A critical appraisal of South Africa's market-based land reform policy

Chapter 2: International land reform debates
legislation in a number of other countries
such as Tanzania, Guinea, Sudan, Mali,
Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Zaire, Uganda,
Somalia and Zambia (Bruce 1993:24).
Post-independence Zimbabwe was
constrained in its redistribution of land by
shortages of cash and the Lancaster House
agreement that prohibited expropriation of
land without paying market-value
compensation (Ghimire 1999). Despite this
the Zimbabwean government acquired 2.7
million hectares during the 1980s, most of
which was allocated to 52 000 black
families who were issued with land-use
permits (Bruce 1993:28).
Radical land reforms have not been
confined to Africa. All land above a set
ceiling for maximum landholding was
acquired through compulsory purchases
by the governments of Taiwan, South
Korea and Japan during the 1940s and
50s. Some compensation was paid, but at a
rate well below market value. The peasant
farmers were assisted with the purchase, at
nominal prices, through the provision of
credit (Griffin et al. 2002:303–9). In China
and Vietnam landlords were overthrown
after the seizure of power through
revolutionary action. China and Vietnam
followed similar paths of land seizure,
distribution of land to poor peasants
followed by collectivisation of production
and, in the 1980s, a return of the land to
peasant families who were found to be
more productive than the collectives
(Griffin et al. 2002:313).
Land reforms in the 20 th century that
have been successful in increasing
productivity and reducing poverty 1 have
largely involved breaking up large
landholdings. Ownership of small pieces
of arable land was given to tenants who
already worked the land but previously
had to pay rents or share their crops with a
landlord. These peasant farmers, freed
from the burden of the landlord, utilised
the land more intensively thus increasing
productivity, creating employment, and
reducing poverty (Griffin et al. 2002).
Land reforms involving the transfer of
land from ‘haciendas’ – large estates or
plantations – to peasants or labourers, as
has been attempted in Latin America and
parts of Asia and Africa, have been far less
successful (World Bank 2003:143;
Binswanger & Deininger 1996:75).
However, as mentioned above,
positive impacts have been reported
from countries such as Kenya and
Zimbabwe in the early phases of
their post-independence land
reforms. (World Bank 2003:xl).
Agriculture, the economy and
poverty reduction
One of the strongest arguments for redistributive
land reform is that it can create
an environment for growth in agricultural
production that will in turn support broader
economic growth and have a positive impact
on poverty reduction. Such arguments
are supported by information showing that
countries with a more equitable distribution
of land tend to have higher levels of
economic growth, while high levels of
land concentration are often associated
with less efficient resource utilisation
(World Bank 2003:18–20).
The growth in agricultural production
that has been attributed to land reforms
has come from the de-concentration of
landholding to create or strengthen smallscale
owner-operated or family farms.
Prosterman and Riedinger, amongst others,
have argued that there is an inverse farm
size-efficiency relationship in which
smaller farms, where the producer has a
secure owner or owner-like relationship to
the land, produce a substantially better
return per hectare and on investments than
any other model of agricultural production
(Prosterman & Riedinger 1987:46–9).
They also argue that such analysis of
productivity probably hides the full extent
of the advantage of the owner-operator
system as it is based on only the main
crops and does not take into account the
variety of other crops normally grown on
small owner-operated farms (Prosterman &
Riedinger 1987:58–66).
Other reasons offered for the beneficial
affects of redistributive land reform are the
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