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Dubb, Alex (PLAAS, University of the Western Cape, 2012)[more][less]
Abstract: This paper argues that the rise and decline of small-scale sugarcane grower (SSG) production in KwaZulu-Natal must be historically located within a changing structural relationship with miller-processors, in turn conditioned by shifts in regulatory frameworks. Critically, the emergence of SSG production in the late-1970s–1980s can be traced to industry-subsidised initiatives disguised as micro-credit which brought commercially inalienable Bantustan land into cane production with strong miller oversight. From the late 1980–1990s, however, the elimination of these subsidies encouraged millers to withdraw from direct oversight and to subcontract support to farmers, while simultaneously instigating an increase in SSG numbers by removing restrictions on grower registration. Enduring drought must certainly be understood as a central proximal factor in the rapid decline of SSGs, but their rapid increase in the first place was structurally fragile. This paper further strives to provide insight into the shifting class dynamics of SSGs under constrained conditions of production, utilising survey data from seventy SSG homesteads and life-history interviews in two rural wards of the Umfolozi region. Although proceeds from sugarcane have represented an important source of cash-income for homesteads, deteriorating terms of exchange and barriers to expansion in land and capital have placed a greater emphasis on sparse off-farm income opportunities for stabilising consumption and enabling limited re-investment in production. The centrality of income-diversification for simple reproduction and limited accumulation has rendered the dynamics of social differentiation both unstable and reversible. The paper concludes by exploring the implications for agrarian reform policy. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10566/571 Files in this item: 1
DubbSugarcaneFarming2013.pdf (913.9Kb) -
du Toit, Andries (PLAAS, University of the Western Cape, 2012)[more][less]
Abstract: This paper considers the state of poverty discourse in South Africa since 1994: the ideological frameworks, narratives and assumptions that have shaped the construction of poverty as an object of academic knowledge, policy management and political concern. One of the distinctive characteristics of Post-apartheid South African politics is the existence of a broad consensus both on the importance of the need to reduce poverty and the means by which to do it. This consensus has a paradoxical and ambiguous character. On the one hand, ‘poverty talk’ plays a central role in posing and framing fundamental questions of social justice in South Africa: indeed, it is one of the main ways in which the issue of the moral and political legitimacy of the post-Apartheid social order is framed and debated.This has facilitated significant and broad social legitimacy for ‘pro--poor’ policies and the distribution of resources. But at the same time, the discursive frameworks that have underpinned this consensus also contain important limitations. Poverty is understood in ways that disconnect it from an understanding of inequality and social process, and which deny consequence or relevance to the causal relationship between the persistence of poverty and the formation and nature of South African capitalism. In this way ‘poverty talk' trivialises poverty as a social issue and neutralises its political charge. The paper ends with an evaluation of the strengths and limits of South Africa’s anti-poverty consensus and considers different responses to the impasses confronting poverty management. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10566/642 Files in this item: 1
PLAAS_WorkingPaper22dutoit.pdf (463.5Kb)
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