THE USE OF COMMUNAL LAND TENURE SYSTEMS IN

Date
2011-05-13
Authors
MAMETJA, MADIE ANGELINA
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Abstract
The Department of Land Affairs has been given a constitutional mandate to redistribute 30 per cent of agricultural land from white farmers to black people in South Africa. Since its inception, land reform has been heavily criticized for its failure to produce a new farming class among blacks, for contributing to the current food shortages, and to job losses in the agricultural sector. Government has bought tracts of land for blacks over the past thirteen years, but most of this land is lying fallow. Although a number of reasons are given for the collapse of land reform projects, this research was aimed at gaining a deeper understanding of the contribution of the communal land tenure systems in the form of Communal Property Institutions (CPIs), which are being used by land reform beneficiaries for land-holding and management purposes. Qualitative research methodology was used in the research. Two land reform projects were selected in the Nkangala District of Mpumalanga Province, namely the New Life Kibbutz Communal Trust and the Simangwe Poultry and Distribution cc. The research found that the grant system used by the Department of Land Affairs for land acquisition purposes forced people to mobilize one another into groups of varying sizes in order to get enough grants to pay for the land. This phenomenon is commonly known as ‘rent-a-crowd’. Conflict within these groups is rife, making it difficult for people to work together. Individual rights within the groups are not properly defined and/or understood by the members, making it difficult for them to work the land individually or even to sell their rights. The constitutions for the groups are often poorly drafted and barely understood by the beneficiaries themselves. v Any farmers would be willing to invest in their land if they are able to claim its ownership. Thus, for land reform to work, the manner in which land is held and managed needs to be reviewed
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MM - P&DM
Keywords
Land reform, Communal land tenure systems
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