Research Articles (PLAAS)

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Browsing by Subject "Agriculture"

Now showing 1 - 9 of 9
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    Gender, generation and the experiences of farm dwellers resettled in the Ciskei Bantustan, South Africa, ca 1960–1976
    (Wiley, 2013) Evans, Laura
    This paper examines the experiences of farm dwellers resettled in rural townships in theCiskei Bantustan during the decades of the 1960s and 1970s. Drawing on the oraltestimonies of elderly residents of Sada and Ilinge townships, the paper shows how genderedand generational inequalities within households were crucial factors shaping individuals’experiences of resettlement from the farms. The paper engages with an older literature thatregarded the abolition of labour tenancy and linked resettlement programmes as the finalstage of farm tenants’ proletarianization. It highlights the problems of this linear narrative,and argues that men and women experienced and understood this process in radicallydifferent ways. Male labour migration and the remnants of farm paternalism meant thatwhile resettlement cemented the status of migrant men, for women and non-migrant menthis process was characterized by contradiction: on the one hand, escape from the spatialhegemonies of farm paternalism and, on the other, heightened economic exposure.
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    Life on the land: New lives for agrarian questions
    (Taylor and Francis Group, 2023) Shattuck, Annie; Grajales, Jacobo; Hall, Ruth
    The politics of food, climate, energy, and the yet unfinished work ofending colonialism run square through questions of land. Theclassical agrarian question has taken on new forms, and a newintensity. We look at four dimensions of the agrarian questiontoday: urbanization and labor; care and social reproduction;financialization and global food systems; and social movements.On this 50th anniversary of JPS, we as the journal’s editors invitemore research, vigorous debate, and scholar-activism on theseissues in agrarian politics and beyond. We move into the journal’snext era hoping we might continue to better interpret the worldin order to change it..
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    The next great Trek? South African commercial farmers move north
    (Taylor and Francis Group, 2012) Hall, Ruth
    This paper analyses the shifting role of South African farmers, agribusiness andcapital elsewhere in the Southern African region and the rest of the continent. Itexplores recent trends in this expansion, and investigates the interests and agendasshaping such deals, and the ideologies and discourses of legitimation employed infavour of them. While for the past two decades small numbers of South Africanfarmers have moved to Mozambique, Zambia and several other countries, thistrend seems to be undergoing both a quantitative and a qualitative shift. Whereasin the past their migration was largely individual or in small groups, now it isbeing more centrally organised and coordinated, is more frequently taking theform of large concessions for newly formed consortia and agribusinesses, and isincreasingly reliant on external financing through transnational partnerships. Byearly 2010, the commercial farmers’ association Agri South Africa (AgriSA) wasengaged in negotiations for land acquisitions with the governments of 22 Africancountries.
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    Revisiting unresolved questions: land, food and agriculture
    (University of KwaZulu-Natal, 2011) Hall, Ruth
    This article explores three articles from the perspective of 2011. They are Makhosazane Gcabashe and Alan Mabin’s ‘Preparing to negotiate the land question’ (Transformation 11), Tom Bennett’s ‘Human rights and the African cultural tradition’ (Transformation 22) and Henry Bernstein’s ‘Food security in a democratic South Africa’ (Transformation 24). The author focuses on four themes: the politics of negotiations; the location of ‘rights’ in land and to custom; the political economy of agrarian change; and the multiple facets of the ‘land question’. In conclusion, it draws attention to enduring questions about how to confront agrarian dualism, dynamics of changing and deepening inequality in the countryside, tensions between the logic underpinning land and agricultural policies, and the need to recast agrarian change in a wider frame, in recognition of the profound ways in which what happens in South Africa’s rural areas are part of regional and global dynamics.
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    Rights and representation support justice across aquatic food systems
    (Nature Research, 2022) Hicks, Christina C.; Gephart, Jessica A.; Isaacs, Moenieba
    Injustices are prevalent in food systems, where the accumulation of vast wealth is possible for a few, yet one in ten people remain hungry. Here, for 194 countries we combine aquatic food production, distribution and consumption data with corresponding national policy documents and, drawing on theories of social justice, explore whether barriers to participation explain unequal distributions of benefits. Using Bayesian models, we find economic and political barriers are associated with lower wealth-based benefits; countries produce and consume less when wealth, formal education and voice and accountability are lacking. In contrast, social barriers are associated with lower welfare-based benefits; aquatic foods are less affordable where gender inequality is greater.
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    Should subsistence agriculture be supported as a strategy to address rural food insecurity?
    (Taylor and Francis Group, 2009) Aliber, M; Hart, T. G. B.
    At first glance South Africa’s black farming sector appears to contribute rather minimally to overall agricultural output in South Africa. However, despite the complexity involved in this sector and the often marginal conditions in which agriculture is practised it appears to be important to a large number of black households. Furthermore, the significance they attach to subsistence agriculture as means of supplementing household food supplies seems to heavily outweigh other reasons for engaging in agriculture. Some South African researchers have indicated the contribution subsistence production makes to household food security, despite the prevalent complexities and the low input nature of this production. Statistics South Africa’s Labour Force Survey data from 2001 to 2007 and a case study of subsistence farming in Limpopo Province are used to support the argument that, despite the complexity of this sector, the more than 4 million subsistence farmers, need and merit greater support.
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    Smallholder Aagriculture and land reform in South Africa
    (Institute of Development Studies, 2005) Lahiff, Edward; Cousins, Ben
    How canland reformcontribute toa revitalisationof smallholder agriculture inSouthernAfrica?Thisquestion remains important despitenegativeperceptions of land reformas a result of the impactofZimbabwe’s “fast-track” resettlement programmeonagriculturalproduction.This articlefocusesmainly onSouthAfrica, whereahighly unequaldistributionof landcoexists withdeep ruralpoverty,but dominant narratives of the efficiency of large-scaleagriculture exert a s trangleholdon r uralpolicy(cfToulminandGuèye, this IDSBulletinfor WestAfrica).
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    Smallholder views on Chinese agricultural investments in Mozambique and Tanzania in the context of VGGTS
    (MDPI, 2023) Pointer, Rebecca; Sulle, Emmanuel; Ntauazi, Clemente
    Based on a case study in each country, this study documents the views of Mozambican and Tanzanian smallholders regarding Chinese agricultural investments and the extent to which investors abide by their legitimate land tenure rights as defined by the Voluntary Guidelines for the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Forests and Fisheries in the Context of National Food Security (VGGTs). The VGGTs offer guidelines to government on how to protect the land tenure of rural communities when land is being acquired for large-scale land investments. The study also assessed the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on smallholders. Due to COVID-19, instead of fieldwork, we conducted telephone interviews with 20 smallholders in Mozambique and 35 in Tanzania. The Mozambican case showed that even when land set aside for investors was not in dispute, smallholders still had unmet expectations, especially regarding investors’ corporate social responsibility activities. In the Tanzanian case, even though the land leased by the Chinese investor had been designated as general land, it had laid fallow for a long period, and smallholders had moved back onto the land, only to be displaced in 2017.
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    Training of trainers module for gender sensitive community engagement in large scale land based investments in agriculture
    (Institute for Poverty Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS), 2019) Mbaya, Sue
    WHY THIS TRAINING OF TRAINERS (ToT) MODULE? In 2013, the African Union (AU) commissioned an assessment study on the occurrence of large-scale land-based investments in agriculture (LSLBI). The study was commissioned under the auspices of the Land Policy Initiative (LPI), now known as the African Land Policy Centre (ALPC). Its aim was to build knowledge on and draw lessons from the experiences of AU member states with LSLBI to ensure beneficial outcomes from future LSLBI. The assessment study uncovered several critical lessons. LSLBI are wide-spread in Africa, albeit concentrated in specific regions and countries. Weak land governance systems fail to protect the rights of smallholder communities in the face of commercial interests. As a result, wide-spread dispossession of community land rights is reported across the continent, with devastating implications for the livelihoods and well-being of these communities. The land rights and livelihoods of women are particularly vulnerable and negatively affected. Another key finding is that communities are not involved in decisions about LSLBI even when these decisions affect them. Women, in particular, have little or no say in these decisions. In response, development actors have operationalised several responses to the challenge posed to women’s land rights (WLR) by LSLBI. Under the auspices of the LPI, Guiding Principles on Large Scale Land Based Investments (GP) were developed. The GP, subsequently endorsed by AU heads of state, are intended to guide member states on principles and approaches to govern LSLBI. The aim is to protect the land rights of women and communities and to ensure positive outcomes for women, communities and investors. Non-state actors have also taken important steps to safeguard WLR in the context of LSLBI. The International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) together with Oxfam developed a tool for gender-sensitive community engagement in investments in agricultural land. This tool, titled Enabling Voices, Demanding Rights: A guide to gender-sensitive community engagement in large-scale land-based investment in agriculture, is referred to as the Community Engagement Tool (CET). This guide is based on agreed global principles for gender equality, equity, human rights, self-determination and development of communities, and national economic development. It provides a framework that operationalises international and regional guidance on land governance (including the Food and Agriculture Organization’s (FAO) Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests in the Context of National Food Security (VGGT) and the GP). The CET empowers women and communities to engage and participate in decisions during all stages of LSLBI operations to improve the likelihood that communities will benefit from LSLBI, promote sustainable livelihoods, secure land rights and ensure good governance.