Numerous plans to boost black farmers had failed over the past three decades, a BFAP report said. Instead of implementing plans properly, new plans were devised and failed, for the same reason.
The report said the future of agriculture was threatened by the “dualism” of commercial farmer success and the “frustration and failure” of many black farmers.
Instead of benefiting from policies meant to advantage them, black farmers had suffered. The report noted the effect of the dismantling of farmer support services “for not discernible good reason” after 1994, together with deregulation and liberalisation of the agricultural sector.
This had exposed South African agriculture to all the volatilities of international commodity markets.
“The reduced levels of subsidisation were supposed to reduce land values and, hence, support land reform and the transformation of the agrarian economy.
“In reality, the impact was different: it made the process of integrating new and previously disadvantaged farmer communities into commercial agricultural value chains very difficult and was one of the main reasons for the failure of agrarian transformation in general and of land reform in particular.”
The withdrawal of this support to white farmers had two consequences. First, it allowed the growth of very large-scale (“mega”) farming operations, especially in intensive irrigated horticulture production.
“Second, it was accompanied by the abolition of support measures, from direct subsidies to indirect market interventions, from funding of research and extension to the withdrawal of subsidies on conservation works. The result was that black farmers were bereft of the support services that they had been denied under the previous regimes.”
A host of plans had been put forward to transform the agricultural sector in the post-apartheid period.
“Disappointingly, implementation and execution were inadequate and/or uncoordinated, resulting in frustration and failure. In response, new plans were developed without addressing the root causes of failure and frustration.”
The report concluded that, over the past 30 years, South Africa’s agricultural sector had become more sustainable, more agile and more resilient.
“However, this may turn out to be short-lived unless the state can succeed in addressing the dualism that plagues the sector as a result of the heavy hand of the past,” it warned.
