Research Articles (PLAAS)

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Browsing by Author "Aliber, Michael"

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    Livelihoods after land reform in South Africa
    (Wiley, 2013) Aliber, Michael; Cousins, Ben
    Over the past few decades, Zimbabwe, Namibia and South Africa have pursued redistributive land reform as a means to address rural poverty. The Livelihoods after Land Reform (LaLR) study was carried out between 2007 and 2009, to understand the livelihood and poverty reduction outcomes of land reform in each of the three countries. The South African component focused on Limpopo province, and investigated land reform processes, trajectories of change and outcomes in thirteen detailed case studies. This paper summarizes some of the main findings from the South African study, and briefly compares them with findings from Namibia and Zimbabwe. The paper argues that a fundamental problem affecting land reform in both South Africa and Namibia is the uncritical application of the Large-Scale Commercial Farming (LSCF) model, which has led to unworkable project design and/or projects that are irrelevant to the circumstances of the rural poor. Nevertheless, some ‘beneficiaries’ have experienced modest improvements in their livelihoods, often through abandoning or amending official project plans.
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    Support for smallholder farmers in South Africa: Challenges of scale and strategy
    (Routledge, 2012) Aliber, Michael; Hall, Ruth
    The South African Government aims to expand the smallholder sector as part of its broader job creation strategy. However, research shows that government attempts to support smallholder farmers have generally been costly and ineffective. Using secondary data and case study evidence, this study investigated the problems of supporting this sector. One finding is that while budgetary allocations to the sector have increased impressively over the last decade and a half, the distribution and use of these resources are such that few farmers benefit and the overall impact is small. A strategic choice has to be made between two strategies: supporting a few selected farmers to become large-scale commercial farmers (‘accumulation for the few’), or supporting a large number and helping them to increase and diversify their produce so as to become sustainable commercial smallholders (‘accumulation from below’). Past experience and a new national initiative favour the latter, using geographically targeted generic support services.