Access to land and rural poverty in South Africa

Abstract

The big picture: some history • Large-scale land dispossession from 1652 into the late 20th century • 1913 and 1936 Land Acts: African majority confined to 13% of country • Forced removals in apartheid years: 2.5 million people (1955 to 1990) • By 1994, 82 million ha of commercial farmland owned by 60,000 white farmers • 13 million black people were crowded into former ‘homelands’ • On private farms, 3 million workers and dependents – poorly paid, lacked basic facilities, no security of tenure • Commercial farming sector heavily subsidised by the state until the mid-1980s • Vibrant African