Land redistribution: Part of a wider agrarian reform strategy

Abstract

An emerging and increasingly more prominent debate amid the considerations of a new White Paper, following the Green Paper process, which will set the legal framework for land reform and agrarian transformation, is whether or not land reform is still a necessity. If not, how do we reverse the unequal land-holding patterns in South Africa? We have yet to see large-scale redistribution of land and a far more equal land outfit. The land-reform programme made limited progress. The Willing Buyer Willing Seller (WBWS) approach, among others, had largely been blamed. Given the insignificant land transfers under the land-reform programmes, the market is clearly not addressing the landlessness and insecure tenure of black people. What the evidence suggests is that the market allows for the de-racialisation of the better-off and creates a more equal ‘elitist’ landed group, but the WBWS cannot be made to work in favour of the poor.