How do we improve synchronisation between land and water reform

Abstract

Water and agriculture South Africa hasan evident ‘dual-economy’ agricultural sector on the one side consisting of large-scale mechanised commercial farmers and small-scale, resource poor subsistence farmers at the other. Currently, approximately 95% of the national agricultural output (traded in formal markets) is produced by 5% of South African farmers, who can be characterised as large-scale commercial. In addition, since 1994, the government has been implementing its land reform policy aimed at alleviating the political and economic inequalities that are a legacy of South Africa’s past. One of the major challenges associated with the government’s objective to transfer land to black farmers has been to minimise productivity losses during the land reform process and thus avoid possible food security risks to the country. This has, however, proved to be quite challenging as beneficiaries of the land reform process have struggled to maintain the comparatively high productivity levels of commercial agriculture.

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