Setting them up to fail: enforcement of the agribusiness model on land reform projects in South Africa
Clemence Rusenga
Abstract
ABSTRACT Land reform in South Africa aims, among other things, to build ‘the economy by generating large-scale employment, increasing rural incomes and eliminating overcrowding’ (ANC 1994). While there is ‘near-consensus that land reform has been unsuccessful’ (Aliber and Cousins 2013), various factors have been raised as contributing to land reform’s failure to meet its goals. Among the factors negatively affecting livelihoods and income generation is the government’s enforcement of an agribusiness model promoting large-scale production for (export) markets. This article uses a case study to illustrate how the implementation of large-scale, and sometimes capital-intensive, production negatively affects the livelihoods of the beneficiaries. It challenges the perspectives that associate success, or even the viability, of land reform projects with the agribusiness model by demonstrating how difficult it is for the beneficiaries to sustain production autonomously.