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