Working Papers

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Browsing by Author "Aliber, Michael"

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    The case for re-strategising spending priorities to support small-scale farmers in South Africa
    (Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies, University of the Western Cape, 2010-04) Hall, Ruth; Aliber, Michael
    This paper summarises what is known about South Africa’s public expenditure trends in respect of small-scale farmers, and discusses the growing contradictions between the policy priority placed on small-scale farming and the adequacy of support provided to small-scale farmers. It then proceeds to argue that: i) dramatic increases in public expenditure support to small-scale agriculture are highly unlikely, while further incremental increases to support the sector will in themselves make little difference; ii) a lot of the money already available to support small-scale agriculture is not well spent, with a particular imbalance evident between relatively large amounts of support to badly conceptualised land reform projects at the expense of black farmers in the ex-Bantustans; iii) there is an urgent need to shift the emphasis of support from on-farm infrastructure and inputs, to community-level infrastructure, market development and institutional re-engineering.
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    How can we promote a range of livelihood opportunities through land redistribution?
    (Institute for Poverty Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS), 2019) Aliber, Michael
    This position paper sketches an approach to improving land redistribution in South Africa in which the broad aim is to use redistribution to create a range of livelihood opportunities, in meaningful numbers, in proportion to the understood need. The approach laid out in the paper is informed first and foremost by a reflection on South Africa’s land reform to date, which among other things requires contemplation of the respective strengths and limitations of government and other role-players, and market-based versus other mechanisms. The main argument is that government can and must play an active role to ensure that land reform caters to the demand for small farms on which to create opportunities for commercially-oriented smallholders, and for small plots for those whose primary need is tenure and food security. Somewhat different mechanisms can serve the interests of those seeking help through land reform to expand into large-scale farming. The paper illustrates/estimates how these diverse needs could be addressed in a balanced manner, and met in significant numbers given a larger budget for land redistribution, which is not unimaginable given the current budget’s negligible size.