Ann Bernstein

WE NEED more voices of reason to join government in its lonely (and sometimes ambiguous) defence of the constitution, modernisation and market-oriented approach to urban and rural land reform. Here are 12 propositions.

Discussion of land reform is influenced more by beliefs about SA’s history than by plans for its future wellbeing. Mention "land reform" and most South Africans immediately think "rural", "agriculture", and transferring ownership of land from whites to blacks. Few commentators mention urbanisation, globalisation, trade liberalisation, modernisation of agriculture, economies of scale, scarcity of water or other constraints.

We should not rely exclusively on a state-driven approach to land reform. Experience in many countries shows that programmes that have relied on the public sector in the belief that it is the only one capable of monitoring integrity, providing services, determining needs and managing the process have been failures.

Democratic SA should not "grow the bantustans". It would be a bad mistake to perpetuate former homeland land and settlement approaches as a consequence of our land reform strategy. In the words of one of SA’s leading agricultural economists: "Thus far the (state) land reform programme has succeeded in duplicating conditions in former homelands (on commercial agricultural land) where it is still all but impossible to farm commercially."

Assuming capacity that does not exist is dangerous. There is practically no national, provincial or municipal capacity to implement land reform — to provide extension services to new black farmers; implement new legislation to assist farm workers with new rights or new development opportunities; or to implement new tenure legislation.

Land reform is an overloaded policy area subject to exaggerated, partly conflicting demands. Among other things, it is expected to compensate black South Africans for losses of land in terms of the 1913 Land Act; compensate them for losses of land and property under apartheid; create a large new class of black commercial farmers; modernise communal tenure; strengthen the position of women, and relieve rural poverty. While these demands are understandable, they amount to "policy overload" — a set of expectations that no single policy or programme can satisfy.

Rural land reform is not the answer to mass rural poverty. SA’s national development strategy needs to encompass a suite of programmes to lift millions of South Africans out of poverty. The keys here are quality education, employment, urbanisation, and a new strategic vision of the role of the rural sector in economic development. SA has never had a rural development strategy; it is time we developed one appropriate to a 21st century urbanising SA.

Land reform in 21st century SA is primarily an urban activity. The vast majority of new households over the past 15 years have been formed in the urban areas. SA is well over 60% urbanised and this movement to the cities will grow. Most blacks want a secure place to stay in urban SA, as close to jobs as possible. This means that the most intense pressures for land will increasingly come in metropolitan and other urban centres. The recent Constitutional Court judgment instructing government to protect private urban land from illegal settlement stated that a failure to deal with these issues would be a recipe for anarchy. The urban protests about housing conditions and service provision dramatically underline the difficult challenges that face SA in improving its urban management and boosting its flagging urban housing and settlement strategy.

Rural land reform should assume many different forms, and outcomes are not primarily about race. As a seasoned observer of land reform efforts notes: "Effective policies capable of bringing about changes in the distribution and production of crops need to start from the very different circumstances obtaining within, as well as among, the different provinces and agro-ecological regions of the country rather than trying to implement a costly exercise in social engineering designed to resettle large numbers of emergent farmers to some areas hitherto reserved for whites."

There are many different kinds of demand for land in rural and urban areas. However, demand as a whole is manageable. It is clear that there are urban and rural pressure points. It is important not to generalise too easily. We should identify these pressure points of intense land need and act expeditiously.

Land redistribution is an essential part of the programme to deracialise commercial agriculture and empower black farmers. The country can and must open up more opportunities for black South Africans in the agricultural sector. Programmes must be implemented realistically so that most new farmers succeed. To do this effectively we have to build on the expertise and willingness of agri-business to form partnerships with farm workers and others eager to farm or be involved in agribusiness.

SA faces a choice in respect of land reform. We can continue on our current path, with the burden of implementing a very ambitious, restitution-oriented, overwhelmingly rural concept of "land reform" resting predominantly on government. This approach is characterised by a limited ability to deliver, raised expectations, a growing sense of inadequacy and failure on the part of those involved and the wider public. Although government talks of this being a "market-dominated" approach, this is in fact only partly the case, with government spokesmen never fully explaining what they mean by this phrase. And use of this phrase in a context of limited delivery and populist antagonism will lead to a backlash against the constitutional compromise on property rights and what will be tagged, unfairly, as market-dominated reform. We are already beginning to see a search for "scapegoats" in some quarters both within and outside the African National Congress, and declining confidence among commentators, investors, and citizens in SA’s ability to manage land issues.

Or we can establish a new paradigm for land reform that is truly market-driven and situates urban land issues at the forefront of our priorities and places rural land issues in a single, integrated developmental framework appropriate to the continent’s most urbanised, industrialised economy.

A new narrative about land must begin to enter and permeate the public debate. Predominantly urbanising the debate on land, modernising concepts of ownership, dealing with restitution through scholarships, government bonds and land, using and popularising neutral terminology, and avoiding attaching blame to other parties should play an important role in a truly successful approach to land issues.

Bernstein is executive director of the Centre for Development and Enterprise. This article is based on a new publication by the centre: Land Reform in SA: a 21st century perspective.