In the Shadow of Policy. Robert Ross

to the ‘squeeze on agriculture’ that stands for the increased pressure on farm income which is an outcome of unequal terms of trade and power relations between the agricultural sector on the one hand and the industrial and financial sectors on the other. Lipton (2009), who is not against market options per se, is, however, critical of neo-liberalism and the uncritical embracing of the market that follows. Based on a comparative worldwide study, he argues that under certain conditions a degree of market regulation is required to counteract the impact of market and market relations on land reform practices (see also Lipton and Lipton 1993). Land and agrarian reform should address existing unequal power relations between agriculture and industry – a position, given the extent of deregulation, that is not shared by the current South African government, which is wary of any form of state subsidy for the agricultural sector (Hall 2009b).

      Binswanger and Deininger (1996), Deininger and Binswanger (1999) and Deininger (1999) are critical of state-led market reform because of political and financial problems with enforcing a ceiling on land ownership. Experiences elsewhere, they argue, show that state-led reforms generate ‘corruption, tenure insecurity, and red tape’ (Deininger and Binswanger1999: 263). They plead instead for a market-led agrarian reform model (MLAR) which has become the much-favoured approach of the World Bank. MLAR involves a negotiated land reform that relies on voluntary land transfers based on negotiations between buyers and sellers (‘willing buyer, willing seller’), where the government’s role is restricted to establishing the necessary framework and making available a land-purchase grant to eligible beneficiaries. MLAR is defined as a land reform strategy fostering a productive and market-oriented agricultural sector. Deininger (1999) argues that becoming a beneficiary of land reform should be self-selective. The role of the state, then, should be limited to providing land-purchase grants and settlement support services, which demands both budget and human resource capacity, both of which appear to be critically lacking in the course of the land reform programme in South Africa.

      Borras (2003: 390) in turn questions MLAR and maintains that the MLAR approach to land reform disconnects ‘the technical/administrative issues in project/policy implementation (like post-settlement support, PH) from the political contexts (such as those in South(ern) Africa, PH) within which MLAR operators and clients are embedded’. Neither history and everyday social realties nor technological choices present themselves as neutral. This book documents in detail that neither market nor self-selection of beneficiaries is a neutral process.

      To escape neo-liberal tendencies, Huizer (1999), Rosset (2006) and Borras (2008) call for an agrarian reform ‘from below’. Their plea is for a land reform under the leadership of the state but controlled by social movements that have led the social struggle for land and are experienced in devising ways to improve livelihoods. Not the market but people’s livelihoods and their well-being should inform the state’s reform agenda. It is often argued that a precondition for ‘development from below’ is an active social movement capable of mobilising and driving the process and acting as a creative broker. Brazil, where the MST has pushed land reform, is a good example; experiences show, however, that such involvement can also turn out to be ambiguous, where, for example, the leadership of social movements push their own agendas (Caldeira 2008; Wittman 2009).

      Cousins (2007, 2011, 2013) argues in the same vein that ‘accumulation from below’ is a more relevant trajectory to pursue in land reform. Applied to the South African context, ‘accumulation from below’ should help to create situations whereby elites cannot run away with the benefits of the reforms. Thiesenhusen (1989b) points at a similar dynamic in Latin America. Moreover Cousins (2007: 240, 241) maintains that ‘what is required is a radical restructuring of agrarian economic space, property regimes and socio-economic relations, premised on the potential for accumulation from below in both agricultural and non-agricultural forms of petty commodity production, and expanded opportunities for “multiple livelihoods strategies” ’. Phrasing it differently, in Chayanovian terminology (Van der Ploeg 2013), land and agrarian reform in south(ern) Africa should facilitate the construction of self-owned and self-controlled resource bases which fit in with multiple livelihood strategies.

      Overview of In the Shadow of Policy

      The book is divided into three parts. The first, comprising three chapters, provides an analysis of context. The second part consists of ten chapters that examine the gaps between policy and practice, and the final part, with seven chapters, draws on empirical research to critically assess policy-led initiatives in the Eastern Cape. What follows is a brief overview of the chapters in each section.

       Part 1 Setting the scene: land and agrarian reform in post-apartheid South Africa

      This part provides an analytical context as well as a policy one. Whereas chapter 1 (this chapter) debates land reform and identifies key issues, chapters 2 and 3 specifically address the policy dimensions of land and agrarian reform in South Africa. Key among the arguments in this part is that next to discontinuities in the policy domain, important and strategic continuities in official thinking remain a predominant feature of institutional repertoires and intervention practices.

      This chapter reviews the land reform debate in South Africa and elsewhere, and works towards a synthesis of the book. The themes that emerge from the international debate, and analytical lessons learned from agrarian studies more broadly, appear meaningful for understanding the complexities of South Africa’s land reform practices.

      In chapter 2, Paul Hebinck reviews agrarian and rural development policies in South Africa and charts the changes and shifts that have taken place over the years. He summarises over 100 years of rural and agricultural development policy and analyses the ideas and ideologies that shaped these policies. They appear to have many common characteristics even though they have emerged from contrasting political ideologies and governance regimes. These continuities often constrain the dramatic structural changes and transformations that post-apartheid policy-makers would like to achieve.

      Ben Cousins’s chapter 3 discusses why and how post-apartheid land and agricultural policies have been uncoupled, partly as a result of the unwillingness of policy-makers to tamper with the perceived strengths of large-scale commercial farming, as well as unexamined assumptions about the nature of ‘modern agriculture’. The chapter assesses the consequences of these policy choices, including, most damagingly, the lack of a coherent strategy to reform the inherited agrarian structure.

       Part 2 ‘Mind the gap’: discrepancies between policies and practices in South African land reform

      The second part explores how agrarian reform policies are transmitted, implemented and experienced at the grass-roots level of projects and villages. Chapters 4–13 draw heavily on empirical investigations of land and agrarian reform practices after land has been redistributed and/or returned to the original owners and new institutional and property relations come into play. The land tenure reform dimension is addressed specifically, to show how history complicates current reform initiatives. The chapters stress that social inequality embedded in relations of class, gender and generation are important ingredients of land reform practices. In addition, there is ample evidence of new forms of inequality that derive from the social categories the reform discourse has introduced. At the same time, beneficiaries make their own selections from among the opportunities and resources land reform policy has to offer, thus unpacking policy components and repackaging them, as it were, to suit the needs of their everyday practices. All of this happens against a background of multiple livelihood strategies.

      Francois Marais explores, in chapter 4, the degree to which land reform beneficiaries rework the expert advice provided by land reform consultants. The case material of two farms in the Western Cape shows that beneficiaries are not passive recipients