"The Department of Agriculture should redirect its budget and redeploy staff to create a special programme. to assist land reform beneficiaries.v'"
The LRAD programme was established to redistribute land specifically for agricultural purposes. However, the LRAD policy document only provided details on the land
17South African Government: Ministry for Agriculture and Land Affairs,2000:10
redistribution of land without providing any detail on post-transfer agricultural development other than designating responsibility for extension support to the DoA (Ministry for Agriculture and Land Affairs,2000).
Wegerif(2004) indicates that the Provincial Department of Agriculture (PDA) provision of post-transfer assistance includes business planning, on-farm development and technical assistance. However, by 2003, most LRAD projects in Limpopo Province had not received this support (Wegerif2004).
The gross absence of a strategy for agricultural development within the framework of the 2000 LRAD policy document and the poor delivery of extension support since 1994 has resulted in LRAD having a limited impact on agricultural development (Hall et al, 2003).
The DoA confirms that the LRAD programme failed to provide adequate financial support for the agricultural development aspect ofLRAD. In fact, the delivery of land through the land reform programme far exceeds the availability of agricultural services to land reform beneficiaries (Department of Agriculture, 2004).
In August 2004,in response to the lack of clear policy on post-transfer support for LRAD and the growing demand for the agricultural support in a deregulated agricultural environment, the DoA introduced the Comprehensive Agriculture Support Programme (CASP) to assist with addressing agricultural development (Hall,2004a).
R750 million, to be dispensed over a three year period, has been earmarked for CASP (Hall, 2004a). The aim of CASP is to enhance the provision of support services to promote and facilitate agricultural development targeting the beneficiaries of land and agrarian reform.
The Department of Agriculture (2004) has identified six areas of support that CASP addresses in terms of providing agricultural extension support:
1. Information and knowledge management
2. Technical and advisory assistance,and regulatory services 3. Training and capacity building
4. Marketing and business development
5. On-farm and off-farm infrastructure and production inputs
6. Financial assistance
However, it is unclear how these aspects of support will impact on LRAD projects as CASP is not specific to LRAD and feeds at least four different programmes (of which LRAD in only one). CASP identifies four categories of client: the hungry and vulnerable, subsistence and household food producers, farmers (including LRAD farmers) and commercial agriculture (Department of Agriculture, 2004) which are not necessarily aligned with the LRAD programme's categories of project.
4.6 Agricultural support services
LRAD is a unique component of the land reform programme in that it focuses on creating viable farming operations. However, this is huge challenge, as found by Mamphololo and Botha (2004) because LRAD beneficiaries lack information for making decisions.
Ranchod (2004: 74) explains that "human capital is one of the most consistent and economically important predictors of farm efficiency." The legacy of apartheid has left a severe shortage of agricultural skills in black communities and especially former homeland areas (Ranchod, 2004). Therefore,the supply of agricultural support services to emerging farmers is critical to successful LRAD projects. The DoA has set up a dedicated support service called the Agricultural Development Support Services (ADSS) that deals with accessing funds for LRAD projects so that inputs and other extension support can be obtained by emerging farmers (Lonsdale, 2005,pers comm.*).
A workshop held in Pietermaritzburg (November 2005) revealed a number of problems with extension relevant to this thesis. Firstly, there is a severe shortage of competent extension personnel. Secondly, there is little contact between extension personnel and target communities. Thirdly, there is insufficient information on veld and natural resource management and especially on communal rangelands (Morris, 2005). Finally,the training of emerging farmers has not been very successful. The lack of transport to training workshops and the commencement of training only late after projects have been initiated has contributed to this (van der Westhuizen, 2005). And although mentorship has been recommended as a means of exchanging knowledge and showing farmers directly on farm
• Lonsdale,J. Project Manager,ADSS, Cedara.
processes this has only been implemented on a small scale with varying degrees of success (Terblanche,2003).
Conclusion
This chapter has shown that there is room for improvement of the LRAD programme.
LRAD policy formulation has been conceptualised poorly. The process for graduating LRAD projects remains unclear. CASP categories of client are not aligned with the categories of project stipulated in LRAD policy. Theoretically, LRAD farmers could fall into all four of the CASP categories of client and has implications for the type of extension support provided to LRAD farmers. The non-alignment of land redistribution and agricultural policies and programmes may be indicative of the coordination and cooperation problems between the DoA and the DLA.
The role of extension support remains vital to LRAD. However, evidence from Limpopo Province suggests that extension support available is inadequate. Additionally, the favouring of large groups of LRAD beneficiaries may not be conducive to successful agricultural projects.
LRAD remains exclusionary, only enabling those with the relevant resources to participate.
The LRAD programme does not address the land need of the majority of previously disadvantaged communities. Instead it intends to establish emerging black farmers that will contribute to the economic growth of the agricultural sector. However, the achievements of LRAD so far have not been impressive and it remains doubtful that the objectives of land reform will be attained through LRAD. Also, security of tenure for LRAD beneficiaries is not guaranteed, as it seems that government has the authority to confiscate LRAD projects that are not performing. Itcan only be hoped that with the post- transfer assistance of CASP, LRAD projects will be able to become more sustainable.
Chapter 5:
Methodology