Smallholder Irrigation Schemes, Agrarian Reform and 'Accumulation from Above and from Below' in South Africa

Smallholder Irrigation Schemes, Agrarian Reform and 'Accumulation from Above and from Below' in South Africa

A key issue in debates on agrarian reform in South Africa is the potential for small‐scale farming, in conjunction with redistributive land reform, to make a significant contribution to employment creation and poverty reduction. Two problems hinder these debates – the paucity of reliable data on sma...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of agrarian change 2013-01, Vol.13 (1), p.116-139
Main Author: Cousins, Ben
Format: Article
Language:eng
Subjects:
Accumulation
Africa
agrarian reform
Agricultural Policy
Agriculture
Antipoverty Programs
Households
Irrigation
Land Reform
small scale farming
Social policy
Social Structure
South Africa
Studies
Water Supply
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:A key issue in debates on agrarian reform in South Africa is the potential for small‐scale farming, in conjunction with redistributive land reform, to make a significant contribution to employment creation and poverty reduction. Two problems hinder these debates – the paucity of reliable data on small‐scale agriculture, and lack of clarity on the meaning of terms such as ‘smallholder’ and ‘small‐scale farmer’. This paper applies class‐analytic perspectives on social differentiation to critically examine these terms, and explores the prospects for ‘accumulation from above and from below’ through agrarian reform, drawing on wider debates within the Southern African region. It focuses in particular on smallholder irrigation schemes, potentially a key focus of policy, and presents research findings on production and marketing of fresh produce in one such scheme in Tugela Ferry, KwaZulu‐Natal. Survey data show that farming households combine agriculture and various forms of off‐farm labour, as is often the case throughout the region, and that accumulation in small‐scale agriculture is constrained by a number of factors, including the inherited and largely untransformed agrarian class structure of South Africa. In this context, expanded access to land and water is a necessary but not sufficient condition for such accumulation; wider structural change is also required.
ISSN:1471-0358
1471-0366