of the quality of life of land reform beneficiaries. In order for land reform and other aspects such as land redistribution to be implemented, there must be involvement with the government departments, local government, parastatal, and non-government organizations. The outcomes of land reform include reduction in poverty, change in agrarian structure, and increased productivity. The success of the restitution process was achieved through the restoration of more than 887 000 hectares of land to more than 172 00 households. The baseline study showed the presence of poor quality of life in Gertrudsburg. It generally indicated the basic needs of people, which are not yet accessible by others. Success in land reform is enhanced when all stakeholders are involved and when they work closely together. More attention is still needed in order to upgrade the services and facilities in Gertrudsburg. The study generally recommends that for the improvement of the quality of life in Gertrudsburg, the following should be implemented: increment of commitment at national level to post-settlement support through conceptual, fiscal, strategic planning, monitoring and evaluation provisions; increment of the role of district and local municipality; promotion of integrated planning and implementation; introduction of project implementation support team; establishment of a provincial land reform post-settlement implementation strategy; and improvement of inter-departmental communication at project and government level. The results of the baseline study could be used for future evaluation and monitoring the improvement of the quality of life in Gertrudsburg. / Dissertation (M Inst Agrar (Land Development))--University of Pretoria, 2007. / Agricultural Economics, Extension and Rural Development / M Inst Agrar / unrestricted

In this dissertation, we examine the socioeconomic impact of land reform schemes and discuss the policy implications of combining aspects of both state-led and market-based approaches to land reallocation through regional planning. We focus on land reform settlements in Northeast Brazil, where both approaches operated over the same time frame (1997-2002). Empirically, we identify the effects of various indicators on the socioeconomic growth of a sample of rural territories and localities, giving emphasis to the influence of the market-based Land Bill Programme (PCT) and the traditional state-led scheme (INCRA) on that growth through panel data analysis, cross-section regressions and field-based analysis. It has been concluded that: i) The scope for plan-led strategies towards sustainable development in the countryside has been given less than sufficient emphasis in the land reform literature; ii) There is not clear evidence that the market-based approach leads to higher socioeconomic growth regionally than does the state-led approach, or vice versa; iii) Although the market-based scheme contributed to improved access to title, the PCT settlements failed to impact positively settlers' welfare in the majority of sites; iv) Securing both higher access to land rights and better living conditions through land reform requires an approach that combines both state-led and market-based elements; v) Securing measurable positive impacts on the regional economy requires a land reform strategy that has a regional scope. As a policy implication, the work suggests the adoption of a plan-led land reform strategy that is coordinated at all government levels and between the public and private sectors, and one that involves establishing strategic portfolios of potentially sustainable areas, defining spending priorities for those areas along with funding possibilities through regional planning. Differently from the commonsense literature on land reform in developing countries, this work demonstrates that regional planning has an essential part to play in land reform through proposing a plan-led strategy that combines elements of both market-based and state-led approaches to the benefit of the regional economy.

This thesis centres its analysis upon the fascination for the collective at the potential cost of a delimitation of individual expression, within the confines of the Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra (MST). From the perspective of an applied anthropology, and to the end of contributing a constructive critique of the MST, the thesis seeks to ascertain how the movement has structured itself through the micro-actions of its membership around the domain of collective tropes of identity and where this complex set of understandings is leading the movement, both in the immediate, and more long-term, futures. To these ends, the principal focus of analysis is how actors within the movement construct and understand experiences of movement logic and emotion, as they perceive it, in and around their ambit. The thesis is thus orientated from an ethnographic perspective; throughout, actors’ accounts and experiences are privileged to attempt to throw light upon the manifold processes that being a member of the MST renders part of daily life. The thesis argues that in this extraordinarily dynamic time in Brazil, with socio-economic conditions so different to when the movement was founded, flexibility is going to be key as to whether the MST can endure, remaining relevant to its members and in a position where it can attempt to address its strategic aims. The thesis suggests that the movement faces a signal dilemma regarding the very device on which it has built its success, the unified collective front into which MST members’ identities can be subsumed. This fascination for the collective and its correlates, a hostile attitude to the media and the polarisation that can separate MST members from wider society, is explored through a series of differing contexts and the thesis closes with conclusions embedded within the framework of an applied anthropology; in pragmatic terms, how can the MST best achieve its stated goals at this historically significant point of its trajectory.

The study attempted to analyse the impacts of the ‘fast track’ land reform on maize production in Zimbabwe. This purpose was tackled by constructing a partial equilibrium model that depicted what could have happened if no further policy shifts had taken place after 2001. Setting up a partial equilibrium model required a sound understanding of the functioning of the Zimbabwe’s maize market. The institutional structure of the Zimbabwean maize market was explored to inform the model development process that would allow for the development of the baseline model. Developing the model started off with the estimation of single equations which were collapsed into a simultaneous system of equations through the use of a combination of ordinary least squares and generalised least squares techniques. The development of the simulation model required that assumptions be made for exogenous variables, and crafted assumptions were based on the 2000 macro-economic and institutional environment as well as agricultural policies. The re-simulated baseline model that was constructed in this study was used to make projections based on the various trends of exogenous variables in 2000. This means that the model generated an artificial data set based on what the maize market would have looked like under a set of the pre-2000 existent policy conditions. As such, all the shifts in the political and economic environment that took place after 2000 were not introduced in the model. The ‘fast track’ land reform policy was thus assessed based on the performance of the baseline model using a range of “what if” assumptions. Therefore, the re-simulated baseline solutions discussed result not only from policy shifts that occurred before 2000, but also from the convergence of hypothetical political and economic stability within the period in question. The results of the re-simulated baseline indicated that the commercial area harvested was negatively affected by the expropriation of commercial farms. The arguments in literature that the ‘fast track’ land reform policy shift contributed the loss in area planted owing to the stalling of farming operations due to political unrest, economic instability and input shortages were supported by the model results which showed that total area harvested would have been higher under pre-2000 conditions. From the re-simulated baseline results, the difference between actual and would be outcomes revealed that the total maize production was 13.27% less than what could have been produced in 2001, the year that the ‘fast track’ land reform policy was formally implemented. In view of the 2002/03 drought, output was 57.44% less and 33.53% less than what could have actually been produced for the 2002 and 2003 seasons respectively. In the 2005 drought season, the total maize production was 41.8% less than what could have been produced without the ‘fast track’ land reform. This may imply that droughts would have been less severe if the ‘fast track’ land reform was not implemented. In 2007, the baseline showed that the nation could have produced almost 48.03% more than what was actually produced. Therefore, according to the model results, the assertion that the ‘fast track’ land reform contributed, to a fair extent, to the underperformance of the maize sector still holds. The model developed in this dissertation contributes to an understanding of not only the general structure of the maize market, but also of the impact of the ‘fast track’ land reform policy on the Zimbabwean maize market based on how the market itself could have performed under the absence of these land reforms. The baseline model revealed that the maize sector performed below potential within the period of the ‘fast track’ land reform. The maize market model could thus be used as a tool that may assist policymakers to design future strategies that will help enhance maize sector performance. / Dissertation (MSc(Agric))--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Agricultural Economics, Extension and Rural Development / unrestricted

Magister Philosophiae (Land and Agrarian Studies) - MPhil(LAS) / Municipal commonage has the potential to make a major contribution to land redistribution in South Africa. During the Apartheid era, land under the control of local government was leased out to commercial farmers at commercial rates, which ensured an important source of income for municipalities. Post-1994, municipalities have been tasked by the Department of Land Affairs with making land available to the previously disadvantaged and thus managing and administering the commonage for purposes of poverty alleviation.

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Land reform is important as it serves as a means to redress the imbalances created by apartheid. Evidence revealed that the land reform programme in South Africa has not been fully effective. This is partly because of lack of focus on the post-settlement support by Government or other interested stakeholders such as the private sectors, Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) as well as government entities. Lack of skills amongst land reform beneficiaries is one of the critical elements identified to be problematic in South Africa and leads to failure of these emerging farmers. The South African government has introduced programmes, such as the Recapitalization and Development Programme (RECAP), the Comprehensive Agricultural Support Programme (CASP), and the Comprehensive Rural Development Programme (CRDP), to address the issues of post-settlement support. Skills transfer to land reform beneficiaries was one of the issues that RECAP tried to address. The Department of Agriculture introduced extension services to the land reform beneficiaries as a means to transfer skills to land reform beneficiaries. The Department of Rural Development and Land Reform also played its part through RECAP by introducing strategic interventions (strategic partners and mentors) to ensure that necessary skills are transferred to farmers. Other than government departments, NGOs, commodity organisations, and private sectors have been participating in ensuring that the skills of the land reform beneficiaries are developed. Despite this, evidence shows that the efforts made by both government and other involved stakeholders are not really effective in all the provinces across South Africa. The main objective of this study was to identify an appropriate skills transfer model for land reform beneficiaries in South Africa. Successful models that exist in Brazil, Kenya and China, were studied to identify and propose a skills transfer model that could best suit South Africa. In addition, the study used data and information from secondary sources such as government, NGOs, private sector, and reviewed existing literature on issues around skills transfer to emerging farmers and land reform beneficiaries. A comparative analysis was done on the existing skills transfer models from the three countries and South Africa. The analysis revealed certain common characteristics in the skills transfer models that exist in China, Kenya and Brazil, and also revealed how these models differ from the existing models in South Africa, thereafter distinguishing the success of these models from the failures. Over and above the most-used and successful model in the three countries, is the pluralistic type of model that involves working together of government, non-governmental organisations, and the private sector. What is much more appealing with this latter model is the fact that it takes into account the participatory, bottom–up approach, where farmers are engaged in whatever skills needs that have to be transferred to them. Literature revealed that the differences between the models that exist in South Africa relate to the involvement of research in skills transfer, unclear policies on skills transfer. The policies are not clear in explaining the institutional arrangements, roles and responsibilities of the different parties that have the ability to assist farmers or transfer skill and the monitoring and evaluation framework of skills transfer. The pluralistic approach, if well designed and taking into all aspects mentioned above, could be very effective for South African land reform beneficiaries. / Dissertation (MAgric (Rural Development))--University of Pretoria, 2020. / Agricultural Economics, Extension and Rural Development / MAgric (Rural Development) / Unrestricted