Capacity Development in Food and Agriculture Policies 3 - A review of experiences of establishing emerging farmers in South Africa

South-South  and Resources Mobilization Division

Capacity Development in Food and Agriculture Policies 3 - A review of experiences of establishing emerging farmers in South Africa

Case lessons and implications for farmer support within land reform programmes

Year of publication 2009

Author South-South and Resources Mobilization Division

Product type Book (stand-alone)

Edition 1

Full item page

Synopsis (short abstract) At the end of Apartheid in 1994, about 82 million hectares of commercial farmland (86% of all farmland) was in the hands of the white minority. Over thirteen million black people lived in crowded former homelands under extreme poverty. Since 1994, the Government of South Africa has initiated several land reform programs in order to address the racial imbalance in land holding and secure the land rights of historically disadvantaged people. The Government also set a target of transferring 30 per cent of the white commercial farms to previously disadvantaged South Africans by 2014. This review of experiences of supporting emerging historically disadvantaged farmers examines the implementation of the land reform policy and its support programmes and documents several cases of support to emerging farmers. Programmes reviewed include the Settlement Land Acquisition Grant (SLAG), the Land Re-distribution for Agricultural Development (LRAD) instrument, Farm Equity Schemes, Municipal Commonage Programmes, Land Restitution and the Comprehensive Agricultural Support Programme (CASP). Best practices Are synthesised from the review and compared With international best practice experiences. The document will be of interest to policymakers, researchers, students and NGO staff working on land reform programs.