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Agricultural land acquisition by foreign investors in Pakistan: Government policy and community responses
(Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies, University of the Western Cape, 2012) Settle, Antonia C.
This paper explores the Pakistani government’s 2009 agricultural investment policy package — a response to increasing foreign investor interest in agricultural land — and considers the likely implications for local communities. By analysing the policy pertaining to the categories of cultivated and uncultivated land, the paper explores possible consequences that peasant farming communities and grazing communities face. The policy’s dependence on arbitrary and anti-poor colonial-era laws and processes places the policy squarely in established centre–periphery relations rooted by colonial-era politics of land ownership. Thus, the offer of agricultural land to foreign investors is both an unprecedented international land grab and a development in ongoing land appropriation by influential people through state apparatuses, continuous with colonial practices. This in turn has spurred community responses within the same dynamic of colonially rooted centre–periphery conflict; community responses revolve around various ethnic separatist movements that originated in earlier colonial politics. Apart from the precarious balance of social and economic power in Pakistan — evident in the making and implications of the agricultural investment policy — the findings point to an urgent need for the Pakistani government to address environmental and food security issues.
Alternative food networks and food insecurity in South Africa
(Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies, University of the Western Cape, 2016-06) Haysom, Gareth
Food security remains a persistent global challenge. Inequality means that food insecurity is disproportionately experienced. Despite positive shifts in the state of food security at a global scale, recent reports from the Food and Agricultural Organisation suggest that in Africa the total number of undernourished people continues to increase. The paper argues that there is a certain “stuckness” in food security responses. The mutually converging transitions of the urban transition, food regime shifts and the nutrition transition demand different ways of understanding the food system, food security and the components thereof, including value chains. The paper reviews efforts designed to respond to these mutually reinforcing challenges but argues that generalisations are problematic. Borrowing concepts from the North is equally problematic. Using the concept of Alternative Food Networks (AFNs), the paper interrogates these networks and asks how such alternative networks manifest in the context of food insecurity in South African cities. AFNs evident in Northern cities and regions are generally privileged and present a perspective of the food system that prioritises sustainability and a deep green and often local ethic, embodying aspirations of food system change. In Southern cities, food system engagement is less about engagement for change, but rather, engagement to enable food access. Traditional value chain parlance sees a value chain extending from producer to consumer. The food access value chain present within poor urban communities in South Africa reflects more than just financial transactions. Transactions of reciprocity and social exchange are embedded within food security strategies, and are often informed by the enactment of agency. Using the term “the food access continuum” this paper calls for a far more expansive view of food access strategies and networks. Understanding these networks is essential to effective food and nutrition security policy and programming.
Are trade unions and NGOs leveraging social codes to improve working conditions? A study of two locally developed codes in the South African fruit and wine farming sectors
(Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies, University of the Western Cape, 2017-11) Visser, Magareet; Godfrey, Shane
The paper explores one aspect of the food security question, namely the livelihoods of farmworkers, which ultimately speaks to the sustainability of farms and the provision of food. It focuses on the emergence of locally made private social codes (Wine and Agricultural Ethical Trade Association – WIETA, and Sustainability Initiative of South Africa – SIZA) in the Western Cape fruit and wine sectors and how compliance with such codes has increasingly become a requirement to export to certain markets (being an aspect of vertical governance in the fruit and wine value chains). Many standards in private social codes duplicate rights in national legislation, but some standards improve on statutory rights and certain enabling standards that offer leveraging opportunities to worker organisations to further improve wages and working conditions. Such leveraging constitutes a form of horizontal governance of the fruit and wine value chains. The paper analyses key sections of the two locally made social codes against the Fairtrade code and Sectoral Determination 13 (SD13). The analysis indicates where the codes improve on SD13 and how they compare to the Fairtrade code, which is generally seen to offer the best enabling standards for workers. The paper then presents the results of empirical research on the extent to which worker organisations – that is, trade unions and labour-oriented non-governmental organisations (NGOs) – have leveraged relevant standards to effect improvements for workers. The role of the state in facilitating such leveraging is also explored. The paper finds that, in general, worker organisations have little knowledge of the WIETA and SIZA codes and hardly any attempts have been made to leverage the codes. The only contestation of the codes that had a significant impact was from an actor outside the sector and country, namely the documentary film-maker who produced Bitter Grapes. The paper questions why worker organisations have made so little of the codes. The low capacity of such organisations is one explanation, but these organisations are also disenchanted with the codes because WIETA’s and SIZA’s sanctioning of non-compliance has been insufficient.
Beyond the “proper job:” Political-economic analysis after the century of labouring man
(Beyond the “Proper Job:” Political-economic Analysis after the Century of Labouring Man, 2018-04) Ferguson, James; Li, Tania Murray
This programmatic article proposes an approach to global political-economic inquiry in the wake of the failure of long-established transition narratives, notably the narrative centred on a universal trajectory from farm-based and “traditional” livelihoods into the “proper jobs” of a modern industrial society. The prevalence and persistence of “informal”, “precarious”, and “non-standard” employment in so many sites around the world, it suggests, requires a profound analytical decentering of waged and salaried employment as a presumed norm or telos, and a consequent reorientation of our empirical research protocols. The authors seek to further such a reorientation by identifying a set of specific political-economic questions that are in some sense portable, and can profitably be applied to a diverse range of empirical contexts around the world. But it is the questions that are shared, not the answers. By generating a matrix of difference and similarity across cases, the paper points toward a research agenda capable both of finding answers to concrete questions that arise in specific settings, and of generating comparative insights and the identification of large-scale patterns.
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.
Changes in South Africa’s global agricultural trade regime, 1996–2013
(Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies, University of the Western Cape, 2014-10) Williams, Ethan
This paper presents an examination of the major trends in South African international trade in agricultural products between the years 1996 and 2013. The analysis covers three broad areas: (1) the changing weight of key trading partners in South Africa’s overall agricultural trade regime; (2) changes in the major products being traded with the rest of the world; and (3) changes in the products being traded with each of its key trading partners. The paper begins by analysing the changes in the total export and total import values to and from the trading partners identified above, and the changing shares of total value held by each partner. The next section focuses on the major products traded in terms of value – both how the composition of the product profile has transformed, and the main sources of the trade in these products. Finally, each trading partner is given individual focus. The EU remained the dominant source of imports and the dominant destination for exports throughout the period. The import market shifted dramatically away from the US and Africa toward Brazil and China. In the export market, the presence of the USA, Japan and MERCUSOR receded whilst Africa and China underwent strong growth. The top two export destinations, the EU and Africa, dominated the market by a significant margin, accounting for well over half of total export value throughout. Rice and wheat were the dominant products within the import market throughout the period, whilst the position of poultry meat strengthened and sunflower-seed oil receded. In poultry meat imports, the USA saw sharp decline, whilst South America and the EU underwent a very strong rise. The major shifts in the export market were away from sugar and titanium oxide, and towards fresh fruit and wine.
Changing customary land tenure regimes in Zambia, implications for women’s land rights
(Institute for Poverty Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS), 2023-03) Zamchiya, Phillan; Musa, Chilombo
This paper argues that the formalisation of customary land through a rural certification programme in Nyimba District, Zambia, has triggered the establishment of a new tenure regime that transcends the dualism between Western legal forms of private property and idealised customary systems. Within this agrarian transition, the number of social conflicts over land boundaries have fallen, at least in the short term; women’s perceptions of tenure security have improved; and women’s participation in land administration at the local level has increased. In addition, a significant number of married women have registered residential land and farmland in their own names. However, the transition has also produced a number of negative impacts. Multiple land claims by women have been dismissed. Men have continued to dominate power relations in the district. Certification has not necessarily led to greater access to credit, improved agricultural productivity, or a rise in investment. Informal land markets have become more expensive with certification producing a veneer of legitimacy for buying and selling customary land, even though such transactions remain, strictly speaking, illegal. On the other hand, agrarian support has been skewed to the benefit of wealthier, better-connected, and dominant women with land-holding certificates and to the detriment of less-powerful women. Accordingly, many of the envisaged benefits of formalisation through an evolutionary approach to land tenure rights have not been realised. The argument developed by this paper is based on original field data obtained through quantitative household surveys, in-depth interviews and focus group discussions.
The changing nature of large-scale commercial farming & implications for agrarian reform: evidence from Limpopo, Western Cape and Northern Cape
(PLAAS, University of the Western Cape, 2012) Genis, Amelia
The privileged position of white commercial farmers in South Africa came to an end by the early 1990s, when political and policy changes removed the certainty provided by controlled marketing, protective tariffs and weak legislation regulating resource use and labour relations on farms and transformed agriculture into a sector that is highly sensitive to events on world markets. Despite their dwindling numbers and disarticulation from political power commercial farmers represent a dominant group in the countryside, retaining a near monopoly of resources and considerable power. Yet, the dynamics of change in the sector are not properly understood or well-researched. This paper presents data from a recent survey of 141 commercial farmers in the Limpopo, Western and Northern Cape Provinces that shows that they consider input costs, climate, labour matters, uncertainty about government policies and producer prices as the major pressures bearing down upon them. The adoption of farming methods which are less labour-intensive and the extension of labour legislation and minimum wages to farm workers, together have led to the decline of on-farm employment. Declining profit margins have resulted in a ‘shake-out’ in which only the most competitive enterprises can survive, leading to increased concentration in agricultural landholding and production. These processes imply that new entrants to agriculture with limited capital face daunting challenges, which policy needs to address. The paper explores these wider implications.
The changing nature of large-scale commercial farming & implications for agrarian reform: Evidence from Limpopo, Western Cape and Northern Cape
(Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies, University of the Western Cape, 2012-12) Genis, Amelia
The privileged position of white commercial farmers in South Africa came to an end by the early 1990s, when political and policy changes removed the certainty provided by controlled marketing, protective tariffs and weak legislation regulating resource use and labour relations on farms and transformed agriculture into a sector that is highly sensitive to events on world markets. Despite their dwindling numbers and disarticulation from political power commercial farmers represent a dominant group in the countryside, retaining a near monopoly of resources and considerable power. Yet, the dynamics of change in the sector are not properly understood or well-researched. This paper presents data from a recent survey of 141 commercial farmers in the Limpopo, Western and Northern Cape Provinces that shows that they consider input costs, climate, labour matters, uncertainty about government policies and producer prices as the major pressures bearing down upon them. The adoption of farming methods which are less labour-intensive and the extension of labour legislation and minimum wages to farm workers, together have led to the decline of on-farm employment. Declining profit margins have resulted in a ‘shake-out’ in which only the most competitive enterprises can survive, leading to increased concentration in agricultural landholding and production. These processes imply that new entrants to agriculture with limited capital face daunting challenges, which policy needs to address. The paper explores these wider implications.
Collapse, conflict or social cohesion? Learning from livestock dipping associations in Kwazulu-Natal
(2020-06-29) Gibbs, Tim
This working paper is about the revival of communal cattle dipping in post-apartheid KwaZulu-Natal, which has improved animal healthcare and strengthened the livelihoods of the black rural households that keep cattle in the province. Given that the authoritarian system of apartheid era livestock dipping fell apart during South Africa’s democratic transition, this is a remarkable achievement. Other provinces have struggled to revive dipping – such that tick-borne diseases are endemic along the Wild Coast of the Eastern Cape, for instance. By contrast, perhaps 90-95% of the 1600-odd dip tanks in KwaZulu-Natal are run relatively well by local Livestock Associations, which organise regular cattle dipping in conjunction with the provincial government’s vet services department. There are opportunities to strengthen and expand the remit of the Livestock Associations: these remarkable organs of civil society which might be collectively collecting R450 million in membership fees each year. There is also much to learn from KwaZulu-Natal’s example. At a time when much is written about the weakness of government institutions in rural South Africa, here is a quiet, largely unnoticed, ‘success story’ of an effective relationship between the state and civil society that we would do well to understand.
Commercial biofuel land deals & environment and social impact assessments in Africa: Three case studies in Mozambique and Sierra Leone
(Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies, University of the Western Cape, 2011) Andrew, Maura; Van Vlaenderen, Hilde
The rapid increase in attempts by foreign investors to acquire large tracts of land in Africa for biofuel developments has generated substantial concern about their potential negative impact on the communities living in the targeted areas. This includes concerns about the impact on local residents’ livelihoods, their access to land, natural resources and labour, and their food security. This paper examines three case studies of proposed biofuel developments in Mozambique and Sierra Leone in terms of their social displacement impacts and the extent to which such impacts can be avoided or minimised. The case studies show that even in areas with low population densities and settlements concentrated in villages where it is easier to minimise displacement impacts, livelihood displacement impacts still cannot be entirely avoided due to communal and scattered land use in most rural areas. Environmental and Social Impact Assessment (ESIA) processes have changed the location, size and boundaries of developments to reduce displacement impacts, but more mitigation measures — such as outgrower schemes and land dedicated to food production — can provide further livelihood restitution and avoid food security impacts. The three biofuel ventures also highlight the influence of tenure security for local land right holders in determining the nature of the land deals and the consultation processes: cases where land leases are made with central government seem to provide fewer incentives for developers to negotiate directly with local communities and provide them with lower levels of compensation.
Commercialisation, deagrarianisation and the accumulation/reproduction dynamic: Massive maize production schemes in the Eastern Cape, South Africa
(Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies, University of the Western Cape, 2012-12) Mtero, Farai
The post-apartheid era has seen the South African government trying to reverse ‘deagrarianisation’ in the former homelands by introducing ‘modern’ farming techniques and agribusiness principles. This paper situates the massive maize schemes currently being implemented in the context of increased national and international capitalisation of agriculture. The paper focuses on the ‘communal area’ villages of Ongeluksnek Valley in the Eastern Cape, one of the localities where the Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative of South Africa (AsgiSA) maize scheme was initiated. The scheme requires villagers to consolidate their arable fields into larger blocks of land which can be ‘efficiently’ cultivated by private contractors using machinery and agro-chemicals. Villagers are not involved in decision making, but receive 10% of gross income in return, while ‘learning about’ commercial production. In practice, however, costs are high, and very little surplus is available for redistribution to the beneficiaries. In this paper, we argue that the process of capital accumulation, and associated trajectories of increased centralisation and concentration, is critical to understanding the social reproduction and accumulation dynamics of small scale farming in the countryside. The current corporate food regime constrains accumulation from below.
Community opportunities in commercial agriculture: Possibilities and challenges
(Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies, University of the Western Cape, 2017-11) Hara, Mafaniso; Njokweni, Gugu; Semoli, Belemane
Aquaculture has potential to contribute towards food and nutrition security, job creation and income for South African communities, provided that the challenges and limitations for their participation in commercial aquaculture value chains can be overcome. Most communities lack investment funding and enter the industry from a base whereby they do not have the knowledge, technical skills, managerial capacity and marketing know-how for aquaculture. Partnerships with established aquaculture companies and entrepreneurs provide the best opportunities for bringing communities into mainstream commercial aquaculture. The partnerships need to include the sharing of relevant knowledge, technical and managerial skills for aquaculture and marketing. Partnerships based on closely knit shareholdership arrangements appear to hold the best chance for successful and sustainable community participation in commercial aquaculture.
Conservation and ecotourism on privatised land in the Mara, Kenya: The case of conservancy land leases
(Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies, University of the Western Cape, 2012) Bedelian, Claire
This paper investigates private sector investment in conservation and ecotourism through conservancy land leases in the Mara region of Kenya. In a recent and growing tourism development, groups of Maasai landowners are leasing their parcels of land to tourism investors and forming wildlife conservancies. The paper examines this new conservation and ecotourism model and the implications it has for Maasai livelihoods and the environment. The subdivision of Kenya’s rangelands has tended to benefit elites, and as a consequence this trend is reinforced in landbased schemes such as these. Given the large extent and recent change in ownership in these areas, land leases do however keep the lands they cover together and are potentially an optimistic outlook for such open rangeland areas. Consideration however must be given to adjacent areas and communities that may face the negative knock on effects of such schemes. The Mara is a unique area in terms of its tourism and wildlife, so land leases may not be able to offer as much to landowners in other areas, or be financially sustainable across vast areas. However, within the Mara, land leases have been rapidly expanded upon, implying that similar schemes might be of interest to both investors and communities alike in other wildlife areas.
Contested paradigms of ‘viability’ in redistributive land reform: perspectives from southern Africa
(Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies, University of the Western Cape, 2009-06) Cousins, Ben; Scoones, Ian
‘Viability’ is a key term in debates about land reform in southern African and beyond, and is used in relation to both individual projects and programmes. ‘Viability’ connotes ‘successful’ and ‘sustainable’ - but what is meant by viability in relation to land reform, and how have particular conceptions of viability informed state policies and planning approaches? More broadly, how have different notions of viability influenced the politics of land in recent years? This paper interrogates this influential but under-examined notion, reflecting on debates about the viability of land reform – and in particular about the relevance of small- scale, farming-based livelihoods – in southern Africa and more broadly. These questions are not merely of academic interest. How debates are framed and how success is judged has major implications. With arguments for and against redistributive land reform often hinging on the notion of viability, justifications for public expenditure and budget allocations can be offered if programmes and projects are deemed viable. Conversely, portraying redistributive land reform as ‘unviable’ provides a basis for arguments that this is a poor use of public funds. Yet, despite its centrality in debates about land reform, viability is rarely defined, and its precise meaning often remains obscure.
Corporate power in the agrofood system and South Africa’s consumer food environment
(Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies, University of the Western Cape, 2016-05) Greenberg, Stephen
This report maps the extent of corporate power in the South African agro-food system using a value chain approach. It identifies major corporate actors in the various nodes of the agro-food system as of 2014. Some nodes tend to be dominated by corporations, for example input supply, grain storage and handling, and feedlots for commercial livestock. Other nodes have a strong corporate core but there is also a wide periphery, for example agricultural production, food manufacturing, wholesale and retail and consumer food service. The large periphery of marginalised actors in some parts of the system point to possible areas of intervention to boost livelihoods by supporting economic activity in the periphery. Although there are pockets of concentrated power in the system as a whole, there is also some distribution of power across nodes as well as between commodities. Vertical integration is less prevalent than in the past. The report looks at governance in the food system, the expansion of corporate self-regulation, and the implications for food security and nutrition. Corporations have immense power in structuring consumer perceptions on food quality and health, from input into apparently neutral dietary-based guidelines to advertising. Financialisation in the food system, including the institutionalisation of share ownership and the rise of agri-investment companies, and the multi-nationalisation of South African agro-food capital especially into Africa, have implications for the ability of the nation state to regulate activities in the agro-food system.
Crew members in South Africa’s squid industry: Whether they have benefited from transformation and governance reforms
(Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies, University of the Western Cape, 2008-10) Hara, Mafaniso
Although crew members form bedrock of the squid industry, they have not benefited from the transformation and governance reforms because: the harvesting technique necessitates incentivisation of individual effort; they are highly mobile; and the industry is exempted from revised labour legislation. As a result, they have been unable to organise for laying claim on benefits. As they unionise to strengthen their bargaining position, the conundrum is how to maintain incentive practices on which the catching sector is based while asserting their rights. The challenge is re-structuring the sector to improve quality of employment while maintaining individual crew member productivity incentives.
Defining Lone Motherhood in South Africa
(Institute for Poverty Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS), 2013) Wright, Gemma; Noble, Michael; Ntshongwana, Phakama; Barnes, Helen; Neves, David
The purpose of this document is to define the group of people whom we are considering as part of the project ‘Lone Mothers in South Africa: The role of social security in respecting and protecting dignity’. Setting to one side the group of interest briefly (‘lone mothers’), the project originates from research undertaken for the South African Department of Social Development (DSD) about attitudes to employment and social security (Noble et al., 2008; Ntshongwana and Wright, 2010a and 2010b; Ntshongwana et al., 2010; Surender et al., 2007; Surender et al., 2010). During the fieldwork for that programme of research, participants in focus groups repeatedly made the unprompted point that poverty eroded their sense of dignity. Given that the South African Constitution declares that people have inherent dignity and that dignity should be protected and respected (Republic of South Africa, 1996), we decided to dedicate a separate project to exploring the role that social security currently plays in relation to people’s sense of dignity. Specifically we hoped to explore whether social assistance, as a financial transfer to low income people, serves to help to protect and respect people’s dignity, or conversely whether there are ways in which the country’s social security arrangements serve to undermine people’s dignity. Currently, there is no social assistance for low income people of working age, even though there is a commitment elsewhere in the Constitution to the progressive realisation of access to social assistance for people, and their dependants, who are unable to support themselves (Republic of South Africa, 1996: Chapter 2 section 27). We therefore wanted to additionally explore whether people thought that – in the context of very high levels of unemployment ‐ some additional form of social assistance might be a worthwhile poverty alleviation measure that would help to protect and respect people’s sense of dignity, or whether it might serve to further erode people’s sense of dignity. Although the issues around poverty, dignity and social security could be explored with any subgroup of the population, we selected lone mothers (broadly defined, as elaborated below) for several reasons. First, they embody the societal expectations of caregiver and breadwinner – roles which are difficult to reconcile even if there is financial support from the state (Budlender, 2010; Kilkey, 2000; Lewis, 2010; Mokomane, 2009). As Millar writes: ‘lone parents are a group for whom the concept of the employment‐based welfare, in which all adults are in paid employment, highlights very sharply the potential tensions between time for work and time for care.‘ (Millar, 2008: 4).
Deflating the fallacy of food deserts: Local food geographies in Orange Farm and inner city Johannesburg
(Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies, University of the Western Cape, 2016-08) Kroll, Florian
The availability and accessibility of food is constrained by the environments where people live, work and purchase goods, and the pathways which they use to traverse these. This recognition has given rise to innovative conceptual frameworks including “food environments” and “food deserts”. These concepts add a spatial dimension to food security research that could inform food systems governance. Although the concepts have expanded the understanding of food security in the global North, their application to the South African context, and to value chains analysis, is still in its infancy. This paper introduces these frameworks and considers their utility in South African cities. The paper presents recent data emerging from case studies of local food geographies conducted by the African Food Security Urban Network (AFSUN). This research proceeded from recognising the importance of informal retail in South African urban food systems. The case studies mapped formal sector food retail outlets in urban Johannesburg, correlating these with socio-economic data. Informal food processing and trade were also mapped in smaller research areas to explore food prevalence and diversity in the local geography and map the spatial patterns of informal food outlets. These studies reveal that the distribution of supermarkets entrenches spatial inequalities and constrains access to food distributed through formal value chains. The studies also reveal spatial and temporal patterns of informal food retail, which provides diverse food retail outlets clustered around public transport access points, along high traffic pedestrian routes, and distributed throughout residential spaces. Although healthy foods are available, unhealthy foods and risky food environments are pervasive. These findings confirm that the concept of food deserts fails to reflect the diversity of food available and accessible through informal livelihoods and suggests that scalar network models of food geographies offer better conceptual frameworks.
Differentiation and development: The case of the Xolobeni community in the Eastern Cape, South Africa
(PLAAS, 2019-11-15) Zamchiya, Phillan
Most agrarian scholars argue that long historic processes of colonialism, capitalist development and implementation of neo-liberal structural policies in Sub-Saharan Africa have resulted in deagrarianisation and its sub-genre of depeasantisation particularly in South Africa. I argue that this long historic process epitomised, in some cases, by abandonment of cropping fields and deactivation of agriculture was uneven between and within communities across South Africa. Glossing over the geographic and socially differentiated outcomes has partly led to the general characterisation of rural communities as relic agrarian populations that need to be modernised through a new wave of large-scale land based investments. To substantiate, I use the case study of Xolobeni, which is situated on the Wild Coast, in the Eastern Cape Province. The Xolobeni community is engaged in a struggle against the South African government and the Transworld Energy and Minerals Resources (TEM) from Australia, which wants to invest in titanium mining in the area since 2001. Following a series of struggles, in 2018 the North Gauteng High Court ruled that the community has a right to say no to a development project, in line with the international principle of Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC). In addition to this legal right, I posit that the community actively used land for multiple livelihoods including gardening, livestock and crop production as well as marine resource harvesting for both consumption and for sale in contrast to the deactivation thesis. Given local processes of social differentiation, the benefits differed to a degree across a continuum of subsistence-oriented households, market-oriented households, wage and sale reliant households and wage reliant households. However, in all cases land-based livelihoods were essential in enabling households to create a higher standard of living. Consequently, the community preferred ecotourism and an agrarian model of development that would preserve their livelihoods, conserve ecological natural resources and reduce rural poverty as well as contribute to wider national economic development.

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