A fresh start for rural development and agrarian reform?
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Date
2009-07-29
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
PLAAS, University of the Western Cape
Abstract
The new cabinet ushered in after
the 2009 national elections features
new and renamed ministries. Those
expected to take the lead in a new
initiative to resuscitate the rural
economy are the Ministry of Rural
Development and Land Reform
and the Ministry of Agriculture,
Forestry and Fisheries. While the
newfound priority placed on
rural development is welcome, its
separation from the dynamic subsectors
in the rural economy is not.
This brief shows how existing policies
are bifurcated between BEE models
for the better off and welfare for
the poor. There is now a danger that
the two ministries will replicate the
dualism of the so-called ‘first’ and
‘second’ economies – an approach
that deepens exclusion from and
legitimises exploitation in the
economic core, and prevents the
creation of a ‘missing middle’ of
successful small producers. What is
needed instead is rural development
that restructures the commercial
sectors of agriculture, forestry
and fisheries, and the exploitative
class relations (with workers and
small producers) on which they are
based, and which breaks down the
concentration of capital and market
power in few hands. Only then can
redistributing land, forests and
fishing quotas create new pathways
for ‘the rural poor’ to participate, and
produce, in these sectors in ways that
create livelihoods and jobs, and set
South Africa on a different and more
appropriate growth path.
Description
Keywords
Rural development, Economy, South Africa, Government policy,
Citation
Hall, R. (2009) A fresh start for rural development and agrarian reform? Policy Brief no. 29, July 2009. PLAAS, University of the Western Cape