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  1. Home
  2. Browse by Author

Browsing by Author "van Koppen, Barbara"

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    Joint ventures in the flag Boshielo irrigation scheme, South Africa: A history of smallholders, states and business
    (Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies, University of the Western Cape, 2015) van Koppen, Barbara; Tapela, Barbara Nompumelelo; Mapedza, Everisto
    In the global debates on the modes of farming, including irrigated farming, that are viable for the majority of rural people, three models prevail: (i) smallholder family farming; (ii) farming led by agribusiness’ capital, technologies, and forward and backward linkages in an estate mode; and (iii) agribusiness-led farming in an out-grower mode. In South Africa, these three and more modes of irrigated agriculture have been implemented. In the colonial era, in most of the country, the state supported a white-dominated estate mode of farming based on wage labor. Smallholder family farming remained confined to black people in the former homelands. Smallholder irrigation schemes in the former homelands were out-grower schemes, managed by the colluding apartheid state, white agribusiness and irrigation industry. Since independence in 1994, the search for viable modes of farming and irrigation is high on the policy agenda. This is part of the envisaged transition of the state into a tripartite constellation of citizens, state and service providers that delivers accountable, outcome-based services.
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    Joint ventures in the Flag Boshielo Irrigation Scheme, South Africa: a history of smallholders, states and business
    (International Water Management Institute (IWMI)., 2018) van Koppen, Barbara; Tapela, Barbara Nompumelelo; Mapedza, Everisto
    For over a century, debates about the relation between farm size, mode of farming and land productivity have shaped agrarian policies, programs and research across the world. Until the 2000s, the pendulum tended to swing towards small-scale family farming. An inverse relationship between farm size and land productivity was widely found in Asia (Berry and Cline 1979). Millions of smallholder families cultivating 1 hectare (ha) or less intensified production for food and income. Their productivity depended on access to production factors, in particular fertilizers and irrigation, and access to rewarding output markets. Family members had more incentives to produce than wage laborers on larger farms. Larger farms were only more productive per unit of land when certain mechanization, such as tractors, started enabling economies of scale. Accordingly, agricultural policies in countries such as China and India primarily supported smallholders. In China, where land distribution became fairly egalitarian, this smallholder policy led to massive poverty alleviation and broad-based economic growth.
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    Water for agrarian reform and rural poverty eradication: Where is the leak?
    (Institute for Poverty Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS), 2010) Schreiner, Barbara; Tapela, Barbara; van Koppen, Barbara
    The distribution of water use is undoubtedly the sharpest inequality inherited from the past in South Africa, with a Gini Coefficient of 0.96 and higher. Unfortunately, as the review in this paper suggests, the gap is even further widening for the large majority of black communities in informal rural and peri-urban areas. Neither government nor civil society has been very effective in tapping the potential of water storage and infrastructure development on a large enough scale to mitigate seasonal and annual variability and unpredictability of rainfall and, thus, to improve year-round productivity of agriculture-based livelihood strategies, such as cropping, horticulture, livestock, tree growing, brick making, crafts, and small-scale enterprises. The paper’s analysis highlights that a champion department for storage and infrastructure development, which coordinates well with other departments, is lacking in post-1994 South Africa. The Department of Water Affairs has mainly been focusing on the regulation of existing and new large-scale water uses, among others through the new water entitlements regime of water use licenses. International experience has shown that formal license systems tend to ignore well-functioning informal arrangements, while privileging the administration-proficient. In spite of pertinent legal and policy statements about the re-allocation of water from the haves to the have-nots, the Water Allocation Reform (WAR) programme, led by the Department of Water Affairs since 2005, has had little impact. The legal option of priority General Authorizations for small-scale water uses, based on a quantification of the inequities, is proposed as an alternative or additional approach. The drastic withdrawal of pre-1994 support to smallholder irrigation schemes by the Department of Agriculture led to widespread partial or full collapse of irrigation schemes. The revitalization of these schemes appears highly problematic. Joint ventures tend to generate a small group of elite ‘arm-chair farmers’ at the expense of many more plot holders whose land is taken. In the meantime, the scarce remaining water resources are rapidly taken up by the minority formal economy, which fiercely protects this expansion. Indeed, for most rural and peri-urban poor, their own informal initiative is the major way to obtain access to water for productive uses. In various pockets, such informal water development is vibrant. The paper concludes with the importance of recognizing and building on these informal arrangements.

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