CHAPTER 4: PRESENTATION AND INTERPRETATION OF RESEARCH FINDINGS
4.6. Impact of land redistribution on livelihoods
The lessee of the state farm indicated that “if it wasn’t for the support provided through the drought relief from the Department of Rural Development and Land Reform I would have returned the keys”.
4.6. Impact of land redistribution on livelihoods
This section is responding to observation of any improvement in the respondents’
household as a result of land redistribution. In the literature review it was indicated that in the South African context there is little agreement on the core indicators of success in land reform projects. For the purpose of this study the livelihoods indicators must not only improve the household’s wellbeing as a result of policy interventions, but they must improve it in a sustainable manner. The indicators used for the purpose of this study were discussed below:
Income
This indicator was selected to measure the effectiveness of land redistribution in livelihoods as it had been used by other researchers. From the findings of this study, out of the twelve households only one household indicated that they were making an income and the other eleven households had a lack of income coming from all the farm activities. It was found to be one of the reasons why most of these projects sampled are not working. It can be concluded in this study that lack of participation by women in the farm activities is because that there is no guaranteed income, in other words there is no salary on a monthly basis. However the households indicated that there was an impact that they had seen in their households.
One household that is staying on the farm indicated that the land redistribution programme made an impact “the poultry structure that was built on the farm changed my life for the better as I am managing to get the little income from the sale of the broilers. I cannot stay at home and wait for the market. The market will find me here”.
Twelve of the respondents (households) have managed to buy some furniture, build houses, send siblings and their children to tertiary and they are affording to put food on the table on a daily basis but the income is sourced from outside the farm. One
110 household is rearing broilers at small scale which they are selling at the informal market from their backyard which is far from the farm. One household indicated that the farm is not generating the income as they expected, hence the taking of some of the savings to run this farm.
The 46 year old male respondent further added that I can now afford to buy casual clothes, school uniform and pay school fees for my children. “Before I joined this project it was a crisis. My life was dependent on borrowing money to take care of my family, social grants and now I can afford to pay a doctor in case a member of my family is sick. I have managed to take my son to Makwarela FET College (Techniven) and the second born is still at high school through the little income I’m receiving from the farm”.
The finding confirms what was indicated in the literature review with the study that was conducted in the North West Province by Antwi & Oladele (2013). The findings showed that some of the key livelihood indicators were lowly achieved and there was less contribution from the land redistributed farms towards food security. However there were mixed feelings in terms of the impact of the land redistribution programme in improving the quality of lives. Two of the households have made it very clear that to them it was just a waste of time.
One respondent 46 year old female indicated that “I have been in that farm since 2001 to date there is nothing to show for it. I am still poor even after receiving the land”.
The 54 old male indicated that “I am sitting with a transformer which costs more than R 30 000, 00 electricity bill on monthly basis”.
Employment
There are mixed feelings in terms of employment. Seven out of the twelve beneficiaries are not working at all and they are not even on the farm. Most of these households are women. The land redistribution projects sampled did not create enough jobs as it would have been expected. Two of the projects created only twelve
111 permanent jobs out of more than 900 hectares combined. Due to lack of the financial support these projects are not operating at full capacity which affects the creation of employment in these projects. From the findings it is evident that lack of financial support and the market are crippling these projects which make it impossible to create employment. If these issues are not addressed there is a possibility of these projects collapsing.
One respondent, a 37 years old female indicated that “land redistribution projects are not creating employment for us, how is it possible for it to create jobs for the community people?”.
On the day of the visit there were additional four temporary jobs for the construction of the office, ablution block and the packaging shed.
Figure 4.3: Office block
Source: Field data
Infrastructure
It is evident that when two of the properties were bought, there was nothing in terms of infrastructure and the assets except for the dilapidated fence. All the sampled households still needed assistance from the state or other areas to be able to run these farms. One recent project that was bought through the PLAS programme, in terms of the infrastructure it was more advanced compared to the other two programmes (SLAG & LRAD). However the household is now faced with challenges
112 of the dilapidated infrastructure (underground pipes, pumps) and the water table in the boreholes was far below what was expected. The land was overgrazed and it will take years for the grass to regenerate.
It can be concluded in this study from the findings that all the sampled projects only bought the hectares. It will need a lot of money for these projects to be fully functional.
The 54 old male indicated that “I have spent all my savings; this farm is only eating from my pocket”. The Department only gave me R 1 574 000, 00 which did not manage to fix all the underground pipes that are in the farm”.