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
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:up/oai:repository.up.ac.za:2263/77855 |
| Date | January 2020 |
| Creators | Mmushi, Mutondi Priscilla |
| Contributors | Machethe, Charles Lepepeule, u17195162@tuks.co.za |
| Publisher | University of Pretoria |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Dissertation |
| Rights | © 2020 University of Pretoria. All rights reserved. The copyright in this work vests in the University of Pretoria. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the University of Pretoria. |
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