CHALLENGES OF SUBSISTENCE FARMING IN SOUTH AFRICA: A CASE STUDY OF EMJIKWENI VILLAGE IN EASTERN CAPE PROVINCE

BY

YOLISWA MNGQINYA

SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF

DPHIL - DEVELOPMENT STUDIES

IN THE

FACULTY OF BUSINESS AND ECONOMIC SCIENCES

AT THE

NELSON MANDELA UNIVERSITY

NOVEMBER 2019

SUPERVISOR: PROFESSOR JONATHAN MAKUWIRA

DECLARATION

NAME: Yoliswa Mngqinya

STUDENT NUMBER: 211224065

QUALIFICATION: DPHIL - DEVELOPMENT STUDIES

TITLE OF PROJECT: CHALLENGES OF SUBSISTENCE FARMING IN SOUTH AFRICA: A CASE STUDY OF EMJIKWENI VILLAGE IN EASTERN CAPE PROVINCE

In accordance with Rule G5.6.3, I hereby declare that the above-mentioned thesis is my own work and that it has not previously been submitted for assessment to another University or for another qualification.

i DEDICATION

This thesis is dedicated to my late parents, uTata, Godnet Cwaka “GC” Mngqinya and my two mothers, Mama Nomvula No-Eight Mngqinya and Mama Nontuthuzelo Mathaba Futo. Although they are no longer part of this world, they remain a part of my life. The memories of them, the lessons and values they taught me, continue to guide my life to this day. I remain forever grateful.

ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I am indebted to Statistics South Africa for affording me the opportunity to further my studies through financial assistance, study leave and space for my personal growth.

A special word of gratitude and appreciation goes to my supervisor, Professor Jonathan Makuwira, who convinced me that nothing is impossible if you put your mind to it despite other people’s discouraging remarks. I will forever be indebted to him for being there for me in times of difficulties and need. He was always by my side to provide courage and support under difficult circumstances in bringing this dissertation to completion.

A word of appreciation goes to my colleagues who gave me moral support and technical inputs throughout this journey. A special word of thanks goes to Ms Nonzukiso Stemela, Mr Anele Jafta, Dr Mkhuseli Jokani and Dr Miranda Mafafo who sacrificed their time to give me support and motivation even when I was tempted to give up due to work pressures, family and academic work.

I would like to give a special word of thanks to the community of eMjikweni Village who allowed and welcomed me in their homes and gave time to make contributions to this study. It is their stories that will help craft a better future for subsistence farmers in rural South Africa. I also wish of acknowledge the management of the Department of Rural Development and Land Reform in Mhlontlo Local Municipality for their valuable contribution to this study.

Finally, to my entire family, especially my dear sons: I am eternally thankful and grateful for your support, encouragement, love and understanding. At times, I was not even able to grace important family occasions that were important to you, throughout the period of my studies. But you understood and I thank you.

iii ABSTRACT

Subsistence agriculture plays an important role in the livelihood of Africa’s rural population. Yet in many countries like South Africa, rather than seeing an upward projection of food production with an almost natural shift towards commercialising household production of food, the state of rural agriculture continues to go into decline. Since the advent of South Africa’s new dawn of democracy in 1994, agriculture has been the priority of government for the advancement of subsistence economy and rural development in rural communities. But progress in making a vibrant sustainable economy out of subsistence farming has remained stymied. At a time when there is a need to significantly increase the productivity of subsistence/smallholder agriculture and ensure long-term food security, rural subsistence farmers in the former bread basket of the Eastern Cape Province, have abandoned crop production. Characteristic of contemporary Eastern Cape’s rural landscape is the sight of large tracts of farm land lying uncultivated. Amidst a raging debate in South Africa on land reform, the merits of the debate remain silent in the face of visibly idle crop land. This study has attempted to make a small incision into a growing body of knowledge on land reform with a view to and laying bare current challenges that keep rural folk out of the field, notwithstanding availability of land.

Adopting multi-level research techniques, a purposive sample of 83 village respondents in eMjikweni was selected. Through a combination of face-to-face interviews using an open-ended interview instrument; focus group discussions and case studies, information was extracted from the sample to understand the current challenges of subsistence farming that make for poor household crop production, intensified dependence on social grants for income and growing food insecurity. Despite a conducive policy environment, the study findings suggest that as long as political will is absent, the formula for agrarian reform will remain incorrect, further entrenching rural poverty. As an exercise in social enquiry, the study employed a combination of quantitative and qualitative data analysis methods, while being careful to note how methodology impacts on the ability of respondents to narrate their lived experience, which, carefully crafted, can be valuable catalysts to a more bottom-up approach to rural development, sustainable agriculture and enhanced food security in the Eastern Cape.

iv The merit of this study in making the said incision into a growing body of information on land reform is that it provides a glimpse into the life of a rural subsistence farmer. With the launch of the Presidential Panel Report on Land Reform (2019) a few days ago, the voice and experience of those who bear the brunt of land reform becomes critical.

They are a people facing enormous challenges to restoring subsistence agriculture as a vibrant contributor to food security at household level and to reduced dependency on the state for its livelihood. They are a people who once created the “bread basket” of the Eastern Cape Province with a vibrant agricultural economy. They are a people who raise children to form part of the significant statistics of migrants to the economic hubs of Gauteng Province in particular in search of employment. They are a people who contribute significantly to the growing numbers of people dependent on the state for social grants. They are a people central to solving land reform for a better South Africa. It is based on their stories that this study’s findings argue for the revitalisation of the subsistence economies of rural communities which recognises the deeply entrenched socio-economic and geo-spatial transformations over time that make it quite complex to return to a past utopia.

It is the premise of this thesis that the smallholder and subsistence agricultural sector has the potential to create job opportunities and promote local economic development in rural communities, which in turn would mitigate the triple challenge of poverty, unemployment and inequality facing South African society.

v TABLE OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION ...... i

DEDICATION ...... ii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ...... iii

ABSTRACT ...... iv

LIST OF ANNEXURES ...... xiii

LIST OF FIGURES...... xiv

LIST OF TABLES ...... xvi

LIST OF CASE STUDIES ...... xvii

ABBREVIATIONS AND ACRONYMS ...... xviii

GLOSSARY OF ISIXHOSA TERMS...... xxi

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1 INTRODUCTION ...... 1

1.2 THE SIGNIFICANCE OF SUBSISTENCE FARMING AS A VEHICLE FOR LOCAL ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT AND FOOD SECURITY IN THE EASTERN CAPE PROVINCE ...... 10

1.3 THE POLICY FRAMEWORK FOR AGRICULTURE, FARMING AND RURAL DEVELOPMENT IN SOUTH AFRICA ...... 14

1.4 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM ...... 15

1.5 RESEARCH QUESTIONS ...... 18

1.5.1 Specific research questions ...... 19

1.5.2 Research objectives ...... 20

1.6 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY ...... 21

1.7 SCOPE OF THE STUDY ...... 22

1.8 DEFINITION OF TERMS ...... 24

vi 1.9 CHAPTER OUTLINE ...... 26

CHAPTER TWO

LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 INTRODUCTION ...... 29

2.2 A HISTORICAL REFLECTION ON SOUTH AFRICA’S AGRARIAN ECONOMY ...... 30

2.2.1 Setting the stage: Agrarian policy ...... 30

2.2.2 The labour migrant system and its effect on rural economies in Southern Africa ...... 35

2.2.3 The apartheid system and segregated development ...... 38

2.3 LAND, AGRICULTURE AND RURAL DEVELOPMENT IN DEMOCRATIC SOUTH AFRICA ...... 41

2.3.1 A rural agricultural landscape in decline...... 42

2.3.2 The agriculture and rural development policy landscape ...... 45

2.3.3 The rural subsistence farming landscape ...... 50

2.4 A CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK OF THE DETERMINANTS OF SUBSISTENCE AGRICULTURE ...... 57

2.4.1 The socio-economic impact caused by the decline of agricultural activities in rural communities ...... 58

2.4.1.1 Demographics of household head ...... 58

2.4.1.2 Household size and composition ...... 58

2.4.1.3 Gender disparities ...... 59

2.4.2 Factors contributing to the decline of subsistence agriculture in the former homeland areas ...... 61

2.4.2.1 Asset base and Inputs ...... 61

2.4.2.2 Poor or lack of infrastructure development ...... 61

2.4.2.3 Drought ...... 62

vii 2.4.3 Government Programmes and Policy ...... 63

2.5 RURAL DEVELOPMENT FRAMEWORK FOR SOUTH AFRICA AND ITS IMPACT ON RURAL COMMUNITIES ...... 66

2.6 FOOD SECURITY CHALLENGES IN SOUTH AFRICA ...... 70

2.7 CHAPTER SUMMARY ...... 73

CHAPTER THREE

PROFILE OF THE RESEARCH SITE: EMJIKWENI VILLAGE IN THE MHLONTLO MUNICIPALITY OF EASTERN CAPE PROVINCE

3.1 INTRODUCTION ...... 75

3.2 DEMOGRAPHIC AND SOCIO-ECONOMIC PROFILE ...... 75

3.2.1 Location of Mhlontlo Local Municipality ...... 75

3.2.2 Population and Employment ...... 78

3.2.3 Education and service delivery ...... 78

3.2.4 Basic infrastructure and services ...... 79

3.3 THE DEMOGRAPHY OF EMJIKWENI VILLAGE – THE STUDY SITE ...... 79

3.4 THE GEOGRAPHY OF EMJIKWENI VILLAGE IN THE MHLONTLO LOCAL MUNICIPALITY ...... 81

3.5 OVERVIEW OF LAND USE IN MHLONTLO MUNICIPALITY ...... 84

3.6 CHAPTER SUMMARY ...... 85

CHAPTER FOUR

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

4.1 INTRODUCTION ...... 87

4.2 A THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK ON SUBSISTENCE FARMING IN EMJIKWENI VILLAGE, MHLONTLO LOCAL MUNICIPALITY ...... 88

4.3 RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODOLOGY ...... 89

viii 4.3.1 The review of literature ...... 90

4.3.2 Research site familiarity ...... 91

4.3.3 Conducting fieldwork ...... 92

4.4 DATA COLLECTION IN THE EMJIKWENI VILLAGE ...... 93

4.4.1 Fieldwork: The interviews ...... 96

4.4.2 Fieldwork: The focus group discussions ...... 98

4.4.3 Fieldwork: Selected case studies (oral history) ...... 100

4.5 FIELD STUDY LIMITATIONS ...... 101

4.6 DATA PROCESSING AND ANALYSIS ...... 102

4.7 RESEARCH DATA QUALITY, RELIABILITY AND VALIDITY ...... 104

4.7.1 Data quality in the study ...... 105

4.7.2 Ensuring validity of research data in the study ...... 105

4.7.3 Reliability of the research study data ...... 105

4.8 ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS ...... 106

4.9 CHAPTER SUMMARY ...... 107

CHAPTER FIVE

STUDY FINDINGS PART I: AN OVERVIEW OF CONTEMPORARY SUBSISTENCE FARMING IN PRACTICE IN THE EMJIKWENI VILLAGE

5.1 INTRODUCTION ...... 108

5.2 SOCIO-DEMOGRAPHIC PROFILE OF EMJIKWENI VILLAGE ...... 109

5.2.1 Age and sex structure of study respondents ...... 109

5.2.2 Gender roles in agriculture ...... 112

5.3 MARITAL STATUS OF STUDY RESPONDENTS ...... 113

5.4 PERIOD OF RESIDENCE OF STUDY RESPONDENTS IN THE EMJIKWENI VILLAGE ...... 115

5.5 LEVEL OF EDUCATION OF STUDY RESPONDENTS ...... 116

ix 5.6 EMPLOYMENT LEVELS IN EMJIKWENI VILLAGE ...... 118

5.7 HOUSEHOLD SOURCES OF INCOME IN THE EMJIKWENI VILLAGE ... 119

5.8 SUBSISTENCE FARMING IN HOUSEHOLDS IN THE EMJIKWENI VILLAGE ...... 120

5.9 CONTRIBUTION OF SUBSISTENCE FARMING TO HOUSEHOLD FOOD PRODUCTION AND LIVELIHOODS IN THE EMJIKWENI VILLAGE ...... 122

5.9.1 Declining household food production in the eMjikweni Village ...... 124

5.9.2 Contributing factors to declining household food production ...... 131

5.9.2.1 The effects of history on rural communities’ food production ...... 131

5.9.2.2 Gendered Division of Labour and its Impact on Food Production ...... 141

5.10 CHAPTER SUMMARY ...... 145

CHAPTER SIX

STUDY FINDINGS PART II: REVITALISING SUSTAINABLE SUBSISTENCE FARMING IN THE EASTERN CAPE: TOWARDS AN INTEGRATED APPROACH TO LAND, AGRICULTURE AND POLICY

6.1 INTRODUCTION ...... 146

6.2 CHALLENGES AND REALITIES OF SUBSISTENCE FARMING IN THE STUDY AREA OF EMJIKWENI VILLAGE ...... 148

6.2.1 Environmental issues and revitalising conservation agriculture ...... 148

6.2.1.1 Effects of overgrazing in the village of eMjikweni ...... 149

6.2.1.2 Effects of soil erosion in the eMjikweni Village ...... 153

6.2.2 Household financial resources in the study area ...... 156

6.2.2.1 Household expenditure demands ...... 159

6.2.2.2 The challenge of agricultural input costs ...... 162

6.2.3 Household approaches to food production ...... 165

x 6.2.4 Community empowerment through cooperatives ...... 170

6.2.4.1 A perspective from inside the eMjikweni Maize Project .... 173

6.2.4.2 Perspectives from outside the eMjikweni Maize Project ... 176

6.2.5 The role of infrastructure in food production in the eMjikweni Village ...... 178

6.2.6 Household labour for agricultural production ...... 183

6.2.6.1 Household labour patterns and their impact on food production ...... 184

6.2.6.2 The impact of HIV/AIDS on food production ...... 186

6.2.6.3 The contribution of youth to food production ...... 187

6.2.7 The impact of water resources on food production ...... 192

6.3 THE ROLE OF GOVERNMENT SUPPORT IN THE AGRICULTURAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE EMJIKWENI VILLAGE ...... 194

6.3.1 Government programme support: A view from above ...... 195

6.3.2 Government programme support: A view from below ...... 199

6.4 CASE STUDY OF SIYAZONDLA HOMESTEAD FOOD PRODUCTION PROGRAMME: AN INITIATIVE OF EASTERN CAPE PROVINCIAL GOVERNMENT ...... 203

6.5 CHAPTER SUMMARY ...... 208

CHAPTER SEVEN

CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

7.1 A RECAP ON THE STUDY BACKGROUND ...... 210

7.2 ABOUT THE STUDY ...... 211

7.3 SUMMARY OF THE RESEARCH ...... 213

7.4 SUBSISTENCE FARMING IN THE EASTERN CAPE: AGRARIAN DECAY AND ITS IMPACT ON FOOD SECURITY AND RURAL LIVELIHOODS ..... 214

xi 7.5 REVITALISING SUSTAINABLE SUBSISTENCE FARMING THROUGH AN INTERGRATED APPROACH TO LAND, AGRICULTURE AND POLICY ... 215

7.6 STUDY LIMITATIONS ...... 216

7.7 DISCUSSION ...... 218

7.7.1 Promoting subsistence farming for household security ...... 219

7.7.2 Government policy, agricultural development and food security ..... 221

7.7.3 Gender Disparity and Land Allocation ...... 223

7.7.4 Empowering women in subsistence agricultural development ...... 225

7.7.5 A role for youth in South African agriculture ...... 226

7.8 RECOMMENDATIONS ...... 229

7.8.1 Accommodating competing lifestyles ...... 229

7.8.2 Reducing market dependency ...... 230

7.8.3 Training in productive farming methods ...... 231

7.8.4 Improved government support ...... 234

7.8.5 Promoting indigenous knowledge in farming ...... 236

7.8.6 Promoting rural farming cooperatives: A bottom-up approach ...... 237

7.8.7 Improved agricultural extension services ...... 239

7.8.8 To shift or not to shift to commercial agriculture ...... 241

7.8.9 Youth in rural agriculture: An obstacle or opportunity? ...... 242

7.8.10 Improved rural infrastructure ...... 244

7.8.11 Data on small-scale subsistence farming for evidence-based planning ...... 245

7.8 CONCLUSION ...... 246

REFERENCES ...... 248

xii LIST OF ANNEXURES

APPENDIX A: DOCTORAL RESEARCH FIELD INSTRUMENT ...... 248

APPENDIX B: ETHICS CLEARANCE ...... 275

APPENDIX C: CITATION ...... 276

APPENDIX D: LETTER FROM THE LANGUAGE PRACTITIONER ...... 277

xiii LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1.1: Map of democratic South Africa (with insert of apartheid South Africa) ... 2

Figure 1.2: Map of apartheid South Africa and Bantustan or Homelands...... 5

Figure 1.3: South African maize production ...... 7

Figure 1.4: District Municipalities in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa ...... 23

Figure 1.5: Mhlontlo Local Municipality, Eastern Cape...... 24

Figure 2.1: Map of South Africa in 1880 ...... 35

Figure 2.2: Location map of Witwatersrand gold deposits in South Africa...... 37

Figure 2.3: Map of South Africa and former Bantustans or homelands ...... 40

Figure 2.4: Determinants of subsistence agriculture (Adapted from FAO, 2016) ..... 57

Figure 2.5: The pathway of land degradation ...... 63

Figure 2.6: Land and rural development framework ...... 66

Figure 3.1: Location of Mhlontlo Local Municipality in Eastern Cape ...... 76

Figure 3.2: Location of eMjikweni Village within Mhlontlo Local Municipality ...... 77

Figure 3.3: Satellite Image of eMjikweni Village relative to surrounding localities ... 77

Figure 3.4: An aerial view of eMjikweni Village in Mhlontlo Local Municipality ...... 82

Figure 3.5: Satellite image of demarcated land use in eMjikweni Village ...... 83

Figure 3.6: Satellite image of homestead gardens near eMjikweni Village dwelling units ...... 84

Figure 3.7: Agriculture zones of Mhlontlo Local Municipality ...... 85

Figure 4.1: Research steps & considerations adopted in eMjikweni Village study ... 95

Figure 5:1: Socio-historical and policy context for the decline in subsistence farming in Eastern Cape ...... 108

Figure 5.2: Gender of household head in eMjikweni Village study ...... 109

Figure 5.3: Age structure of study respondents in eMjikweni ...... 110

Figure 5.4: Distribution by sex of study respondents above the age of 55 ...... 111

xiv Figure 5.5: Marital status of study respondents in eMjikweni ...... 114

Figure 5.6: Level of education ...... 116

Figure 5.7: Employment patterns in the study area of eMjikweni ...... 118

Figure 5.8: Household sources of income in study area of eMjikweni ...... 120

Figure 5.9: Maize and vegetable crops cultivated in study area of eMjikweni Village ...... 130

Figure 5.10: Factors influencing the collapse of the subsistence economy in the Eastern Cape ...... 132

Figure 5.11: Household time use in study area of eMjikweni ...... 142

Figure 6.1: A prototype framework for agriculture and rural development ...... 147

Figure 6.2: Aerial photography of eMjikweni Village ...... 153

Figure 6.3: SWOT analysis of the eMjikweni Village’s Maize Project ...... 175

Figure 6.4: Basic outcomes of the linkage between rural infrastructure, agriculture and development ...... 179

Figure 6.5: A Siyazondla vegetable garden in the eMjikweni Village ...... 203

xv LIST OF TABLES

Table 2.1: Means of non-farming rural livelihoods ...... 67

Table 2.2: Resource and assets in livelihood generation ...... 70

Table 3.1: Profile of Mhlontlo Local Municipality and eMjikweni Village ...... 81

Table 5.1 Agricultural activities by gender ...... 113

xvi LIST OF CASE STUDIES

Case Study 5.1: FROM SUSTAINABLE FARMING TO SOCIAL GRANT DEPENDENCE ...... 126

Case Study 5.2: FEELING THE BITE OF DROUGHT ...... 129

Case Study 5.3: THE PRIVILEGE OF PROGRAMME INCLUSION ...... 130

Case Study 5.4: THE MIGRANT HOUSEHOLD ...... 131

Case Study 5.5: LAND DISPOSSESSION ...... 135

Case Study 5.6: BREAKDOWN IN SOCIAL ORGANISATION ...... 138

Case Study 5.7: A CASE OF STOCK THEFT ...... 140

Case study 5.8: A SOCIAL & HOUSEHOLD LABOUR EQUILIBRIUM SHATTERED ...... 144

Case Study 6.1: OVERGRAZING IN EMJIKWENI VILLAGE: STRIKING BALANCES ...... 151

Case Study 6.2: SOIL EROSION AND FOOD INSECURITY ...... 155

Case Study 6.3: JUGGLING THE HOUSEHOLD BUDGET ...... 158

Case Study 6.4: WHEN FOOD IS NOT ENOUGH ...... 167

Case Study 6.5: RURAL PROJECTS GONE WRONG ...... 171

Case Study 6.6: AN AGEING SUSBSISTENCE FARMER ...... 186

Case Study 6.7: THE IMPACT OF HIV/AIDS ...... 187

Case Study 6.8: THE YOUTH DILEMMA ON SUBSISTENCE FARMING ...... 190

Case Study 6.9: YOUTH: THE HOPE OF SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURAL DEVELOPMENT ...... 191

xvii ABBREVIATIONS AND ACRONYMS

AGRA Alliance for Green Revolution in Africa

AgriSA Agriculture South Africa

AIDS Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome

AFSP Apartheid Farmer Support Programme

ANC African National Congress

ARC Agricultural Research Council (of South Africa)

ASGISA Accelerated Skills and Growth Initiative South Africa

CAADP Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme

COPE Congress of the People Party

CRDP Comprehensive Rural Development Plan

CRLA Commission on Restitution of Land Rights

CSIR Centre for Scientific & Innovative Research

CWP Community Works Programme

DA Democratic Alliance

DAFF Department of Agriculture, Forestry & Fisheries

DRDLR Department of Rural Development & Land Reform

DTI Department of Trade & Industry

ECDA Eastern Cape Development Agency

EFF Economic Freedom Fighters

EMA Environmental Management Agency

EPWP Expanded Public Works Programme

FANRPAN Food, Agriculture, National Resources Policy Analysis Network

FAO Food & Agriculture Organisation (of the UN)

xviii FF PLUS Freedom Front Plus

GEAR Growth, Employment and Redistribution (plan)

GFAR Global Forum on Agricultural Research

GHS General Household Survey

HIV Human Immunodeficiency Virus

IDP Integrated Development Plan

IFP Inkatha Freedom Party

ILO International Labour Organisation

LRAD Land Redistribution for Agricultural Development

MFPP Massive Food Production Programme

MLM Mhlontlo Local Municipality

MTEF Medium Term Expenditure Framework

NCOP National Council of Provinces

NDA National Development Agency

NDP National Development Plan

NGO Non-governmental organisation

PDRDAR Eastern Cape) Provincial Department of Rural Development & Agrarian Reform

PMG Parliamentary Monitoring Group

PRSP Poverty Reduction Strategies Papers

R&D Research and Development

RDP Reconstruction and Development Programme

SADC Southern African Development Community

SDGs Sustainable Development Goals

SHFPP Siyazondla Homstead Food Production Programme

SONA State of the Nation Address

Stats SA Statistics South Africa

xix TB Tuberculosis

TEBA The Employment Bureau of Africa

UN United Nations

WFP World Food Programme

YPARD Young Professionals for Agricultural Development

xx GLOSSARY OF ISIXHOSA TERMS

Ilima Communal work party

Intsimi Small arable communal plots or agricultural fields used normally for crop production like maize

Inkanga Shrubs

Irangasi Dry vegetation

Isitiya Small household vegetable garden (plural: izitiya) Lobola Bride price or dowry

Makhulu Grandmother, but socially, a term respectfully used to refer to any elderly woman old enough to be your grandmother

Mama Mother, but socially, a term respectfully used to refer to an older woman regardless of their marital status

Mashonisa Micro-loan lender, usually operating illegally – charges high interest rates and known to use violent methods of debt collection

Siyazondla “We feed ourselves” or “we provide for ourselves” referring to self-sustainability

Tata Father, but socially, a term respectfully used to refer to an older man regardless of their marital status

Tatomkhulu Grandfather, but socially, a term used to respectfully refer to any elderly man old enough to be your grandfather

Ubuntu Unity through compassion and empathy extended one towards another

Umngqusho Traditional dish made with samp (stamped maize), sugar beans, onion and available ingredients like margarine, chillies or meat; a typical Xhosa staple carbohydrate but has become a popular South African cuisine dish

xxi CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1 INTRODUCTION

Nelson Mandela would have reminded us that the last colonial question is land. If you don’t tackle the issue of land‚ you shall never know peace. (Kenyan scholar, Prof Patrick Lumumba, 18 July 2018, Nelson Mandela Memorial Lecture, Walter Sisulu University, Mthatha campus, Eastern Cape)

On Sunday 28 July 2019, a few weeks prior to the final submission of this thesis, a final report of the Presidential Advisory Panel on Land Reform and Agriculture was presented to South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa. The advisory panel appointed in September 2018 and headed by Dr Vuyo Mahlati had a presidential mandate to “provide a unified policy perspective on land reform in respect of restitution, redistribution and tenure reform. The work of the panel was partly informed by the resolution of Parliament to consider expropriation of land without compensation, the focus being on the circumstances under which the policy will be applied; the procedures to be followed and the institutions that are to implement and enforce the policy (Final Report of Presidential Advisory Panel on Land Reform and Agriculture, 2019 p.9).

In this regard, the panel sought to make a diagnosis of the prevailing land tenure patterns, land ownership, rural-urban dichotomies and an overall view of where the bottlenecks to land reform, as enshrined in the constitution of South Africa have been. In its recommendations, the panel does not shy away from the conclusion on land expropriation without compensation. The backdrop of the Final Report of Presidential Advisory Panel on Land Reform and Agriculture is the past two decades of land reform in South Africa that have yielded little success in establishing a new generation of commercial black farmers as advocated for in several post-1994 policies. There are a number of reasons for this, the report suggests, which include the slow pace of acquiring land, government reluctance to transfer ownership of the acquired portions of land to beneficiaries, and the poor post-transfer support system.

This landmark report supports an ideological position of the current government administration and its party mandate the African National Congress (ANC) (1994) and

1 that of other interested stakeholders. But it fails, as land reform programmes have, to grasp the reality of why rural under-development continues to plague South Africa. Sole focus on land tenure and ownership obfuscates the challenges that rural farmers face in their pursuit of food security. To its merit, however, one of the key findings of the Report of the Presidential Advisory Panel on Land Reform and Agriculture argues, albeit implicitly, that land availability or scarcity is incorrectly fingered as the reason for failure of land reform. But rather the problem lies in the the process of acquisition and systemic challenges facing post-transfer as the land acquired by government has also not shown an increase in production. This finding is at the core of this thesis on the challenges of rural subsistence agriculture in the Eastern Cape.

Source: Magellan Geographix (1997) www.fo.se Figure 1.1: Map of democratic South Africa (with insert of apartheid South Africa)

In response to the commitments to achieve Sustainable Development Goals by 2030, many countries across the globe have made significant strides towards reducing hunger and poverty. Yet, closer home, the entire Southern African Development

2 Community (SADC) region has realised little progress in the past two decades alone (UN, 2015). There are many reasons for this. Firstly, stagnant agricultural productivity and declining rural incomes lie at the heart of Africa’s (including South Africa’s) development challenge. In general, food production in the region has not kept pace with population growth. Secondly, unsustainable management of natural resources has led to further declines in agricultural yields. Thirdly, as global food prices rise, much of Africa has not and is still not able to make up its food deficits and may face increases in hunger and malnutrition rates (FANRPAN, 2015).

The ratification of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in 2015 by the United Nations has served to put more pressure on developing countries, especially the SADC region, to eliminate hunger by 2030. The challenges remain for individual member states to develop, implement and sustain pro-poor agricultural development strategies for the attainment of SDGs 1 and 2 of realising no poverty and zero hunger by 2030 (UN, 2015). Evidence exists to support the position for subsistence agriculture as a viable option for economic growth and poverty alleviation in the developing countries (Jieknyal, 2015; von Loeper, W., Musango, J., Brent, A. and Drimie, S., 2016).

Like its neighbouring countries, the South African agricultural sector is a very complex one with two dominant sectors comprising both commercial and subsistence agricultural systems. At one level, South Africa has a well-developed, highly capitalised, mechanised and equipped agricultural economy with modern farming inputs within the mainstream agriculture. The commercial farming sector is run predominantly by white farmers producing on a large-scale. At another level there exists a fledgling subsistence farming sector which is predominantly run by subsistence farmers which are mostly black and small-scale producers of agricultural products. Cronje (2016) observes that the commercial farming sector of South Africa is well established, even compared to its African counterparts on the continent. This sector, however, co-exists with a small-scale and subsistence farming sector struggling to sustain a reasonable, maximum production level and to participate in the food production scale, as well as fulfilling subsistence needs of their families (von Loeper, 2016).

3 To this day rural communities in these pockets of land, mainly in the provinces of Limpopo, Eastern Cape, Mpumalanga and KwaZulu-Natal, still practise subsistence farming in an effort to produce food and manage some level of self-sufficiency with the limited resources at its disposal. For the purposes of this study, the definition adopted on subsistence farming is that of Waceke and Kimenju (2007) and Morton (2007), who define subsistence agriculture as a form of production in which nearly all crops or livestock are raised to sustain the family and rarely produce surpluses to sell for cash or store for later use. This system is seen as a more acceptable nuance of subsistence farming and its associated activities, in which households consume all the produce – with little or nothing left to be sold in the market.

Changes in rural subsistence farming can be traced back to the early 1920s. Prior to the advent of the apartheid era, black people in South Africa were confined to native reserve areas, known as homelands. In 1936 the total reserve area was 13.8% of the national area. Under apartheid the process of homeland consolidation continued into the 1980s. By 1980 homelands covered 20% of the national area and supported 11 million people (Wilson, 1991). It was impossible for people classified as black to own land in the white farming areas and measures were taken to impede black agricultural production on white-owned farmland, driving black farmers out of the commercial farming areas. According to Simkins (1980), by the 1920s there were already signs of low productivity in farming in the “tribal reserves” and maize production began to drop from 3.7 million bags in 1934 to 1.2 million bags in 1936.

4

Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica (2007) www.britannica.com Figure 1.2: Map of apartheid South Africa and Bantustan or Homelands

The 1932 Native Economic Report revealed the impact of low productivity in all the “reserves” as an increasing number of people were suffering from malnutrition due to the lower production occasioning from reduced land allocation and the irreversible dangers of land degradation due to population growth. Subsistence farming was already in crisis as only 20% of subsistence farmers were still able to gain a livelihood derived from their farms (Cronje, 2016). This trend has continued into the present, with the most dramatic maize production decline recorded since 1948. Weis (2007) claims that the battle for the future of farming is a crucial one, with hunger increasing at an alarming rate and 842 million people suffering from malnutrition globally. “Cases of hunger and poverty are especially acute in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa” (Weis, 2007).

The agricultural policies of apartheid South Africa reflected a biased concern for white- owned commercial farming units. The White Paper for Agriculture in 1984 stated that a “maximum number of financially sound owner-occupant farms” was an important aim of the policy as it would contribute to the retention and establishment of a stable, happy and prosperous rural population (quoted in Adey, 2007). This excluded the homelands,

5 which were far from being stable and prosperous. Almost all of the land in the former homelands of South Africa then, and now, is held under communal tenure, which combines elements of individual and collective property rights. Tribal Authorities manage communal tenure through tribal chiefs and headmen, a traditional system of leadership that has been maintained in various forms in democratic South Africa. Every household within a communal area has a right to land for residential purposes, an arable plot for crop production, and access to common property resources, such as grazing land (Simkins, 1981; Lahiff, 2000). After 1994, the Mandela administration of 1994 to 1998 gave support to subsistence farmers who became in some ways the focal point of assistance to the new agricultural sector. The Mbeki administration of 1998 to 2007 on the other hand, shifted focus towards the assistance of emerging farmers (those who intended to become commercial farmers). This inclination continues to this day though with the implicitly more subtle provision of agricultural services provided by national government departments directed more towards the needs of the emerging commercial farmers, than towards the needs of the subsistence farmers.

In South Africa, the underlying challenge of the subsistence farming sector is its failure to produce sufficient food. This presents a threat to food security at household level and at country level. Despite the political and economic advances seen in South Africa since 1994, the country is still plagued by poverty and unemployment and, following the recent global economic crisis of 2008 onwards, by steep food and fuel prices, high- energy tariffs and increasing interest rates (UN, 2009; Labadarios, D., Mchiza, Z.J., Steyn, N. P., Gericke, G., Maunder, E.M.W., Davids, Y. D. and Parker, W. 2011). These adverse conditions have placed severe pressure on ordinary South Africans already struggling to meet their basic household needs, more so in rural areas.

The merits of this study, therefore, in contributing to the land debate and with the backdrop of the Final Report of the Presidential Advisory Panel on Land Reform and Agriculture, is to present insight beyond land access, availability and ownership, but to say as a nation, a holistic approach to achieving sustainable food security through sustainable subsistence agriculture is pertinent. This study proposes a composite view to the land debate that considers the lived experiences of subsistence farmers, as well as their challenges in the context of available land that is not utilised for lack of

6 resources. These resources with a range of other factors cannot be divorced from the legacy of land dispossession. Unless the accompanying symptoms of land disenfranchisement are also taken into account, the goal to reduce hunger and alleviate poverty is still a long way off for rural South Africa.

Globally the economic meltdown of 2008 triggered a series of economic downturns that severely influenced the battle against hunger, malnutrition and poverty, as food insecurity has emerged as a global crisis following the global economic meltdown. According to the 2004 report of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) on the state of food insecurity in the world, more than 814 million people in developing countries are undernourished. Of these people, 204 million live in countries of sub- Saharan Africa, including South Africa. Production patterns as depicted by Stats SA’s agricultural statistics (see Figure 1.3) are a clear indication of the bleak picture of maize production from the 1970s to 2004. It is worth mentioning that agricultural economics started to show major production fluctuations from 1970 onwards as depicted by Figure 1.3:

Source: Stats SA Agriculture Statistics (2008) Figure 1.3: South African maize production

In 1994 South Africa’s first democratic government of national unity faced the challenge of remedying distribution of land prejudices while having to carefully balance the risk of a collapse of the already thriving commercial farming sector as an outcome of uncertainty. A broad neoliberal approach to economic policy was adopted wherein calls for nationalisation or expropriation of white-owned land were put at bay (Lahiff, 2000). To address the highly controversial issue of land ownership and access to land, the Land Reform Programme was initiated. The Land Reform Programme which is

7 currently enjoyed renewed interest in the 6th democratic government of South Africa, aims at returning land to those who had been denied land based on racially discriminatory laws and to transfer ownership of land in the former homelands from the state to the people who lived on that land and had legitimate right to it (Adey, 2007).

The Land Reform Programme has three key elements:

Land restitution: Restitution envisaged the direct return to the previous owners of land and property that had been removed due to a racially discriminatory law or practice.

Land redistribution: Redistribution sought to redistribute a third of all white- owned land to black farmers over a period of 5 years. It was anticipated that this market-led, demand-driven, state- supported land reform could achieve political and equity goals and create strong economic growth in the agricultural sector

Land tenure reform: Tenure reform aimed at the transfer of ownership of land in the former homelands from the state to legitimate residents. It is a complex process due to the lack of fit between the exclusive nature of Western property ownership and the inclusive nature of African systems of property rights.

In her critique of the land reform programme, Adey (2007) concludes that the core problem of the redistribution model is that it offered little scope for sustainable small- scale agricultural growth and little prospect for the rural poor to enhance their income from agriculture through land and agrarian reform as these were not part of a broader, integrated rural development process.

Rural development efforts since 1994 have suffered from fragmentation and lack of a coherent programme or agency at both the national and provincial levels. Land and agrarian reform has also shown very little sign of addressing the deepening crisis of the rural poor effectively, who remained marginalised by the process of economic

8 growth (Turner & Ibsen, 2000). The reason for this, Wildschut and Hulbert (1999) advocate, is that government had adopted a subtle dependency mechanism rather than a productive approach to rural development.

While agricultural production continues to decline, the population continues to grow, resulting in a higher demand for food. Therefore, the demand for food surpasses the rate of food production, resulting in a high rate of food inflation while influencing food access, food utilisation and food availability. No national survey has been conducted to assess all the dimensions of food insecurity in South Africa, although some national surveys have included specific components of food insecurity. It is little known, therefore, to what extent subsistence farming in South Africa can assist to close the glaring gaps in food production, even as significant study finds do suggest that a substantial proportion of households remains at risk of hunger or is experiencing hunger, especially in the Eastern Cape, with at least 45% of households still food insecure (Labadarios et al., 2011. Although the measures and programmes initiated by the South African government appear to be beneficial, these studies find, they need to be run more effectively to further alleviate food insecurity. The root cause for the persistence of food insecurity points to the lack of access to land for the South African majority which must be addressed through sustainable, non-income-dependent measures, such as the promotion of subsistence farming

Subsistence farming holds potential in playing an important role in reducing the vulnerability of rural households, improving their livelihoods, and helping to mitigate the effects of high food price inflation, especially as many of these households are growing increasingly dependent on state social grants. Increased agricultural productivity of subsistence farming can be achieved by encouraging subsistence farmers to pursue sustainable escalated production through the use of improved inputs. This would require a dramatic increase in the accessibility, affordability, knowledge of and use of fertiliser, organic inputs and conservation reserves. Combined with the development of and equitable access to well-functioning input and output markets, increased productivity will reduce pressure on marginal lands, as the intensification of cultivated land will reduce pressure to crop fragile peripheral lands as evidenced in the case of the Eastern Cape.

9 Like most former homelands and Bantustans areas, the Eastern Cape still possesses large tracts of communal land (crop fields) which are now lying fallow with no active agriculture activities having taken place in the past thirty years. Hendriks (2014) alludes to this scenario in her observation that The Natives Land Act of 1913 played a significant role in determining the food security context of the country in terms of the character, composition and contribution of the agricultural sector, shaped consumption patterns and determined rural livelihoods.

The economic, social, environmental and political systems that subsequently revolved as a consequence of the Native Lands Act meant that land ownership, land utilisation, food (production, access, availability and costs), migration, poverty, hunger and state social dependence became inextricably inter-linked over time. It is in this context that the decline and challenges to revitalising subsistence farming in the Eastern Cape are interrogated in this study. Critical to this challenge is the view of food security being increasingly expressed as a national objective in a plethora of strategies and programmes. This study demonstrates how the dire lack of coordination and no enforceable policy to ensure food security through strengthening subsistence farming in rural communities, will require a new approach that needs a framework of enforceable legislative measures and legislative coordination and reporting.

1.2 THE SIGNIFICANCE OF SUBSISTENCE FARMING AS A VEHICLE FOR LOCAL ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT AND FOOD SECURITY IN THE EASTERN CAPE PROVINCE

To adopt the view of Renzaho and Mellor (2010), it is misleading to measure food production without taking into account the social, cultural, and political contexts in which it occurs and that to look at food production solely from the perspective of availability or access to land, without taking into account the importance of how land is used, paints an incomplete picture.

The subsistence farming sector in contemporary Eastern Cape is characterised by uncultivated communal land resulting in food shortages in most parts of the province. Despite agricultural policy which has identified agriculture as a priority sector to ensure mass food production, the country is still confronted with the scourge of poverty in rural communities (Bank & Minkley, 2005). Ntsebeza and Hall (2006) argue that the cultural

10 landscape, which was once clearly defined by subsistence economy, has changed drastically in the countryside of the former Transkei and Ciskei regions. The land in the villages of the former homelands is divided into three distinct land-use categories - commonage, arable and residential but the current reality is that the lines have blurred and the allocation of the residential plots has extended onto the commonage and arable land (Hebinck, 2013:197; Ntsebeza & Hall, 2006: 200).

The Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (DAFF) (2012) recognised that in the two decades before 2012, large areas of uncultivated land had become a common feature in the rural areas of the former Transkei. Several studies have been conducted by researchers such as Andrew and Fox (2013) and Baiphethi and Jacobs (2009) to investigate the reasons behind the existence of unused land among rural communities. The findings point to a widespread lack of interest in farming activities and the lack of resources needed to engage in productive farming. The inability of rural communities to produce their own food forced them to be solely dependent on off-farm sources of income for their survival. Mlonyeni (2010) is apprehensive about what he perceives as the neglect of arable fields in the rural communities of the Eastern Cape. The current situation of lack of agricultural activities, in his argument, will plunge the province into deeper levels of poverty, hunger and starvation unless rural dwellers work the land for enhanced food security.

From a policy perspective, the Agricultural Development Strategy (2005) distinguishes subsistence agriculture as an age-old livelihood strategy for rural communities of the Eastern Cape that focuses on subsistence (maize) production in small-scale household gardens, small vegetable gardens (isitiya) alongside small arable communal plots or agricultural fields (intsimi) and small-scale livestock production. Yet the reality of limited cultivation of communal areas continues to evade policy formulation despite this being a major concern among policy makers against the backdrop of fierce debates on land appropriation aimed at redressing the historical imbalance of land distribution in South Africa, as well as improving food security in the country.

Presently, the commercial farming sector is the greatest contributor to agricultural production, notwithstanding its limited contribution to national Gross Domestic Product (GDP), while subsistence farmers struggle to utilise productively the land at their

11 disposal. The study, therefore, attempts to uncover the overarching factors that weigh in on the ability of subsistence farmers to emerge beyond household production to shifting focus on the evidently abandoned communal agricultural lands and asking the relevant questions if revitalisation of subsistence farming is an option to increased food security, improved livelihoods and sustainable land and agrarian reform.

There certainly are undisputed merits to subsistence farming for the Eastern Cape Province. With alarmingly high rates of youth unemployment at 47.3% (above the national average of 39%) in the third quarter of 2018, the South African government acknowledges that subsistence farming can be a source of economic growth and development in the rural economies of South Africa. Furthermore, it believes that rural development, through the revitalisation of the rural agricultural economy, could create job opportunities for rural communities (Bank & Minkley, 2005: 3) given that South Africa’s economy is failing to absorb the unemployed and new job seekers. Rural development and food security are a priority in the government’s development agenda with the ultimate aim of transforming traditional agriculture into modern agriculture through the formation of business enterprises and farming co-operatives that would increase productivity.

The unemployment rate has an inevitable ripple effect on the agricultural sector, continuing to trap many vulnerable rural households in the vicious cycle of poverty with no job opportunities to sustain their livelihoods. Today, only middle to high income rural households are able to cultivate their vegetable gardens (Du Toit & Neves, 2007; Andrew & Fox, 2010). According to Andrew and Fox (2010), the lack of disposable income in many poor households has resulted in a shift of cultivation from communal large fields to small homestead and vegetable gardens. Currently, 85% of the households in the rural areas depend on the government for social grants as their main source of income. Nowadays, the majority of households in the former homelands’ rural areas do not own livestock, which was the symbol of rural wealth and pride. The reduction in the number of cattle owned by rural communities has resulted in growing poverty, hunger, starvation, and shrinking savings from the sale of livestock (Andrew & Fox, 2010).

The post-1994 government immediately set to work to repeal, revise and change all the draconian policies and legislation of the past that had encouraged continued

12 inequality and the disenfranchisement of black people. New policies and programmes were implemented to reverse the agricultural and rural legacy of South Africa, especially after 2009. These policies sought to put land reform and rural development at the apex of government programmes as agriculture became a viable sector for resuscitation in order to create sustainable employment and promote local economic development in rural communities. The South African government Medium Term Strategic Framework (MTSF) of 2009 sought, amongst other things, to address the speeding up of growth and economic transformation, creating decent work and sustainable livelihoods, rebuilding social and economic infrastructure, implementing sustainable natural resource management, and improving rural development linked to land reform (Medium Term Strategic Framework, 2009).

Renowned South African journalist, Max du Preez (2018), pertinently reminds us that in the midst of the fierce debates on land expropriation, there still remain millions of acres of fertile land in communal areas that are not being used productively. This places into question merits of the current land expropriation debate on whether rural land expropriation is the right focus in view of the debilitating factors that work against rural agricultural development already (du Preez, 2018). The current land debate, he argues, should contextualise rural-urban migration while seeking to find pragmatic solutions to the current challenge of unproductive land in rural areas as a means of curbing the escalation of poverty in rural areas of the Eastern Cape Province. More so as the smallholder farming sector continues to be seen as the vehicle to fight poverty and hunger in rural areas in most policy dialogue (Aliber & Hall, 2012; Kepe & Tessaro, 2014).

This study used the rural village of eMjikweni outside Mthatha (formerly Umtata) in the Eastern Cape Province as a case study to test such an argument, by investigating why large tracts of land remain fallow and how South Africa could, through a comprehensive rural development strategy, attempt to alleviate unemployment and inequality. This thesis supports the ideology of food security, household by household, province by province, towards national food security, hunger elimination and eradication of poverty. The revitalisation of subsistence farming and small agricultural economies across the rural landscape of South Africa through programmes and partnerships with rural and urban economies is also interrogated in this study. The

13 research site was selected as one of South Africa’s forgotten ’bread baskets’ that today demonstrate the resilience of rural communities through innovative survival and livelihood strategies that help them to ward off poverty on a day-to-day basis despite failing agricultural programmes and policy.

1.3 THE POLICY FRAMEWORK FOR AGRICULTURE, FARMING AND RURAL DEVELOPMENT IN SOUTH AFRICA

The National Department of Agriculture’s policy framework of 1998 placed rural development at the centre of sustainable development in post-1994 South Africa. It called for urgent interventions to ensure that policies on rural development are implemented across the board. Nonetheless, research institutions have identified a grave challenge for government, as the lack of or inadequate data on subsistence agriculture with respect to land care, soil and water resources, and livestock management in the former homelands (Porter et al., 1993: 187). After 1994 the South African government, in its quest for strengthening economic development, creating employment, redistributing income and improvement of socio-economic condition of the country, adopted two broad national economic policies, the Growth, Employment and Redistribution plan (GEAR) and Accelerated Skills and Growth Initiative South Africa (ASGISA). GEAR was a broad based macro-economic policy, which was adopted in 1996. GEAR aimed at advancing the Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) by addressing basic needs such as housing, household services, health and education. The provision of the basic services was intended to reduce income inequalities, especially along racial lines, and eliminate of poverty. On the other hand, ASGISA’s main objective was to fight poverty, reduce unemployment and build a stronger economy through focus on skills development and training. The ASGISA was a government programme focused on the eradication of inequalities and poverty in an effort to bridge the gap between the poor ’second economy’ and the rich ’first economy’ of South Africa with absolute objective of eradicating the ’second economy’. ASGISA therefore, identified agriculture as a key industry within the ‘second economy’ that can potentially eradicate poverty, thus becoming a sustainable vehicle for the creation of job opportunities through required skills development.

The challenge for ASGISA was that there is no baseline data to monitor the progress made by the subsistence farmers which were beneficiaries of the ASGISA programme.

14 Equally, employment that was created through the ASGISA programme was not viable due to the short lifespan of the agricultural related projects, as well as lack of skills and skills transfer thereof, and management know-how (ANC, 1997). Even the two censuses of commercial agriculture undertaken in 2003 and 2007 could not provide data needed to monitor progress on the development of subsistence agricultural sector. According to Stats SA’s 2007 Census of Commercial Agriculture, there were 39,983 commercial farm units in South Africa in 2007. The census concentrated on the commercial farm units that were registered for value added tax (VAT) which had sustainable produce with an annual turnover of R 30 000 and above. In 2011, the Department of Agriculture Forestry and Fisheries reported that South Africa had approximately 240, 000 black farmers, although how many of these were commercial farmers was not known with certainty. Aliber and Hart (2009) point out that there were a total of 3 million small-scale farmers in South Africa (regardless of race) that primarily produce food for household consumption.

By 2018 this number has declined by almost half as the Quarterly Labour Force Survey for the third quarter of 2018 revealed that there were 1.7 million households engaged in subsistence farming activities, with a 66,000 decrease on year-on-year comparison (Stats SA, 3rd Quarter, 2018). It must be noted, however, that from a methodological point of view, comparison of data by Stats SA and independent researchers points to certain disparities on the number of subsistence, small scale and commercial farmers which unfortunately negatively impacts on planning, implementing and monitoring rural development programmes in South Africa.

1.4 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

The history of agriculture in South Africa has been well documented. The ability of the agricultural sector to contribute to the economy over the centuries has seen significant shifts in focus, impact and consequences, defined predominantly by geo-political and land/agriculture reformation dynamics of colonialism, apartheid and a post-1994 democracy. The latter period of post-1994 in particular has witnessed structural and constitutional changes in land reform processes that significantly impact on agriculture, both commercial and subsistence agriculture, and the choices at hand for

15 rural populations caught in the survivalist crosshairs of modernity and rural subsistence farming.

Volumes of evidence already exist to demonstrate the role of peasant and smallholder farming in food production and food security in South Africa for both rural and urban populations. For centuries it remained a major source of income, employment and export earnings. With the onslaught of colonialism began a rapid erosion of the rural agricultural economy in favour of mining interests and its appetite for cheap able- bodied labour was extracted from rural areas to service the labour-intense and rapidly growing lucrative mining sector on the Witwatersrand. Similarly a great body of literature also exists by researchers of the likes of Balcha (2013); Waceke and Kimenju (2007); von Loeper et al. (2016); Jieknyal (2015) and Khapayi and Celliers (2016), which endorse the findings by Porter et al. (1997) that the challenges of subsistence agriculture in South Africa have their roots which were only escalated during the colonial era and remain persistent to this day. Characterized by basic production methods, lack of agricultural inputs, poor access to credit and extension services on normally small sized farms (ranging from 0.2 to 1.5 hectares), high levels of diversification (mixed cropping, livestock system), limited use of purchased inputs in crop production process and high labor intensity, subsistence farming in rural South Africa is on the decline. What was once a food production system that kept households afloat is no longer the case.

Spatially, a once vibrant subsistence agricultural economy in “bread baskets” such as the former homeland of Transkei quickly became notable for agricultural underdevelopment, poorly developed infrastructure, inadequate basic services, low levels of nutrition and life expectancy and high dependency on male migrant remittance (Porter & Phillip-Howard, 1993:186). A complex cocktail of environmental, social and economic factors, coupled with forced removals from the fertile land to pave way for the establishment of white commercial farms, meant that black subsistence farmers had to relocate to arid land which was not suitable for crop production. Porter and Phillip-Howard (1993) attribute the decline in agriculture to creation under apartheid of an expensive dualistic agricultural structure that was created, in which large-scale capital intensive and heavily subsidised white farmers provided the bulk of market production while small-scale black subsistence sector suffered discrimination in terms of land rights, pricing, marketing, extension research and infrastructure.

16 Against this backdrop there is a general consensus from research findings and among policy makers that the future of food security and poverty lies with the smallholder farming. A post-1994 South Africa put in place significant policy and legislation aimed at reviving subsistence agriculture in the rural areas which was viewed as a potent vehicle to decrease poverty among rural households and at the same time increase household food security (Mlipha, 2015).

Yet, overwhelming evidence signals that the majority of poor rural households are still unable to produce or buy food (Masunda, 2014). Baiphethi and Jacobs (2009) observe that about 90% of food in rural households comes from markets with an increased proportion of their income spent on food while subsistence production and public programmes only constitute 10% of household’s food sources. Many rural households are trapped in a cycle of poverty, hunger and unemployment. The South African government recognises that land and agrarian reform has not yet achieved the desired strategic objective of equitable ownership. Its main objective has always been to establish a sufficient number of new black commercial farmers, as well as to ensure productive utilisation of newly allocated land. Yet, it has failed to invest in land-based strategies, as well as productive use of communal land by rural communities. The Eastern Cape is one of the provinces that are hardest hit by poverty, high levels of unemployment (especially youth unemployment), and high levels of rural-urban migration and a further decline of subsistence farming.

Since the late 1980s to this day the rural landscape of the Eastern Cape is characterised by land neglect as a result of abandoned agricultural activities. The desertion of farm land is widespread in rural areas, more especially in the former Transkei region of Eastern Cape Province. In the midst of ferocious policy, partisan and public debates and sentiment for more aggressive land reform policies and implementation in South Africa, especially leading up to the 6th democratic elections of South Africa in May 2019, the challenge of decaying subsistence farming, abandoned fields, failed policy interventions and the complex household dynamics, formations and their livelihoods continues to be a grave threat to improving food security and alleviating poverty in rural poor communities.

While the pivotal argument of the land debate remains one of access, availability and ownership, various researchers such as Gwala (2013), Khapayi and Celliers (2016)

17 and Porter and Phillips-Howard (1993) demonstrate that the state of neglect of communal land in Eastern Cape is compounded by rising levels of poverty in the rural areas of the province. This reality presents an unanswered anomaly to the land reform policy debates from a different evidence-based perspective of subsistence farming as one of the keys to food security, rural development and better lives for all. A massive knowledge gap which exists on the phenomenon of unproductive use of agricultural communal land has contributed to a shift from self-sufficiency and self-reliance to dependency (Mlonyeni, 2010). This knowledge gap has not found its way into the search for solutions to South Africa’s land reform process. The communal fields that were meant for crop production but today lie fallow in rich fertile lands such as eMjikweni in the Mhlontlo local municipality of the Eastern Cape, resulting in the escalation of food insecure households, poverty, malnutrition and poor health for already burdened households, continue to present a gap in the current land debate, its policies, interventions and strategies that rage in South Africa in contemporary times.

It is this knowledge gap that this study seeks to fill. Unless causes for persistently low levels of contemporary subsistence agriculture are identified, the policy framework and land debates in South Africa remain incomplete. There is a question not being asked. The research work in this study seeks to ascertain the effectiveness of government interventions in access to production inputs, finance and markets in augmenting incomes for subsistence farmers, the level of participation of women and youth; to document the success factors for the sustainability of the approaches that are working for purpose of upscaling and investigate the weaknesses and threats to viable subsistence farming in rural Eastern Cape. There is an answer not found as to why even when land is available, it lies fallow, its people cannot farm it and continue to contribute to high unemployment statistics and rely on social grants for basic survival. Herein lies the basis for this research study.

1.5 RESEARCH QUESTIONS

Most developing countries regard smallholder subsistence agriculture as the most effective way to fight food insecurity and provide household food security in accordance with specific dietary needs in rural areas (FAO, 2004; Aliber, 2003). Machethe (2004); Baiphethi and Jacobs (2009) argue that the smallholder subsistence

18 agricultural sector must be regarded as the main contributor towards the economy by up to 3 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP), and contributes 7.2 percent of formal employment in South Africa. However, there is still no consensus on whether the sector is the most appropriate strategy to achieve household food security in rural areas (Machethe, 2004; Aliber, 2003). This is evident due to the fact that the majority of the rural households are still vulnerable to food insecurity and malnutrition which exacerbate food poverty and hunger

Policy in post-1994 has similarly viewed subsistence farming as a vehicle for rural development and one of the key outcomes of the land reform debate in resolving growing unemployment, food insecurity and rural degradation. More than two and a half decades into democracy the landscape of rural South Africa has changed little, if not worsened. The once viable Eastern Cape rural economy as a case in point is generally characterised today by vast tracts of unworked fields in communities with predictable demographic profiles, high unemployment and growing dependence on state welfare and migrant remittances. In light of the above arises the question, why are rural communities still experiencing food insecurity, poverty and hunger despite policy and land reforms and interventions of the post-1994 democratic dispensation aimed at poverty reduction, food security and rural development? This leads to the overarching research question of this study, which is to investigate the challenges obstructing the potential role smallholder subsistence agriculture has in uplifting and providing food security of most rural households in the Eastern Cape.

1.5.1 Specific research questions

In exploring the challenges obstructing the potential role smallholder subsistence agriculture has in uplifting and providing food security of most rural households in the Eastern Cape, this research study has attempted to answer the following specific research questions:

The research study attempted to answer the following questions:

• To what extent is subsistence farming prevalent in rural households of the Eastern Cape?

19 • What are the contributions of smallholder subsistence agriculture towards household livelihoods in these rural areas? • Why is arable land not being utilised for subsistence agriculture in rural Eastern Cape? • What are underlying factors that hinder the revitalisation of subsistence farming in communal land in the rural areas of the former homeland of the Transkei? • Why have development initiatives to harmonise, streamline and prioritise rural agricultural development through support to subsistence farming not realised any gains?

1.5.2 Research objectives

The aim of the study is to investigate the challenges that have hindered the revitalisation of subsistence agriculture in the Mhlontlo local municipality of the Eastern Cape. Formerly a “bread basket” of South Africa, the collapse of the rural economy through an array of historical events and instruments contributed to the erosion of subsistence agriculture and sustainable rural livelihoods. The specific objectives of the study are therefore to:

• Determine the extent to which subsistence farming is prevalent in rural households of the Eastern Cape; • Explore the contributions of smallholder subsistence agriculture towards household livelihoods in these rural areas; • Establish why arable land is not being utilised for subsistence agriculture in rural Eastern Cape; • Identify the underlying factors that hinder the revitalisation of subsistence farming in communal land in the rural areas of the former homeland of the Transkei; and, • Recommend possible measures on how development initiatives to harmonise, streamline and prioritise rural agricultural development through support to subsistence farming has not realised any gains

20 1.6 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

The Medium Term Strategic Framework (2012-2019) of South Africa spells out in Outcome 7 that the ultimate aim of government is to achieve “vibrant, equitable and sustainable rural communities.” As this framework period draws to a close, implementation thereof has been fragmented with scarce attention being paid to revitalising small-scale rural subsistence economies, especially in migrant-exporting hotspots of South Africa, such as the former homeland of the Transkei. The timeliness of this research study is an indicator of the urgency by the South African government, researchers, civil society and rural communities at large to ease the burden of poverty, inequality and unemployment in South Africa. Rather than regress after 25 years this triple challenge of poverty, inequality and unemployment is on the rise. Policy instruments since 1994 point to the potential of agricultural and rural development in growing the economy, lowering unemployment and establishing food secure households. Similarly, government agrarian policy in post-1994 South Africa shifted its focus towards smallholder farmers and emerging farmers with the intention of ushering the transition of these smallholder/emerging farmers to commercial agricultural farmers. However, the revitalisation of subsistence agriculture in this regard has been neglected. Little provision has been made for the revitalisation of subsistence farming at a household level. The voice of rural poor in influencing these policies that affect their livelihoods has equally been neglected.

The gains achieved since 1994 are far outweighed by the setbacks in revitalising the rural economy. Investments made in land reform and rural development have still not been realised. While not claiming to hold the ultimate solution to this conundrum, this study attempts to make a contribution towards unravelling some of the intertwined and underlying dynamics, challenges and overlooked characteristics of rural households that influence their receptiveness to change and development. The study will contribute to the growing body of knowledge associated with the subsistence farming sector and rural development by providing a better understanding of the persistent challenges that hamper sustainable forms of subsistence farming in the former homeland of the Transkei and negate their contribution to local economic development. It will also provide insight into theory that demonstrates the importance of involving communities in rural development plans as a foundation for the inclusive

21 engagements which emphasise the ’bottom up’ approach to any development agenda for human beings

The study therefore, in proposing practical-level identifiers to enhancing subsistence farming as a viable option of rural development, identifies with Scoones’ (1998) and Borras’ (2009) theories of sustainable rural livelihoods, which can be achieved through access to a wide range of livelihood resources (natural, economic, human and social). Chief amongst these livelihood resources is the land and human resources, which will provide the opportunity for rural people to grow and produce more food to feed families.

1.7 SCOPE OF THE STUDY

This study was confined to the eMjikweni Village in Qumbu, which falls under the Mhlontlo Local Municipality. The Mhlontlo Local Municipality was established in terms of section 12 of the Local Government Municipal Structures Act 117 of 1998. It is one of five municipalities that constitute OR Tambo District Municipality in the Eastern Cape Province (see Figure 1.4):

22

Source: www.wikipedia.org [accessed 13 August 2019] Figure 1.4: District Municipalities in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa

The Mhlontlo Local Municipality is a rural municipality, incorporating Qumbu and Tsolo rural towns. The municipal area covers 282,614 sq. km. and has a population density of 73.3 people per sq. km. Approximately 96% of the municipal population live in rural areas, while the remaining 4% live in urban areas. Spatially, the municipality incorporates two main urban centres, Qumbu and Tsolo (Mhlontlo Local Municipality IDP, 2014-17).

23 With a significant population of rural dwellers and an equally significantly high population density, the study focuses on a municipality whose strategic focus in its Integrated Development Plan (IDP) should be on rural development and livelihoods.

Source: Demarcation Board (2011) Figure 1.5: Mhlontlo Local Municipality, Eastern Cape

1.8 DEFINITION OF TERMS

Agricultural Extension: Agricultural extension: A type of non-formal community education designed to promote agricultural efficiency (Duveskog, 2006), enhance food security, and improve rural livelihoods by assisting small-scale farmers, through educational procedures, in improving farming methods and techniques, increasing production efficiency and income, bettering their levels of living and lifting social and educational standards.

ASGISA: is a term that stands for the Accelerated Skills and Growth Initiative of South Africa. It was a government programme for poverty eradication and identified agriculture as the sustainable vehicle for job creation opportunities. This programme was aimed at equipping youth with skills so that they can enter the job market without any difficulties.

Commercial farming: A large-scale production of cash crops purposely for sale and for distribution to various markets to be sold.

24 CRDP: The Comprehensive Rural Development Programme established by government to aim at promoting agrarian transformation by strengthening household food security through household gardens.

Farmer empowerment: The ability of farmers to gain control of their farms and possessions, and become part of decision making in both public and private agricultural services, such as extension, training, information, investment and marketing (Duveskog, 2006).

Food access: The accessibility of households to reach resources for obtaining food for a healthy diet (FAO, 2006).

Food availability: The ability of the people to obtain adequate and good quality of foods that are either produced locally or imported from the outside or food aid (FAOs, 2006).

Food Security: is defined by Hendriks (2014) as a situation whereby all people have physical, social and economic access to sufficient, nutritious, healthy and safe food at all times to meet their daily food dietary needs and preferences. Household food security is adequate access by all household members at all times to safe and nutritious food for a healthy and productive life. Food security exists when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life.

GEAR: is a term that stands for the Growth, Employment and Redistribution. It was a macro-economic policy which was adopted as a strategy to promote growth, employment and redistribution in the country. The first objective of the GEAR programme was to achieve macro-economic balance in the South African economy by reducing budget deficit and falling rate of inflation. The ultimate goal for this macro- economic strategy adopted by the ANC-led government was to create opportunities for employment and a better life for the people of South Africa.

Land redistribution: Redistribution sought to redistribute a third of all white-owned land to black farmers over a period of five years. It was anticipated that this market- led, demand-driven, state-supported land reform could achieve political and equity goals and create strong economic growth in the agricultural sector.

25 Land restitution: Restitution envisaged the direct return to the previous owners of land and property that had been removed due to racially discriminatory law or practice.

Land tenure reform: Tenure reform is aimed at the transfer of ownership of land in the former homelands from the state to legitimate residents. It is a complex process due to the lack of fit between the exclusive nature of Western property ownership and the inclusive nature of African systems of property rights.

LRAD: The Land Redistribution for Agricultural Development instead, seeks as its main goal to develop and assist black farmers to become commercial farmers, by sourcing and providing financial assistance in the form of other grants, besides the standard safety net.

MFPP: The Massive Food Production Programme, is aimed at promoting agrarian transformation by strengthening household food security by raising maize yield and other agricultural produce.

Smallholder subsistence agriculture: is defined as the production which involves mainly households producing on relatively small plots of land less than one hectare with limited resources only for household subsistence or sale.

Sustainability: Sustainability is the ability of a system to maintain productivity in spite of a major disturbance. Sustainability in agriculture refers to the capacity of the agro- ecosystem to remain productive while maintaining the resource base (Adey, 2007)

1.9 CHAPTER OUTLINE

Chapter One: The chapter provides an introduction and background to an overview of the research topic. It also demonstrates the significance of the study for the development of rural agriculture, local economic development and food security in the Eastern Cape Province. It further provides an overview of the policy framework on rural subsistence agricultural development and a guideline for advancing rural development in order to eradicate poverty and improve food security in the country. This chapter also indicates the significance of the study in addressing the current problem of poverty amid the fallow land that is found throughout the rural landscape of the country. The research problem is identified as a basis for unearthing the reasons

26 for the current problem of land use in the country, guided by the research objectives and the research questions. Lastly, the chapter briefly discusses the scope of the study and the definition of terms.

Chapter Two: This purpose of this chapter is to review the relevant literature in order to gain an understanding of the existing research and debates relevant to the topic under investigation. This chapter focuses on the existing body of knowledge about challenges and interventions related to the topic under investigation. A number of relevant journals, books, articles, and other publications are reviewed.

Chapter Three: This chapter introduces the research site, eMjikweni Village, located in the Mhlontlo Local Municipality in the Eastern Cape Province. It provides a general background, as well as details, about the demography, socio-economics, settlement patterns and environmental profile of the research site.

Chapter Four: This chapter is an in-depth discussion of the research design and research methodology used in the study. It also outlines the research strategy in relation to the research methods, the research approach, the data collection methods, the selection of the sample, the research process, data analysis, ethical considerations and the research limitations of the project.

Chapter Five: This chapter presents the analysis and interpretation of the empirical findings about the challenges and factors that hinder the revitalisation of subsistence agriculture in rural areas of the former homeland of the Transkei. The results are presented in thematic and narrative format with minimal use of graphs and tables.

Chapter Six: This chapter presents the analysis and interpretation of the empirical findings about the challenges to the development of subsistence farming in the rural areas of the former homeland of the Transkei from the perspective of government interventions on rural development. The results are presented in thematic and narrative format.

Chapter Seven: This chapter draws conclusions based on the findings emanating from the study and also provides possible recommendations and identifies policy gaps in order to enhance the subsistence agricultural sector as a vehicle for rural

27 development, agrarian reform, local economic growth and improved national household food security.

28 CHAPTER TWO

LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 INTRODUCTION

In this study the intended research questions seek to understand an agricultural anomaly in the Eastern Cape, at a time in the history of South Africa where the land issue has taken a more pronounced centre stage. This context signals the need for this chapter to navigate through the existing and extensive body of literature review that exists to help to provide perspective on the topic under investigation. The significance of land, agriculture, food security and farmer empowerment is at the heart of alleviating poverty and hunger in South Africa through a vibrant and sustainable subsistence farming sector in South Africa. For ease of argument and analysis, this chapter is divided into five key sections.

First, the chapter must inevitably review in chronological order, the vital political, social and economic dynamics that carved out the foundation of South Africa’s rural economy and development of its agricultural sector.

Second, it looks at the theory and practice of rural development in a democratic dispensation constrained by its legacy of apartheid and colonial agrarian reform.

Third, the chapter reviews some of the key paradigms of agrarian reform, agricultural development and other factors that influence the current status of agriculture, food security and rural livelihoods in South Africa.

Fourth, from the perspective of the rural household, this chapter will also demonstrate the role of subsistence agriculture in the development of the rural agricultural economy and food security as leverage for confronting unemployment, poverty and inequality.

Finally, having inherited the poisoned chalice of South Africa’s land issue, as the stat continues to face the conundrum of how to deal with land restitution, redistribution and tenure, this chapter will review the contentious issue of land reform as it continues to dominate policy discussion in seeking solutions to economic growth, a vibrant

29 agricultural sector while addressing deep inequalities which continue to erode the gains made in South Africa after 1994.

This study employed a range of secondary data sources as the key bibliographic tools for identifying relevant work for review from web databases, policy reviews and other citations and relevant publications and research papers, a number of relevant journals, books, articles, and other publications.

2.2 A HISTORICAL REFLECTION ON SOUTH AFRICA’S AGRARIAN ECONOMY

A plethora of literature exists on the precolonial, colonial and apartheid era agricultural systems that formed the mainstay of rural livelihoods in historical Southern Africa. This body of literature demonstrates the many intertwined factors of agrarian policy, labour migration and segregated development that led to agricultural decline in former food producing areas of the Southern African region. Though food production during the colonial and apartheid era was predominantly subsistence farming in nature, it served the purpose of ensuring food security, but also served other social and economic purposes customary to local rural communities (Adey, 2007). In this section, a closer look is made of the three cornerstones of pre-democratic South Africa’s agrarian economy, insofar as they continue to influence present day or contemporary agriculture.

2.2.1 Setting the stage: Agrarian policy

Historically, in South Africa as in many Southern African communities of the seventeenth and twentieth centuries, subsistence farming was practised (Greenfields et al., 2012:310). Black people practised a mixed agricultural strategy including crop and livestock production with large herds of cattle, sheep, goats and chickens. The mixed agricultural strategy is also known as intercropping, that is the process of cultivating two or more crops simultaneously. This practice, which dates back to the Iron Age subsistence economy of mixed pastoralism, was able to produce food for consumption and store surplus produce for future consumption with minimal internal trade (Bundy, 2008: 25; Harrington et al., 2004:65). Today, subsistence farmers are still practising intercropping farming and livestock production, albeit under more constrained conditions (Greenfield, Fowler and van Schalkwyk, 2012: 310).

30 This documented evidence suggests that rural households were self-sufficient as they produced food from their own homestead gardens and maize fields ‘intsimi’ and the surplus produce was stored in the traditional storage facilities for future consumption (Harrington et al., 2004: 65). Animal traction was the traditional method of cultivating land. This method was highly labour-intensive and the whole family was involved in the day-to-day running of agricultural activities. Throughout the process of crop cultivation, women played a major role in all the farming activities. Bundy (2008), Keegan (1986), and Niehof and Price (2001) demonstrate how men and boys performed menial activities with men focused on breeding and herding cattle while young boys were responsible for protecting cultivated land from destruction by stray livestock. This gendered division of labour, with other food production labour strategies including ‘work parties’, helped sustain rural household subsistence agriculture. The ‘work parties’ commonly known as ‘ilima” are defined as the “brief period of communal labour on the fields of one household by the members of neighbouring households in exchange for foodstuff and beer provided by the recipient household” (Bundy, 2008:18). This vibrant social work organisation was employed to enhance food production in rural communities in order to attain the status of being self-sufficient (Bundy, 2008:15). Chapters Five and Six will demonstrate how the destruction of social organisation, in persisting to this day, continues to have a persistent impact on rural economics.

With the advent of colonialism, perhaps one of the main strokes of authority inflicted on rural economies was the introduction of an assortment of policies and legislative instruments whose repercussions continue to reverberate through contemporary South African politics, land reform and rural and agricultural development. A luxury of literature exists that outlines the history of agrarian transformation in South Africa. Notable historians and political scientists, such as Crush, Jeeves and Yudelman (1991), Mather (2012), Frayne (2002), Dodson (1998), and Bundy (1998), to name a few, portray a picture of a self-sufficient peasantry in pre-colonial South Africa that traded in grain, livestock and also artefacts. This lifestyle was soon to be disrupted by a series of consequential events brought on by colonial intervention, influence and policy.

31 One such intervention was the 1878 Frontier War, with the subsequent conquests disrupting the rural agricultural economy in South Africa, including former homeland areas. The most devastating effect of the frontier wars was the destabilisation of rural economies, as labour reserves were made to serve colonial interests. This led to the beginning of the process of impoverishment of black people as many lost not only their land and livestock but also their dignity (Bundy, 2008: 28). The subsistence crop and livestock production suffered many setbacks during the colonial periods. The frontier wars exacerbated an already fragile rural economy that had been triggered by the 1856-57 cattle killing, amongst the Xhosa communities in particular, which had a devastating effect in the rural subsistence economy.

The 1856 ‘Nongqawuse Cattle Killing Movement’, was driven by traditional superstitious beliefs instigated by Nongqawuse, a female Xhosa prophet, who instructed the Xhosa nation to kill all their cattle and destroy their crops. The Xhosa people were made to believe that, by killing their cattle, uprooting their crops and burning maize crops, the dead would arise, people would be cleansed of witchcraft, and their riches would multiply because their ancestors would sweep the British settlers into the sea. The prophecies did not come to pass. Instead, thousands of Xhosa people died of starvation and hunger as famine set in. With stock ownership being one of the crucial elements of rural people’s livelihoods, the cattle killing deprived the Xhosa nation of a critical factor of production., With the drought of 1897 and the rinderpest outbreak of 1899 that killed most of the livestock, the livelihood system of the black rural communities was further weakened (Keegan, 1986:26). Whether or not colonial officials instigated this event is not known, but certainly the outcome of Nongqawuse’s ill-fated superstition served their purpose as the resulting famine and hunger broke down the cohesion of the chiefs, and the resultant famine left thousands of the Xhosa people with no option but to seek work on the surrounding farms. It also left large tracts of land available for settler occupation. Later the mines were referred to the 'White man's Nongqawuse', denoting the severe impact that these prophecies had on people's lives (South African History Online, 2011).

An even more critical legacy of the contemporary challenges of agricultural development and sustainable subsistence agriculture is the 1913 Native Land Act. The land question has long been a contentious issue in South Africa, from colonial

32 wars to the 1913 legislative reforms that dispossessed the majority of black people of their land. The Land Act No. 27 of 1913 and other legislative reforms resulted in unfair and skewed distribution of land in South Africa. The Land Act was the first legislative instrument instituted by the then Union of South Africa and this significantly influenced the land tenure patterns in South Africa. In this legislative process, white people gained 87% of land while only 13% of land was to black people for their livelihoods. Lahiff (2014) writes that the Land Act represented the long process of colonial conquest, dispossession and displacement of the black population - a political situation that left the country with a complex and difficult legacy to untangle. The introduction of taxation through the lesser known Glen Grey Act No. 352 of 1894 introduced a taxation system forcing young economically active black men to work in the system.

Subsequent pieces of legislation such as the Land Tenure Act and the Bantu Trust Act both of 1936, were other clever attempts by the colonial authorities to further confine blacks into small plots enforced by what they called a Betterment Planning Policy. It was a process to force black people to move from their large residential sites into very small residential sites (Hebinck, Fay & Kondlo, 2011: 227). This policy further decreased land for subsistence in rural areas. Ntsebeza (2000), Hebinck (2013), Walker (2002) and Manona (2005) describe the drastic changes imposed on the rural cultural landscape. Clearly defined boundaries dictated by local and traditional authorities meant that fencing was introduced to divide communal land into three distinct land-use categories: commonage, arable and residential. Manona (2005) sympathetically argues that all these three categories were important for aspects of subsistence economy. Each household was allocated from 1.7 to 4.2 hectares of land for crop production. The agricultural land was divided between crop production and animal husbandry. The sole aim of this process, authorities argued, was to save the land from dangers of overgrazing and perceived inefficient African land use. Ironically, the implementation of the Betterment Policy itself propelled the dangers of overgrazing as well as human and stock overpopulation (McCusker & Ramudzuli, 2007:59).

These socio-economic and political dynamics gave rise to a drastically altered landscape of rural communities; blacks were relegated to the status of being peasants, tenants, squatters and sharecroppers in the land of their ancestors (Bundy, 2008:25). The black population not only lost their land in the process, but also their sense of

33 belonging, dignity and pride (Walker, Bohlin, Hall & Kepe 2010: 198). Pastures for grazing for their limited number of cattle were no longer available as a free resource: black people had to pay rent for a small piece of grazing land (Keegan, 1986:23). Black people were denied rights to own land but had the rights of usage. Black people continued to cultivate land on a share-cropping basis. The prevailing power dynamics at the time indirectly weakened political power structures, a sense of well-being and social standing of the rural populace that was based significantly on cattle wealth and land ownership.

Despite the colonial hardships, the majority of those living in rural areas maintained much of their agrarian structures. However, there was disruption in their agrarian structures and livelihoods as many were drawn to the colonial economy as farm labourers and mineworkers. The effects of overpopulation are visible in the rural areas, with the lines between residential, commonage and arable land becoming blurred as traditional authorities have extended the allocation of the residential plots onto the commonage and arable land - a distasteful phenomenon that has taken a centre stage in the traditional areas situated along major national routes (Ntsebeza, 2000:197).

While useful in preparing the context for understanding contemporary challenges in rural communities, this body of literature does not give much perspective into the perspective of households to resist change that draconian colonial policy brought. The household, the community and its leadership are silent victims to the swift brushes of colonial will for agrarian reform. The literature therefore, fails to explain why despite the hardships blacks endured during the period of landlessness, they emerged as the largest producers of maize with limited resources at their disposal compared to their white counterparts (Bundy, 2008:21). This literature is also silent on the role of women in sustaining household food security and the myriad of livelihood strategies that the rural community would have employed to counter the effects of rural economic decline. It is these lessons to be learnt that we have little knowledge of to mirror how households after 1994 have coped in view of agrarian decline.

34 2.2.2 The labour migrant system and its effect on rural economies in Southern Africa

The machinations of the colonial government to dispossess land from Southern Africa’s peasantry through land reforms and imposition of tax, had also in mind the agenda to extract cheap able-bodied labour to work the mines on the Witwatersrand, following the discovery of gold (in 1867) and diamonds (in 1886). The momentous history of this era is well documented across the region for countries like eSwatini (Swaziland), Bechuanaland (Botswana), Basotholand (Lesotho) and further afield from Malawi, Mozambique and others. While less so in South Africa, the strategy remained the same to acquire African labour for the gold and diamond mining industries through the erstwhile labour agency of the time, the Employment Bureau of Africa (TEBA) to work in the mines. The tentacles of TEBA stretched as far as Bechuanaland (Botswana), Basotholand (Lesotho), Swaziland (eSwatini), Nyasaland (Malawi), Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) and Mozambique, to name a few, to bring in the much-needed labour for the gold mines in particular. The former homeland of Transkei was the largest labour reserve, with the largest pool of able-bodied men forced into the labour migration system. It is during this period that family roles, structures and dependencies were altered drastically. The elderly, women and children were left behind without necessary expertise to work the land.

Source: www.biofocuscommunicatie.nl accessed 14 August 2019 Figure 2.1: Map of South Africa in 1880

35 The discovery of diamonds (1867) and, especially, the rich gold deposits (1886) in the Transvaal region (see Figure 2.1) presented geo-political potential value for mineral extraction, making the interior of South Africa an attractive option. With this came increased demands for labour in the mining industry, particularly in relation to transport, infrastructure and labour (South African History Online, 2011). As the British sought to consolidate their control over Boer territories, labour became an important imperative to enable direct control of the interior mining sites. One of the known strategies to mobilise and regulate labour was through the enforcement of cash taxes, which were imposed and obligatory in these areas and as a result of this, Tswana, Xhosa and Zulu migrants started appearing on the mines during the late 1880s. The excerpt from a report of a Committee of Mine Managers Association meeting reflects just how deliberate this strategy was: "It is suggested to raise the Hut Tax to such an amount that more natives will be induced to seek work, and especially by making this tax payable in coins only; each native who can clearly show that he has worked for six months in the year will be allowed a rebate equivalent to the increase that may be determined by the state." (Report of the Mine Managers Association on the Native Labour Question- 1893, cited in Calinicos, L. (1995), A People's History of South Africa, Volume One: Gold and Workers, p23 ).

The pressure created by the new taxes was compounded by natural disasters like drought, and outbreaks of East Coast Fever and Rinderpest in the following decades, which decimated livestock holdings and severely undermined peasant production, resulting in a continued flow of African labour from the land (South African History Online, 2011).

The institutionalisation of the migrant labour system was made easier by the series of enactments enforced to pry land out of peasants and to transform them into willing proletariats confronted by tax obligations. The migrant labour system would, however, become an entrenched option, an almost cultural norm or rite of passage, for young men to go through the process in order to accumulate wealth for lobola requirements. This period brought about a new twist in the traditional farming system as rural women took over male labour roles in the agricultural sector. Niehof and Price-Wageningen (2001) note that, so began the “feminisation of agriculture” in support of the mounting empirical evidence that the labour migration system had become the concluding reason for the collapse of the subsistence farming or low productivity in the rural

36 landscape of South Africa. Figure 2.2 is a depiction of South Africa’s major mining zone in the Witwatersrand basin in the then Transvaal Republic (present-day Gauteng province), with its insatiable demand for labour brokered through TEBA from the Southern African region. The Witwatersrand, in which Johannesburg is located, held the richest reserves of gold, and had the highest demand for labour:

Source: www.semanticscholar.org accessed 13 August 2019 Figure 2.2: Location map of Witwatersrand gold deposits in South Africa

As droves of able-bodied men left for the Witwatersrand, women and the elderly remained behind with little capital or labour to sustain food and livestock production. The neglect, abandonment and non-cultivation of rural agricultural land that inflicted irreparable damage on the lives of rural households began to set in. Boserup (1970), Chigara (2004), Amanor and Moyo, (2008) and Bozzoli (1983) collectively make the argument that the migrant labour system contributed to the ‘disrupted subsistence economy’ as rural agricultural production was severely affected while social and power relations within the community and family were compromised. The ‘women left behind’ succumbed to the subsistence food production demands and joined the system in search of jobs in the church mission stations as domestic workers.

Not only did the migrant labour system give rise to a diminishing ability of the rural households to produce sufficient food for their subsistence (Beinart & Bundy, 2008:2), but it also effectively and perhaps more significantly, resulted in the physical separation and disruption of families and led to the “brutal and enforced displacement of humankind” (Chigara, 2004: 19). Migrant labourers were expected to enter into a twelve- to eighteen-month labour agreement (Department of Labour, 2007) to work

37 and live in the mines, which left a trail of broken homes in the rural areas (Harrington et al., 2004: 65) and a disrupted subsistence economy.

The literature on how the migrant labour system became an effective tool in the hands of colonial authorities to extract labour needed for the mines is useful in helping to understand the foundation of a rural scourge that persists to this day. However, the literature is silent on the role of traditional leaders in either promoting or discouraging the labour exodus from the villages. Again, a picture of a passive rural community subject to the whims of growing industrialisation is painted. While it is true that the battery of taxes and regulations on land use would have presented little option but to migrate, a window into how household decision-making shifted to the women would have been useful perspective in understanding the resilience of rural communities who maintained ownership, albeit communal, to their land to this day.

The literature also portrays a picture of complete destitute in the rural area, yet households did continue to grow food. In fact, evidence suggests that they were so successful that they outstripped the productive capacity of most of the Boer farmers. In the words of one of the British officials:

"...It is an indisputable fact that comparing them with Europeans, taking man for man and acre for acre, the native produces from a smaller extent of ground, and with more primitive appliances, more than the Europeans." (Bundy, 1988: 65)

It is an anomaly how the African farmer was still able to grow food even in excess of what the more advanced Boer farmer could produce. It is these gaps that become central to an investigation on why households in the Eastern Cape are unable to return to the status quo of the time when land is available, yet subsistence farming is still a challenge.

2.2.3 The apartheid system and segregated development

Despite what would be a change in administration following severe power struggles between the Boers and the British, the years leading up to the 1950s were pre- occupied with aggressive labour recruiting from what came to be called the “labour reserves of the gold mining rush”. The need for labour was relentless. However, a parallel process was playing itself out politically as Boers entrenched their hold of

38 South Africa with dual interests in mining, as well as in land. The notorious 1913 Land Act, passed three years after South Africa gained its independence from British rule was the beginning of historic territorial segregation that would antagonistically force the majority of Black South Africans to live in reserves and make it illegal for them to work as sharecroppers. The Land Act prohibited Africans from buying or renting any land except in the restricted areas that were reserved for Africans in the form of reserves. The reason for this, as a follow up to the previous attempts of the British government, was to compel African farm labourers to work for cash wages as quickly as possible.

The Nationalist government sought to enforce separate development through the creation of Bantustans or homelands and self-governing states demarcated on the bases of ethnicity and land productivity. Part of the 13% of the South Africa’s land that was allocated to Blacks by 1913 Land Act was further reduced to pave way for the establishments of homelands. The remaining land, including the major mineral areas and the cities, was set aside for the Whites. The basic principle of separate development policies was to grant Blacks rights and freedoms only within the confines of the Africans’ designated homelands, while outside the reserves blacks were to be classed as foreigners.

In 1958, Dr Hendrik Verwoerd became the prime minister, and he transformed the apartheid policy into a system he referred to as separate development (South African History Online, 2017). The Promotion of the Bantu Self-Government Act of 1959 created 10 Bantu homelands/Bantustans that transformed tribal authorities into fully- fledged independent states. This Act was further expanded by the passing of the Black Homeland Citizenship Act 26 of 1970 that allowed tribal blacks to exercise their political rights in the homelands that were commonly known as TBVC states, (Transkei, Bophuthatswana, Venda and Ciskei). The Transkei and Ciskei were two such homelands in what is now known as the Eastern Cape, home to the various Xhosa ethnic groups. Figure 2.3 shows the demarcation of the homelands or Bantustans and self-governing states of the apartheid regime.

From 1960 to 1994, more than 3.5-million people were deliberately and forcibly removed from their homes and livelihoods, and moved into the Bantustans, where they were plunged into poverty. The movement of Blacks to and among other parts of South

39 Africa was strictly regulated; the locations of residence or employment were also restricted and entry was only allowed if people were permitted to work there. Black people were not allowed to vote and own land. Blacks who were dwelling in urban areas as urban workers, including those who were third- or fourth-generation city dwellers, were seen as transients. Their real homes were in rural reservations from which they or their ancestors migrated. Only those holding the necessary labour permits, granted according to the labour market, were allowed to reside within urban areas. Such permits often did not include permission for the spouse or family of the permit holder (South African History Online, 2017).

This research study focused on the former Transkei area, which, according to Porter and Phillips-Howard (1997:186), was one of the last areas of the Cape Colony of South Africa to be penetrated by the merchants, missionaries and magistrates. The pace and the intensity of change was limited in the Transkei region compared to other parts of the Cape Colony despite being proclaimed as one of the major native reserves to draw cheap labour from (Porter & Phillips-Howard 1997:186). Currently, the pace for change as far as rural development is concerned, remains very slow taking into consideration that land rights in the communal land are still in the hands of traditional authorities.

Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica (2007) www.britannica.com Figure 2.3: Map of South Africa and former Bantustans or homelands

40 2.3 LAND, AGRICULTURE AND RURAL DEVELOPMENT IN DEMOCRATIC SOUTH AFRICA

The combined colonial and apartheid strategies, as well as a number of factors that emerged as a result, contributed to the undermining of the rural economy and agricultural sector of historical South Africa. This chapter has demonstrated how a combination of factors, strategies and laws was put in place to promote the collapse of agriculture in rural areas by limiting the arable land available to the black population in the former homelands and limiting the number of livestock in rural households. Livestock ownership was the principal asset used for food production in the rural communities. Through legislative processes, such as the Land Act 27 of 1913 and the 1936 Betterment Policy, blacks were forced to go work in the mines and on commercial farms owned by whites. Consequently, land degradation and soil erosion, according to authorities, occurred because of overcrowding, overpopulation and overstock.

The drastic reduction in stock ownership further gave rise to the introduction of the mechanisation of agriculture in the former homeland, which had a negative impact on rural agricultural economy. Even much later, in the 1980s, modern mechanisation of agriculture continued to affect the black peasantry due to retrenchments and evictions from farms resulting in high unemployment rate. This in turn contributed to the abandonment of agricultural land in rural areas since rural communities lacked disposable income from migrant remittances to hire tractors for cultivation of fields.

Another factor that contributed to the collapse of subsistence farming in the rural areas was stock theft and the risk of fields destroyed by stray animals (Keegan, 1986: 76). Geldenhuys (2012: 40) maintains that stock theft is not a new crime: it is as old as agriculture itself. In their study on stock theft in rural South Africa, Maluleke, Mokwena and Motsepa (2016) corroborate the findings of Geldenhuys (2012) that highlight the prevalence of stock theft in hotspot areas in Eastern Cape, particularly in Qumbu and Sulenkama police districts in the Mhlontlo Local Municipality. According to 2012 South African Police Services crime statistics, these two police districts accounted for the highest reported numbers (477) of livestock crime in the local municipality. Stock theft is a threat, not only to the established commercial and emerging farmers, but also to the rural subsistence farmers, which ultimately poses a challenge to livestock producers and has a negative impact on the long-term sustainability and profitability

41 of the beef industry. Chapters Five and Six will demonstrate the ongoing effects of livestock theft even in contemporary Eastern Cape. However, three issues raise value for consideration that the democratic government was confronted with:

2.3.1 A rural agricultural landscape in decline

Notwithstanding the importance of stock ownership in the rural communities, the land question remains a contentious issue post-1994 as one of the important factors of production in contemporary South African politics (Ntsebeza & Hall, 2007). The agrarian reforms failed to address current challenges facing subsistence agriculture, as Ntsebeza and Hall (2007: 13) notes that, “The land question is about politics, identity and citizenship, production and livelihoods”. The current rural economic stagnation will continue to exist until the question of land is addressed in South Africa. Land is an important asset to sustain rural livelihoods in rural communities (Kelly, 1988).

Viewed differently, the question that arises asks why rural communities today are not able to go back to their agrarian way of life in the face of high unemployment, poverty and inequality in contemporary South Africa. If they could, how would subsistence farming benefit from government interventions? It is these questions that this study explores. The ongoing debate with regard to land lying neglected (Levin & Weiner, 1993; Potter & Phillips-Howard, 1997; Tanga & Gutura, 2016; Aliber & Hall, 2008; Baiphethi & Jacobs, 2009; O’Laughlin, 2013) and attempts to establish whether social grant dependency is the root cause of the decline of agricultural activities in rural areas. The scholars would like to establish whether land neglect could be attributed to lack of interest, lethargy and urbanisation of rural communities.

A counter-argument by McAllister (2000); Andrew and Fox (2010); and Shackleton et.al. (2001) cite other factors, including the cost of cultivation, total lack of community organisation and community co-operative arrangements which are foundation to the abandonment of agricultural fields in the rural areas. There is mounting evidence suggesting that the dwindling asset base (cattle) disrupted the traditional method of cultivation as rural people depend on tractors for such activities. The dependency on the mechanisation of agriculture put a pressure on the limited income of rural poor (Andrew & Fox, 2010: 692).

42 The widespread underutilisation of arable land in communal areas has captured attention of many scholars including McAllister (2008) and Andrew et al. (2003), who recognised a number of factors that are behind the underutilisation of land. These factors include the shortages of labour, draught oxen, capital and income to purchase inputs, poor supply of inputs and tractor services, soil erosion and declining soil fertility. The lack of provision of fencing by local authorities accounts for the evidently increased or high rate of crop damage due to a shortage of herding labour in rural communities. McAllister (2008) and Andrew et al. (2003) further argue that the decline of cooperative activities, such as ’work parties’ and the declining availability of labour, livestock and finances, has a negative impact on the subsistence farming sector in the rural Eastern Cape. Other studies have revealed that the lack of cash to purchase inputs is a major constraint, although social grants have mitigated this to some degree (McAllister, 2008:125). In addition, a number of studies conducted by Andrew and Fox (2013), Fox (2010) and Baiphethi and Jacobs (2009), have shown that rural households do not have start-up capital or government support to plough the fields. These factors have not only contributed to the decline but also have drastically affected the standard of living of rural poor because the majority of households depend on markets for their food supplies.

In the past three decades, the country has witnessed a decline in subsistence maize production in the former homeland areas. The white commercial sector was not immune to this challenge as it also experienced fluctuations and decrease in the production thus compelling South Africa to be net importer of maize to improve the food security for the poor rural communities (Masunda, 2014: 3). Maize production in the Transkei region had shown a steady decline from year to year and it was associated with variable rainfall. Nevertheless, Porter et al. (1993) attribute the low yield on a mix of factors including changes in climatic conditions, limited plot size, the communal system of tenure, shortage of inputs (fertilizer, pasture, seeds) labour shortages and the migrant labour system (Porter et al., 1993:188). Conversely, Porter et al. (1993) argue that the decline in the subsistence production is attributed to the marginalisation of this sector by the state. On the other hand, the white farmers were supplied state subsidies while black subsistence farmers were left to fend for themselves. Subsistence farmers operated and are still operating under a non- conducive environment as they lack basic productive assets to produce food to

43 acceptable levels or maximum levels. The lack of or poor infrastructure such as poor roads, grain mills, communicators and marketing facilities are secondary factors preventing development of subsistence agriculture in rural areas. The enumerated factors which contributed to the decline or collapse of subsistence farming are also identified by other researchers such as Carla (2014), Waceke and Kimenju (2007), Jieknyal (2015), von Loeper et al. (2016), Khapayi and Celliers (2016) and Masunda (2014).

From the late 1980s onwards, the South Africa’s rural landscape is characteristic of land neglect accompanied by non-existent agricultural activities. The abandonment of farm land is widespread in rural areas, more especially in the former Transkei region of the Eastern Cape Province. The land neglect occurs amid the implementation of the land reform policies in South Africa. The challenge of the land reform and agricultural policies were designed to develop and elevate large scale black farmers to commercial farmers, yet in the process neglecting the subsistence which is widely recognised as the bedrock for improving food security and alleviating poverty in rural poor communities. Various researchers, including Gwala (2013), Khapayi and Celliers (2016) and Porter et al. (1993), have raised concerns about the state of neglect of communal land in the Eastern Cape, which is compounded by rising levels of poverty in the rural areas of the province. The lack of agricultural activities in rural areas resulted in subsistence farmers being unable to meet subsistence needs of their families. The remittances, which are used to purchase staple food pose a grave threat to household food security of the country as the primary sectors and private sector continue to shed jobs (Masunda, 2014; Jieknyal, 2015). Mlipha (unpublished) encourages rural households to start cultivating crops as the viable option to alleviate food shortages and poverty in rural areas.

There is irrefutable evidence that indicates that many rural households are still trapped in a cycle of poverty, hunger and unemployment and there is a need to coordinate development planning and resource allocation for the country to escape from the economic challenges that affect the vulnerable rural poor. The South African government recognises that land and agrarian reform has not yet achieved the desired strategic objective of equitable ownership. Its main objective has always been to establish a sufficient number of new black commercial farmers, as well as to ensure productive utilisation of newly allocated land. Yet, it has failed to invest in land-based

44 strategies, as well as productive use of communal land by rural communities. The Eastern Cape is one of the provinces hardest hit by poverty, high levels of unemployment (especially of the youth), a high level of migration and the decline of subsistence farming. Mlonyeni (2010) maintained that the phenomenon of unproductive use of agricultural communal land contributed to a shift from self- sufficiency and self-reliance to dependency. He wrote that for more than two decades before 2010 communal fields that were meant for crop production had been lying fallow, resulting in the escalation of staple food prices, poverty and malnutrition, poor health and stunted children and the number of people dying from HIV/AIDS-related illnesses. The persistent droughts have also put a greater burden on the rural poor as food prices have remained remarkably high.

2.3.2 The agriculture and rural development policy landscape

The democratic government in its endeavour to transform the agrarian landscape of South Africa, that sought to benefit the previously disadvantaged rural poor, deliberated on the trajectory focusing on land reform and rural change. The new dispensation inherited a dual agricultural economy dominated by the well-established and highly mechanised commercial sector, which over the years enjoyed government support. On the other hand, the subsistence sector that is backward and highly labour intensive is prevalent in the rural areas of the former homelands (Walker, 2002). In South Africa, agriculture and mining have been the two primary sectors providing employment for the majority of black people over the past decades. The commercial sector employed seasonal labour and employs few permanent employees. Most of the casual labour came from the former homelands areas and neighbouring countries such as Mozambique, Lesotho, and Zimbabwe. With the current economic climate, the sector shed jobs from 1.1 million in 1993 and lesser by 300 000 in 2014 (Atuahene, 2011).

The 1992 ANC Land Policy Conference was the first initiative to map a blue print in addressing the racially imbalanced land distribution in the country. The intention was to redress the unequal distribution of land, focusing more on providing security of tenure for people living and working on the commercial farms. Yet, Walker (2002) argues that the ANC government at the beginning of the discussions did not regard land and agrarian reforms as an important aspect of macro-economic policy. Its focus

45 was on urban industrial strategies and creating an investor-friendly environment for the advancement of the country’s macro-economic policy.

The 1994 land and agrarian reform policy was the first legislation passed by the democratic government in an attempt to redress and reverse the land inequalities and imbalances of the past. It had three elements: land redistribution, land restitution as well as land rights, and tenure reform (Amanor & Moyo, 2008: 38).

First, the land redistribution as an arm of the land and agrarian reform policy was a flagship programme of the democratic government intended to reverse the skewed distribution of land inherited from the colonial era and the Nationalist government (Amanor & Moyo, 2008: 38). The South African government was to assist poor and disadvantaged people to buy land through the provision of Settlement/Land Acquisition Grants, the focus being to redistribute land to poor and landless or land- hungry black people.

Second, the land restitution whose purpose, on the other hand, was to return or compensate for land lost since 19 June 1913 because of racially discriminatory laws

Third, the land tenure reform is regarded as the most complex area because it brings all people occupying land under a unitary, legally validated system of landholding. It assists in devising secure forms of land tenure, resolving tenure disputes and providing alternatives for people who had been displaced in the process. This element of land reform sought to provide land tenure security for black people living on commercial farms and communal tenure reforms for those living in the former Bantustans and homeland areas. All the three elements of land reform had their setbacks because they failed to achieve the fair and balanced land distribution in South Africa.

The failure of the land reform process stems from the government’s lack of political will to implement the 1992 ANC resolutions of redressing skewed distribution of land with the sole purpose of boosting food security and economic growth of the country. One of the resolutions of the African National Congress (ANC) (1994) was the promotion of rural development, agrarian change and land reform. At the same time, the Department of Rural Development and Land Reform (DRDLR) was mandated to

46 acquire land for agricultural productivity for the previously disadvantaged population, whilst the National Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (DAFF) was responsible for developing a legislative framework on food security and agrarian reform for sustainable household food security for the rural poor. To achieve a food secure status requires the establishment of improved production systems of subsistence and small-scale farmers in the agricultural sector (DAFF, 2015). The duplication of these objectives and resources from the two departments has had a negative effect. This is attributed to the slow pace of agrarian change that needs careful readjustment and alignments to benefit the poorest rural households. It is for this reason that the two departments were amalgamated in the 2019 administration of government.

The implementation of land reform in South Africa has failed to keep up with the pace of rural development and agrarian reform processes. Walker (2002) notes that these reform processes were not clearly articulated and current legislation failed to achieve the stated objectives. As a result, the government is in the process of abandoning the market-led approach of “willing seller, willing buyer” to adopt a different approach altogether for the land reform process. On the other hand, the current debate of land expropriation without compensation promulgated by the present government seems not only a feasible trajectory but also a complex route that will require a thought- through process for amicable solutions. The obvious example is the disregard of the legislative process by farm owners who still evict farm workers willy-nilly. In South Africa, farm evictions are “the order of the day” with few repercussions. This challenge does not only affect the farm dwellers but also communal dwellers. Even rural dwellers still have property rights to occupy the allocated sites in the form of “Permission to Occupy” (PTO) certificates despite active land tenure legislation. The successful implementation of the land reform process in South Africa will pave the way for inclusive agricultural development from grassroots subsistence farming to the mainstream commercial farming sector. Yet, the process has taken a very slow pace which has contributed to the periodic “land grabs” in other parts of the county which are met with government police force discouraging the phenomenon. Walker (2002) maintains that the market-led approach defeated the original objectives of the land and agrarian reform of poverty alleviation for the rural poor.

47 The ANC government, in its endeavour to foster rural development, adopted a strategy for Land Redistribution for Agricultural Development (LRAD), a component of the land distribution programme whose objective is to transform the small-scale farmers into a class of African commercial farmers (Ntsebeza & Hall, 2007:12). Walker (2002) interpreted this process as an attempt by the South African government to deracialise agriculture by promoting a class of black farmers to join the white commercial sector, thus changing the racial profile of the commercial sector. Ntsebeza and Hall (2007) maintain that it is critically important for the government to prioritise land tenure as a vehicle to minimise poverty and improve food security at household level. Yet, this process excluded subsistence farmers whose livelihood depends on agricultural activities. Rural areas by design, are characterised by poverty, lack of infrastructure development, high volumes of backlog in service delivery and huge untapped agricultural potential (Ntsebeza & Hall, 2007:138). The government has failed to create a conducive environment for the development of subsistence farming in rural areas, in order to produce enough food for eradication of poverty. Instead, the government programmes disregard the fundamental contribution made by subsistence farmers in enhancing household food security.

Ntsebeza (2000) criticised the state policy that directs the resources to the African commercial farmers while neglecting the small scale and subsistence farmers. The majority of poor small-scale farmers do not receive necessary support from government. There is lack of access to finance and collateral for the majority of Black farmers, irrespective of scale and provision of infrastructure, thus relying on self- supporting mechanisms for their agricultural needs. The 30% target of transferring land without empowering its beneficiaries with adequate resources and support services for productive use of land is a futile exercise. Hence, the government failed to meet this objective in the stipulated period (Ntsebeza & Hall, 2007: 167). In the process of commercialising subsistence for black farmers, government disregarded the principle of a bottom-up and participatory development approach that first creates a conducive environment for the subsistence farmers to produce food and to improve food security before leaping to the highly competitive environment of commercial farming. This policy shift further marginalised the majority of people living in rural areas whose livelihood depended on agriculture.

48 Walker (2002) writes that the land policy attempted to demonstrate the government’s commitment to social justice and property rights but was let down by the principles of a market-led land reform programme that was adopted to allay fears of the white minority possessing the majority of land during the multiparty negotiations. The biggest beneficiaries of the land reform, on paper, are poor rural people, yet there has been very little land redistributed to date with economic progress of any kind.

Walker (2002) also points out that it is important to analyse land and land reform beyond food security and its contribution to economic growth. But rather, recognition must be made of the symbolic value, heritage significance and sense of belonging that land represents, whilst restoring human dignity to the previously disadvantaged majority of the black population. At a political level, Walker (2002) makes the profound statement that “land is about returning that which was stolen, that which was used to dispossess, that which fuelled the struggle against apartheid by black majority” (Walker, 2002:5). This statement is contrary to the assertion made by the leader of ‘AfriForum’1 on the current debate about land expropriation without compensation, labelling it as “racist theft” (Chawane, 2018). At the individual and community level, “land carries a cultural and emotional meaning more than its unit value. Land reform is an embodiment of identity and at the same time, a major avenue where patriarchal power is practised in rural areas and within households” (Walker, 2002:11).

On the other hand, the objective of the ANC policy document on land reform is to ensure that all rural people in South Africa are able to establish and maintain a quality life by improving access to sufficient food, infrastructure, services, and resources for food production and jobs with equitable conditions of employment. The ANC policy document hoped to achieve the full realisation of agriculture as it contributes to economic development, as well as conservation of South Africa’s natural resources, for the benefit of future generations. This policy views the agricultural sector as the primary source of food and economic growth and is crucial for the development of the local rural economies (ANC, 1992). As stated above, the South African land reform process has taken a very slow pace and is facing implementation challenges. Although the sluggish pace is often pointed to the adoption of the market-led principle, the

1 AfriForum is an organisation in South Africa that is linked to the Solidarity trade union. It was established in 2006 to encourage the re-engagement of Afrikaners and other minorities in the public sphere.

49 process has been hijacked by the political elite or people connected to the elite. There is evidence that suggests that the restitution process is failing beneficiaries because people ended up reverting to the old practice of relying on the markets, leaving land unproductive. A study conducted by Hebinck, Fay and Kondlo (2011) on the three land reform projects in the Eastern Cape Province corroborated the above statement. The study sought to examine the past and the present tensions between the state and land beneficiaries on the one hand. On the other hand, it seeks to examine the tension between rural people and the social actors that should bridge the divide. The paper focused on the challenges that emerge in the encounters between experts, the state and communal farmers. The study illustrates difficulties the land beneficiaries have to endure in the land transfer process. It involves among other things, signing legal documents, the language barrier and training of rural communities on sustainable land-based strategies. The study revealed that decisions are prescriptive, based on expert knowledge and incompatible with the desires and needs of the people. The lack of involvement of communities in the decision-making process compromised the relationship between the state institutions and the experts who facilitate the process wherein this study found that the procedure of land restitution process is not different from that of the historical betterment policy.

The redistribution process applies the same model of relocating the population, which is characterised by small plots, an improperly and poorly managed environment, lack of proper settlement planning and lack of proper land use management as was used by the 1932 Betterment Policy process. On the other hand, the beneficiaries lack necessary resources, including pesticides, capital, traction equipment, fencing, and land use knowledge and extension support to effectively use the land to improve their standard of living. Therefore, land alone, without necessary resources and government support cannot generate income, food production, improvement of food security of the millions of the poorest population of this country.

2.3.3 The rural subsistence farming landscape

With the new democratic rule for South African society, the emergence of class differentiation among black people, where a few blacks rose to middle and upper echelons thus widening the gap between the richest and poorest households, became evident. South Africa is the only country in the world with high levels of income

50 inequalities with 0.65 Gini-Coefficient. The South African government is witnessing the ever-increasing gap between the poor and the rich. According to the World Bank (2017), South Africa remains a dual economy with one of the highest inequalities in the world, perpetuating both inequality and exclusion. The class differentiation is most of the times, politically driven due to widespread looting of government projects, earmarked for rural poor, which is widespread in the rural areas where politically connected individuals are benefiting from redistribution of farmland. Ngqakamba (2018) demonstrates the deeply rooted corruption of government, a case in point being the OR Tambo herd of cattle (1 800 cows) that were part of a rural upliftment programme for emerging farmers that went missing as politicians allegedly distributed the cattle amongst themselves.

O’Laughlin; Bernstein; Cousins and Peters (2013) liken land reform as a journey “on a road to nowhere”, because it does not move at the speed that is required so that the previously disadvantaged population can benefit from. Instead, the process was hijacked from the deserving beneficiaries to benefit the political elite. While the government is struggling to eliminate hunger and poverty at household level, the rural poor are still trapped in the vicious cycle of poverty, starvation and unemployment. The question is how to reverse the scourge of poverty and “tilt the scale” toward vigorous efforts to deliver the rural poor from poverty.

Equally, the Commission on Restitution of Land Rights (CLRA) has failed to address the congestion in the reserves as well as gender discrimination. In most parts of the Eastern Cape, women do not have the right to own land (Ntsebeza & Hall, 2007:97). The legislative reforms still have not completely addressed the rights of women to access to land. In some parts of the former homeland of the Transkei, unmarried/single women and men are denied land rights for residential purposes, let alone land for agricultural purposes. According to customary law inherited from the apartheid regime, only married men are entitled to residential sites. Claassens (2013) argues that there are no significant changes with regard to women’s rights in acquiring land in the former homeland areas even after the establishment of democratic rule. Decades later, the discrimination against women is still rife due to their marital status. The discrimination and marginalisation of women occur despite their active involvement in agricultural activities. Boserup, Tan and Toulmin (2007) observe how women spend longer hours

51 in subsistence food production performing the bulk of the work. Therefore, this infringement with regard to land means less produce and subsequently more households go hungry every day (Claassens, 2013:73).

Despite the constitutional provision that guarantees freedom of cultural expression and the Bill of Rights, which further guarantees justice, fairness and equality before the law, gender discrimination in land ownership still persists. The implementation of the land reform processes has side-lined these constitutional obligations resulting in rural women still not having rights to hold and acquire land, other than the right to use it to produce food for their families. In fact, the land reform policy has weakened rural women’s position politically, socially and economically. Before the adoption of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, traditional authorities still regarded married women as minors and excluded in the decision making; the status quo has not changed (Walker, 2002:15) despite land reform imperatives.

Despite these legal reforms, the land question in South Africa still remains the most tenacious and controversial issue facing the ruling government (Amanor & Moyo, 2008: 38; Lahiff, 2014: 587; Lahiff, 2014: 586). A number of arguments emerge to critique the manner in which land reform has been interpreted, implemented and contested. Lahiff (2014) strongly believes that the land reform process has been poorly articulated and lacks clarity on how the land must be redistributed, who should benefit, what an alternative agrarian structure is and what effective support structures should be given to the new beneficiaries (Lahiff, 2014). Walker (2002) has also identified a series of specific factors that negatively influence land reform in rural South Africa which include rural demography, commercial agriculture, communal areas, rural development policy, traditional authorities, customary law and local government, as well as the impact of HIV /AIDS. These conditions need to be resolved for the land reform project to succeed.

Du Toit (2013), on the other hand, makes a case for less government intervention in realising the objectives of the land reform process. He writes that the present government has used three frameworks in a misguided fashion to inform land reform. The first framework focuses on national food security, sustainability and economic efficiency. This framework is aligned to the objectives of the National Development Plan, 2030 (NDP) and Sustainable Development Goals, 2030 (SDGs) focusing on

52 social security issues. To achieve the social development agenda, du Toit (2013) believes that the state must not support the inefficient farmers or protect them from the market forces. This framework should rather encompass the development of subsistence agriculture.

A number of other researchers agree and note with concern the support provided to large-scale farmers and a lack of support or/and neglect of the small-scale farmers that produce for household consumption or for the market (Aliber & Hall, 2013:10; Hebinck et.al., 2011:3; Taeb & Zakri, 2008:7). By virtue of their economic conditions, poor households are unable to pursue sustainable agricultural production without government intervention. Therefore, the state should play a central role by providing financial assistance in the form of start-up capital, inputs and technical expertise. Rural subsistence farmers should be encouraged to cultivate back yard and homestead gardens using modern technology for improved outcomes (Baiphethi & Jacobs, 2009: 471).

The second framework focuses on the land reform process within the national reconciliation, restorative justice and compensation. The objective of this framework is to restore land that was taken away from black people during the colonial and apartheid regimes. A third framework focuses on the violation of human rights that focuses on the protection and empowerment of the marginalised and vulnerable group of the society. The land reform is perceived as the springboard for equitable economic growth and agrarian transformation, as well as a passage for “kick-starting rural development”. Du Toit (2013) believes that land and agrarian reform is not an exclusively rural matter but about food security, economic injustice and livelihoods both in towns and countryside. Agricultural land must be regarded as a national resource for both urban and rural dwellers. In summary, du Toit (2013) believes that the land reform policies should be inclusive and consider food needs of both rural and urban poor households although the spatial and household characteristics are worlds apart (du Toit, 2013:20).

Historically, the former Transkei region has been ploughing in dry land and depending on the summer rains to grow food. This region is known for maximum summer rainfall but can be highly variable from year to year. The mean annual rainfall totals in the coastal and eastern part of the province can exceed 400 mm. Temperatures do not

53 necessarily pose a challenge for agriculture except for frost which occurs inland. Generally, the climate conditions of the region can be considered as semi-arid, being dry throughout most of the year (Nel, 2009:6). Generally, the Eastern Cape Province is not immune to the dualistic nature of the agricultural economy. However, the larger part of the province is dominated by subsistence farmers faced with the persistent challenge of non-cultivation of arable land, which has a ripple effect in the human development index of the province.

At a national level, the agricultural economy is dual in nature, characterised by commercial and subsistence farmers. Taeb and Zakri (2008) made a striking differentiation of subsistence and commercial agriculture. The observed distinction between the two sectors of agriculture is the commercial sector operating as business enterprise while subsistence agriculture is regarded as a means of human survival. According to Taeb and Zakri (2008), the social implications of the two types of agriculture are different. Commercial agriculture follows market rules, whereas subsistence agriculture, which is often referred to as “agriculture for survival”, which follows the rules of survival. People who are involved in commercial agriculture have a voice, through many trade and business institutions supporting the sector both nationally and internationally. In sharp contrast, those who practise subsistence agriculture do not have a voice. FAO (1996) defines commercial farmers as entities that produce agricultural products intended for the market, delivered, sold or stored at commercial structures and/or sold to end consumers, fellow farmers and direct exports. They generally use high levels of inputs. Yet, subsistence farming is a form of agriculture where almost all production is consumed by the household, and is often characterised by low-input use, which most of the time, is provided by the farmer. The South African government has diverted its focus of supporting subsistence farmers but is promoting black emerging farmers to enter the commercial sector.

The continued relegating of the subsistence sector happens despite the democratic government making a commitment of improving the living conditions of the majority of the black community that have been denied access to basic services for a long time. Since 1994, the government has made significant changes in providing basic services for the majority of people living in rural areas, such as access to water supply, health services, education, infrastructure development (access roads), electricity supply and

54 sanitation. Yet, the government is sluggish in implementing land reform policy in rural areas that would stimulate agricultural activities, massive production of foods, eliminate poverty and local economic growth. Taeb and Zakri (2008) and Banchirigah (2010) share same view with other scholars that agriculture is the major sector that provides food, employment and income. In South Africa, agriculture is seen as the cornerstone from which rural development can be realised.

O’Laughlin et al. (2013) shed light on the land question in the post-apartheid South Africa as it continues to retain a binding force over rural communities through continued rural poverty emanating from the historical injustices and land deprivation of the majority of the black population in South Africa. Nevertheless, there is an ongoing argument on the ability of the small-scale farmers to produce enough food beyond household consumption. Yet, Sender and Johnson (2004) and Marias (2011) are sceptical about the potential of the land reform process to supporting smallholder farming in rural areas of the former Bantustans and homeland areas. These scholars believe that only support to small-scale farmers will intensify agricultural production, generate employment and reduce poverty in the rural landscape of South Africa. The slow pace of implementation of the land reform process is not the solution sought as it is accompanied by the non-cultivation of large tracts of communal land. Unless government confronts the double challenges of unproductive use of recently redistributed land and the prevalence of fallow land in communal land, land reform will have failed.

Not to discount the centrality of land, McAllister (2000) reiterates that access to arable land is important as a rural safety net. It also reinforces community ties through barter and gift of produce and cultivation through community or kin work parties, despite the limited job opportunities derived from the cropping. Official data suggests that only 13% of communal farming households in South Africa are able to provide jobs to others in the community through hired labour for weed extraction and harvesting (McAllister, 2000). This suggests that land is not yet a vehicle for job creation in rural South Africa, but it serves other fundamental needs of the rural community, a fact that must be considered. Adam and Page (2005) and McAllister (2008) further attest to the value of the yield derived from the subsistence farming which is undervalued. Both researchers believe that a holistic assessment of the economic value of land-based

55 livelihoods on communal land can yield surprising results. In 1999, the estimated aggregate value of subsistence production in South Africa was US$2 billion per annum, which was estimated to be contributing 25% to Gross Domestic Product (GDP). These findings are in contrast to stereotypes of communal land as backward, unproductive and degraded. Chapters Five and Six will identify the gaps that need to be closed for subsistence production to reach a desirable estimated aggregate value of production.

Despite the small amount of land being allocated to black people, usually 1.5 hectares in the past, these plots were used productively by producing more food to feed families, barter and sell the surplus produce. For a community with a rich history of vibrant agriculture activities and food production, its diminishing state is more evident now than ever. Twenty years after democratic rule, rural households are still struggling to access state support such as infrastructure development, capital and environmental initiatives to curb soil erosion and to revitalise stock farming.

A critique of democratic South Africa’s post-1994 points to several issues that remain unattended thus hindering sustainable agricultural development. Though Chapters Five and Six explore them, it is worth noting in this chapter the scope of some of these barriers as they negate some of the gains of South Africa in its new dawn. Infrastructure development, as well as research and development (R&D) providing a foundation for agricultural development to succeed. Yet, government support to agriculture sector on infrastructure has declined over the years. A plethora of literature, including Khapayi and Celliers (2016); Sender (2016); McAllister (2008), on the lack of or poor provision of infrastructure by government in rural areas is appalling.

Research and Development is another public good that is vital for rural development but state funding to improve agriculture through R&D has declined over the years. Unfortunately, the Eastern Cape’s R&D funding for agricultural research has ceased to exit (Hall & Aliber, 2010:4). The unintended consequence has been in a slow pace of rural agrarian development in the former homeland states due to limited capacity, lack of infrastructural investment and resources. The effect on how rural communities can make a meaningful contribution to the advancement of subsistence economy is undisputed (Hall & Aliber, 2010:2).

56 Finally, statistics show a slight upward trend in the contribution of subsistence farming to the GDP and food security. However, the reality thereof for rural households and subsistence farmers in general has not been adequately captured by statistics, as data collection focuses more on mainstream commercial agriculture. Statistics reveal a glaring gap of information with respect to how rural communities can contribute to agricultural development, and how rural agrarian economies can be revitalised to play a meaningful role in the South African economy (Stats SA, 2014).

2.4 A CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK OF THE DETERMINANTS OF SUBSISTENCE AGRICULTURE

•Household Demographics •The Socio-economic impact caused by the •Household Size Houseold decline of agricultural •Gender economics Internal Disparities activities in rural communities •Household Asset Factors Base

•Factors contributing to the decline or/and Land collapse of subsistence Degradation agriculture in the former homeland areas

•Lack of inputs •Lack of Farming Organization •Programme and policies Extension •Lack of Capital to improve or turn- services External •Poor or lack of around the situation infrastructure Factors development •Droughts IMPACT

Uncultivated Land

Decline in food production

Figure 2.4: Determinants of subsistence agriculture (Adapted from FAO, 2016)

57 As a basis for contextualising the research questions and analysing and interpreting the results thereof, this study adapted its own conceptual framework of determinants that would guide the research in three key areas of inquiry (Figure 2.4). These are: the socio-economic impact caused by the decline of agricultural activities in rural communities; factors contributing to the decline or/and collapse of subsistence agriculture in the former homeland areas; and programme and policies to improve or turn-around the situation.

2.4.1 The socio-economic impact caused by the decline of agricultural activities in rural communities

2.4.1.1 Demographics of household head

In a traditional set up, men, by virtue of gender roles, assume the responsibility of being household head. The head of household is usually old and most of the time, lacks formal education and is unemployed. The household head and the family members work in the family farms and homestead gardens as unpaid labourers. Traditionally, men make decisions on behalf of the whole family. Women and young people in rural areas are socially and economically excluded and do not participate in family and societal decision-making. The older generation most the time, are reluctant to adoption of modern faming technologies that would enhance agricultural production.

2.4.1.2 Household size and composition

Rural households depend on subsistence farming for their livelihood. The success of the subsistence farming system depends solely on household labour. Therefore, the larger the household size, the larger the labour force to work the land. The idea behind the polygamous marriages in South Africa’s rural communities was among other factors, to increase the family labour force. The large household size has its own advantages and disadvantages. During good seasons, more family members would work the land resulting in higher yields. While, during period of droughts, with the production decline, the household head struggles to meet the subsistence requirements of the family. Given the decline of agricultural activities, younger members of the household are forced to migrate in search of employment, wherein

58 the household shifts reliance to remittances to supplement or to complement the lean harvests.

One of the earliest authors to highlight women’s role in agriculture was Ester Boserup in her book published in 1970 where she argues that women, on average, are actively involved in agricultural activities, making up a higher proportion of agricultural labour force in developing countries (Boserup, 1970). In the developing countries, women generally work as subsistence farmers as paid or unpaid workers on family farms or as entrepreneurs running on or off-farm enterprises. In the South African context, women contribute more labour hours and work as unpaid subsistence workers in the homestead gardens and communal fields to grow food to feed the whole family. Despite their significant contribution to the agricultural sector, customarily, women are often restricted access to the most important factor of production - the land - as well as other agricultural related resources including inputs, financial services and social protection irrespective of gender. These gender-biased social, cultural norms and traditional practices hinder their full participation in the strategic decisions in the food production processes. Women’s position in society has been downgraded to the status of a minor despite sections in the constitution that sought to protect women in every sphere of life. Within the progressive and developmental state, patriarchy still prevails in South Africa where men are given higher status over women at home and in the work place. In other parts of the country, culturally, women, especially widows, are denied the right to inherit agricultural land to grow food for the family.

2.4.1.3 Gender disparities

A plethora of literature recognises that women are the bedrock of agricultural productivity in the rural subsistence economies. Walker (2002); Razavi (2016) and Atkinson (2015), the advocates of women rights, are concerned about women’s misrecognition and exclusion that emanate from patriarchal, discriminatory and social norms that suppress their voices and inclusive participation. According to Agarwal (1994); Walker (2002) and Razavi (2016), the gender-biased issues have received little attention within the land and agrarian reform debates. Walker (2002) highlights the insignificant progress made so far by the government to ensure women’s rights to acquire and hold rights in property as enshrined in the Bill of Rights. Despite legislative

59 reforms, women’s rights in South Africa, as far as the land reform process is concerned, have never been properly addressed.

Gender equity is one of the constitutional requirements, which has not been given prominence. Gender equality was established as a basic principle in the first clause of Chapter One, which states that “non-racialism principle and non-sexism are founding values along with human dignity, equality, the advancement of human rights, the rule of law, universal adult suffrage, and multiparty and democratic system of government.” The Constitution of the Republic of South Africa also provides for a commission on gender equality and protection, development and attainment of gender equality. The situation is dire in the lower societal classes in rural areas (Walker, 2002:15).

Gender disparities are still prevalent in the rural areas of the former homelands. Women living in rural areas, who are the lowest societal strata, provide a foundation for food production in the rural households. Yet, they are excluded in the decision making process. Boserup (1970) and Agarwal (1994) have already argued that women are often the main agricultural producers and the majority of rural poor are female. Palmer (1995) argues that a married women’s access to land is similar to that of a bonded labourer. Women do not own land but have the right to productively use it. In most cases, women do have access to access to raw materials, land, and markets compared to men. Men are always in position of power, as they act as intermediary between women and the suppliers of raw material.

In Sub-Saharan Africa, unlike in the South African context, married women customarily have access to a plot of land to cultivate food crops while men cultivate cash crops, resulting in men being better off financially than their spouses are. Therefore, class differentials exist even within the family unit. Hart (2008) believes that there is little investment focusing on the empowerment of women in the agricultural food production process. Subsequently, women end up practising traditional cultivation practices contrary to the approved practices by the agricultural extension officers. This is caused by lack of exposure and lack of skills needed by women to effectively and efficiently produce crops at sustainable level (Hart, 2008:145). Shackleton and Hamer (2010), in their participatory research and social learning experience, identified ten priority areas for extension support services in rural areas of Idutywa in Eastern Cape. One of the

60 priority areas was the gender issue, which focused on women as the foundation of rural development.

The ILO (2009) and FAO (2015) believe that by increasing rural women’s access to decent employment opportunities can be an added advantage to improve productivity, earnings, enhancing family income and household food security. This can be achieved by providing training to rural women to equip them with modern farming knowledge to make a significant contribution to the rural economy. The government’s role is to break the boundaries of patriarchy by implementing employment strategies that are responsive to gender and youth issues to foster economic empowerment only of rural women and young people.

2.4.2 Factors contributing to the decline of subsistence agriculture in the former homeland areas

2.4.2.1 Asset base and Inputs

Ownership of productive assets including land, livestock, machinery, equipment and financial resources, provide the base for sustainable subsistence agriculture in rural communities (FAO, 2016). People living in rural areas are confronted with challenges of lack of productive assets to sustain their subsistence. The majority of rural households do not have productive assets to grow food except for a portion of land allocated for agricultural activities. The lack of financial resources is one of the major challenges in pursuing sustained subsistence agriculture. The rural poor households have limited financial resources to buy or higher inputs to grow food. Therefore, the smaller the asset base, the higher the chances the household will find difficulty to meet subsistence requirements (FAO, 2016).

2.4.2.2 Poor or lack of infrastructure development

Generally, poor or lack of infrastructure is characteristic of rural areas of the former homeland areas. Infrastructure development includes access roads, fence and irrigation schemes. The South African government has delayed injecting much needed capital for the development of infrastructure, which is crucial for rural development. The adverse climatic conditions that cause persistent droughts have brought about the disruption in the growing of food in rural communities. The development of the

61 irrigation system in rural areas could arrest the effects of drought and improve the crop yield. Scholars, including Hall and Aliber (2010), reiterate that rural agrarian development in the former homeland states has been delayed by limited capacity and lack of infrastructural investment and resources, to enhance subsistence agricultural economy (Hall & Aliber, 2010:2).

2.4.2.3 Drought

The environmental effect of drought directly affects the decline or collapse of subsistence economy in rural areas. It has been a concern for developing countries, including South Africa, for a lack of capital injection to develop infrastructure, which is crucial for rural development including irrigation. It has been a tradition for rural subsistence farmers to practise crop production on dry land and most of the time the irrigation system is non-existent in rural communities. Subsistence farmers are vulnerable to drought conditions with a negative effect of crop failure that threatens the subsistence livelihood of the rural poor. The drought conditions lead to shortage of food, forcing rural people to buy maize, a South African staple food, from local markets. In most cases, severe droughts contribute to the high rate of livestock mortality, reducing the household asset base that changes the distribution of wealth among rural communities. The shortage of food not only affects human beings, but also the livestock that die due to dry vegetation and shortage of grain. Drought often leads to livestock mortality, which, in turn, reduces the capacity to plough. The limited number of livestock leads to less land under cultivation, which produces a lower yield (see Figure 2.5). In turn, the limited number of livestock reduces the supplies of organic manure affecting crop production.

62

Figure 2.5: The pathway of land degradation

2.4.3 Government Programmes and Policy

The South African government adopted various strategies, including ASGISA and MFPP, to stimulate local economic growth in order to fight poverty in rural villages. The adoption of these two poverty alleviation programmes was the government’s effort to bridge the gap between the poor “second economy” and the rich “first economy” in the country. As discussed earlier in this chapter, ASGISA identified agriculture as a key industry within the second economy that has a potential to eradicate poverty and create job opportunities for the previously disadvantaged group. The MFPP became the flagship programme for the Eastern Cape Province to boost the socio-economic conditions of the rural poor. The programme, therefore, had its own limitations. It required at least 50 hectares of land to produce maize at a large scale. The implementation of this programme became impossible because households in rural areas allocated only 1.5 hectares of land.

The reality is that most of rural households lack vital means of production - that is land - for massive production of food to participate in the programme. The size of the arable land allocated to produce enough yields to cater for family needs is one of the criteria for identifying poor households (Jacobson & Myhr, 2013:205). The failure of the project was interpreted as pure laziness and state grant dependency, a notion Ncapayi,

63 (2013) refuted and holds a different viewpoint that lack of agricultural activities in the rural areas is not a question of landlessness but rather on the lack of resources to cultivate the fields (Ncapayi, 2013:11). At the same time, MFPP recognises and trusts that households can produce food for own consumption if they can be provided with enough resources, including inputs, land and knowledge, on how to produce sustainable yields on a bigger scale (Jacobson & Myhr, 2013:88).

The Eastern Cape government, in addition to the MFPP, adopted the Siyazondla Household Food Security programme to fight poverty in rural communities. The programme aimed at promoting agrarian transformation in the rural communities by strengthening household food security by promoting sound and vibrant agricultural activities at household level. The South African government also adopted “Fetsa Tlala”, a programme that focuses on subsidised land preparation and input provision for rural people. The programme is not different from other food security programmes, including the Apartheid Farmer Support Programme (AFSP), the Massive Food Production Programme (MFPP), the Siyazondla Household Food Security Programme (SHFSP) and the Comprehensive Rural Development Programme (CRDP), as they lack impact on poverty eradication and promoting a living standard of the rural poor. All these programmes lack sustainability as there are “pockets” of implementation in rural communities. Not all rural villages are benefiting from the poverty alleviation programme. According to Stats SA (2016), poverty levels are ever increasing as more than a quarter of the population were living below the poverty line. The South African governments and those of developing countries lack the political will to make a meaningful contribution towards the upliftment of the living standards of the rural communities at grassroots level by promoting and enforcing self–reliance at all levels (Nel, Binns, & Motteux, 2012: 3).

The adoption of bottom-up economic development is a viable strategy to developing countries. This approach involves active participation of local communities at the grassroots level in all decisions taken relating to agricultural related decision making. The classic example of a bottom-up community development is the Hertzog Agricultural Co-operative wherein the black rural community revived the abandoned irrigation scheme in Hertzog under Seymour District of the former homeland of Ciskei home. At first, the project showed signs of success but in the long run it faced many

64 challenges, including the shortage of skilled labour, a lack of finance, a lack of community engagement, and inadequate knowledge of the commercial market (Nel, Binns, & Motteux, 2012: 3).

Although the Hertzog Agricultural Co-operative had a competitive advantage as it took over an unused infrastructure and human skills, and people who were already working on the farm, it still failed to reach its full potential. As a case study, it provides an insight into the challenges of operating sustainable subsistence farming, with small-scale commercial farming units. Again, this project clearly indicates the importance of government intervention with respect to training and provision of extension support. Research literature claims that many rural community projects have a short life cycle. Often, Non-Government Organisations (NGOs) play a crucial role in sourcing funding for rural projects, providing training and securing a market for the final produce (Binns & Motteux, 2012:3).

Leahy (2011) believed that there are various strategies that can be employed to achieve rural economic development through using subsistence agriculture as a viable vehicle for social and economic change. These strategies include the following: adequate fencing for home stands; cattle control to avoid soil erosion; land use management; water harvesting from rooftops; road infrastructure improvements; the adequate use of legume intercropping and the effective maintenance of grazing pressures (Leahy, 2011: 35). At the same time, according to the Eastern Cape Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, the poverty-reduction strategies were intensified by educating and encouraging rural communities to plant vegetable gardens, and introduce intercropping through the Siyazondla Homestead Garden Programme (Leahy, 2011:44). Leahy (2011) also identifies some of the factors hindering rural development as low agricultural yields, rural poverty, and the country’s failure to expand and develop agricultural markets. This would assist farmers and rural businesses to participate in the national, regional and global economy. Yet, neither government nor private sector organisations have made the necessary investments in rural infrastructure to serve as a basis for revitalisation of rural economies to the desired state (FANRPAN, 2008). The Eastern Cape Development Agency (ECDA) failed to assist rural communities in mass food production. The agency enforced the adoption of modern technologies and at the same time, discouraged the use of

65 traditional farming practices, which later resulted in resistance due to lack of community engagement and involvement in the decision making.

2.5 RURAL DEVELOPMENT FRAMEWORK FOR SOUTH AFRICA AND ITS IMPACT ON RURAL COMMUNITIES

Figure 2.6: Land and rural development framework

Historically, rural households produced most of their food. According to Baiphethi and Jacobs (2009), many rural poor households spend almost 90% of their disposable income on food. The current consumption patterns suggest that most households access their food from markets; transfers from other households and or public programmes. Baiphethi and Jacobs (2009) argue that increased subsistence production has a potential of improving food security for poor households in both rural and urban areas. The improved food production levels will counteract the ever-

66 increasing food prices. The low productivity of subsistence farming in some cases is believed to be the reason for the abandonment of agricultural production by both rural and urban households. These socio-economic conditions forced the majority of rural poor to rely on non-farm sources of income for their survival.

Bernstein (1992) maintains that rural livelihood systems encompass livelihoods linked to or based on agriculture and those that are based on non-agricultural activities. Therefore, rural livelihood systems can have components linked to or based on agriculture, as well as components not linked to or based on agriculture. For this reason, Bernstein (1992) maintains that agriculture and its linked activities are the key to rural economy but not identical with it nor do they necessarily generate sufficient employment and other livelihood opportunities in the countryside. Bernstein (1992) further identified linkages of livelihood and food security as land use and support networks that produce a desired output for livelihood security of the rural communities. Accordingly, it is the household that is viewed as the unit of analysis which occupies a central place in rural development as it represents the fundamental core of production dependent on inputs, assets and resources. Where household needs cannot be met solely through agricultural development, the household unit explores other avenues to meet its needs as demonstrated in Table 2.1 which identifies livelihood strategies of rural households in contemporary South Africa:

Table 2.1: Means of non-farming rural livelihoods

Livelihood Wage employment by Self - employment in

Share-cropping or other Agriculture (Wealthier) famers Tenant-farming

Input suppliers, contractors, Artisanal production, Small- Agriculturally linked crop merchants, transporters scale processing

Handcraft production, petty Non-agricultural Industry, trade, other services Trade and other services

Source: Bernstein (1992: 4)

Bernstein (1992) maintains that the livelihood of the poor is diverse and complex in nature. It also encompasses dynamic income sources characterised by a wide range of activities that not only enhance household income but also food security, health,

67 social networks and savings. Income sources of the rural households in southern Africa are drawn from a wide range of activities such as the casual and permanent employment, remittances, welfare grants, crop production, animal husbandry, wild resource use, social networks transfers, and other means of income generation such as sewing, brick-making and crafts. Public investment initiatives can also play an important role in enhancing income from natural resources. Communal land is one area that can be exploited for effective means of promoting local development and diversification for non-farm income. The efficient and effective use of communal land can have a potential economic development and poverty reduction for the vulnerable rural poor communities. In summary, Bernstein’s theory encourages diversification to complement agricultural activities, as agriculture alone cannot create enough opportunities for sustainable livelihoods. The availability and accessibility of enough food, availability of employment opportunities and income are important elements that collectively contribute to the human security of the poor. Therefore, these elements (food, employment and income) can be derived from agricultural activities which can bring a feeling of security to the people living in extreme poverty (Bernstein, 1992:106).

Taeb and Zakri (2008) view agriculture from a different and broad perspective that is often ignored by the agriculturists and policy makers, that agriculture has an inherent impact on the livelihood of the poor segment of the population living in rural areas. Today, agriculture has a broad requirement of assisting the crucial development process in poor countries through achieving food security. The globalisation and urbanisation patterns in South Africa have deepened the so-called “development gap”. This “development gap” is described as the divide between the richest and poorest nations. It is further characterised by the divide between the richest households living in the “first economy” and poorest household living in the “second economy”. The agricultural sector, despite being viewed as an important means of addressing under- development, as well as being the main source of livelihood for those living in extreme poverty in rural areas, cannot solely minimise the development gap between the richest and poorest households of the world. The low endowment of assets of the rural poor is one of the critical elements of sustainable local economic development in South Africa. It is always the rural subsistence farmers who often encounter low assets endowment on one hand, and are often confronted with fewer alternatives on the other

68 hand. This process is often forcing the economically active young men and women to migrate to the prosperous cities and be employed as labourers (Taeb & Zakri, 2008:4).

There is certainly room to argue for the importance of developing an asset base for the rural poor. The asset base, in turn, raises the income of the rural poor, thus improving the human security of the most vulnerable groups of the people. Effort to raise productivity in subsistence agriculture is one of the highest priorities for empowering subsistence farmers. On the other hand, higher income generation depends on factors such as land, water, and farm inputs; technology, and access to local or international markets. Technology advancements can make a huge difference in food production in rural communities, thereby reducing hunger and alleviating poverty. The challenge for the subsistence farming sector is the lack of key resources, including water, farm inputs and technology advanced resources to achieve higher production.

Odhiambo (2015) observes that the prevailing unprofitable subsistence agriculture sector in South Africa is characterised by several constraints, including a low uptake of modern farm inputs, high transport costs, weak farmer organisation, poor quality control and lack of information on markets and prices to sell surplus produce. Meanwhile, the Rockefeller Foundation (2006) is advocating the use of high yield varieties, including use of fertilisers, use of genetically modified seeds and cultivation of large areas of land to produce and sell mass-scale in subsistence farming. The Rockefeller Foundation (2006) advocates an increased access to assets, as a basis for increased food production. Without access to assets, it argues, rural subsistence farmers cannot participate fully in agricultural production and markets to secure sustainable livelihoods. Nonetheless, the lack of assets for food production in small areas of cultivation with small plot sizes, poor quality land and lack of/ or non- availability of investment in irrigation, are some of the constraints on increased production.

Bernstein (1992) believes in the provision of adequate resources and assets for increased agricultural production for rural communities which are the most important aspects of the livelihood systems. Resources can be seen as an immediate means needed for livelihood generation. In the same breath, Engberg (1990) further distinguishes several types of resources, human, material and environmental

69 resources. Human resources are needed to provide productive labour which consists of cognitive skills, psychomotor skills, emotional skills, social skills and physical strength. While material resources, such as land, money, livestock, agricultural tools, space, facilities (e.g. household water supply), means of communication and transport are valuable for livelihood systems. Lastly, environmental resources can be divided into resources in the physical environment (natural and man-made) and resources in the socio-institutional environment (markets and kinship networks). The livelihood systems will only achieve desirable outcomes only if effective and efficient management model of these resources and assets are realised.

Table 2.2: Resource and assets in livelihood generation

Personal level Household level Environmental level Material Physical strength, Space, income, Natural Man-made health, talents buildings, livestock Material Land, soil, Infrastructure, water. biodiversity Biodiversity Non Skills, education, Experience, Kinship Market, church, material gender, knowledge, social, political experience, management, institutions, support capabilities information networks Source: Bernstein (1992: 4)

2.6 FOOD SECURITY CHALLENGES IN SOUTH AFRICA

The household food security situation for many poor households in rural South Africa has witnessed little change in almost three decades following the end of apartheid and the introduction of a democratic state in 1994. Unemployment remains high and has led to increased poverty, hunger and malnutrition. For rural communities this dilemma translates into widespread food poverty while over a quarter of the population in the country is regarded as unemployed and depends mainly on some form of social welfare grant from government. Rural communities are predominantly characterised by high levels of unemployment, increasing poverty, poor services and inadequate social safety nets and are most likely to suffer the risk of household food insecurity, hunger and malnutrition.

70 For one to understand the plight of poverty, it is important to understand the concept of food security in its entirety. Different institutions offer different definitions of poverty. However, the basic definition of food security is the ability of individuals to obtain sufficient food on a day-to day basis. Internationally, food security is the ability of people to secure adequate food. It means, in a society, all people at all times should have enough food for an active healthy life. Food security therefore includes the availability of food that is nutritious and safe, and the ability to procure and acquire food of good quality in a socially acceptable way. Du Toit (2011) defines food security as the access by all people at all times to enough food for an active healthy life.

Labadarios et, al., (2011) in their study on land reform in South Africa make an important observation that food insecurity as it relates to land access is not unique to South Africa. It is a global crisis borne out of the general decline in agricultural production. Currently, the South African government is faced with the triple challenge of poverty, unemployment and inequality. People living in rural areas are generally affected by all three socio-economic factors despite government’s interventions in the poverty alleviation programmes annually. In South Africa, nationally, the prevalence of food insecurity has decreased by more than half, from 52.3% to 29.5% from 1999 to 2008. Eastern Cape Province is one of the provinces with a high rate of poverty in the country and has the highest prevalence of food insecurity compared to other provinces, from 83.0% down to 45.4% in 2008. Although food insecurity in the country has decreased over time, a high proportion of households remained vulnerable to hunger and poverty in rural areas of the country. Unless food alleviation programmes are implemented across the province, the proportion of people suffering from poverty would be minimised.

South Africa is largely deemed a food secure nation producing enough staple foods or having the capacity to import food in order to meet the basic nutritional requirements of the whole nation. However, the literature demonstrates an alternative success story for households in rural areas (Du Toit, 2011; Koch, 2011). South Africa is regarded as food self-sufficient in almost all the major food products with the ability to import shortages when deemed necessary (DAFF, 2002; Du Toit, 2011; Koch, 2011). Du Toit (2011) further reports that the country has been able to meet the food needs from domestic production over the past years. By 2002 the country had also managed to

71 meet the needs for its main staple food with maize by over 100 percent, wheat by 95 percent, livestock by 96 percent and dairy products by 100 percent from domestic resources (Mashamaite, 2014).

Despite the success of food security at the national level and self-sufficiency in food production, there is still minimal food security at household level in South Africa, accompanied by considerable levels of household food insecurity. This trend is even more pronounced in the former homelands of South Africa. The figures are alarming as Mashamaite (2014) points out, with approximately 14.3 million South Africans (almost 25% of South Africa’s current population) at household level being vulnerable to food insecurity and remains food insecure in the modern day. This vulnerability is most prevalent among people living in the rural areas, especially the former homelands, which place food security of the poor under serious threat (De Klerk, Drimie, Aliber, et al, 2004). Food poverty, food insecurity, hunger and malnutrition have placed severe pressure on ordinary South African citizens already struggling to meet their basic household food needs (Labadarios et al., 2011).

Hart et al. (2009) and Jacobs (2009) indicate that food insecurity is a serious challenge that still persists in South Africa despite years of democracy. According to Labadarios et al. (2011: 11), over 57 percent of the population in the country still lives below the poverty line meaning that they spend some days in a week without food. The General Household Survey (GHS) confirms this by reporting on over 20 percent of households in South Africa with inadequate access to food (Stats SA, 2009).

Du Toit (2011) reveals that South Africa has been able to meet the food needs of its growing population over the past years but the food security condition at household level is not the same as at national level in rural areas of South Africa. The most vulnerable to food poverty are women, children and the elderly who reflect the demographic profile of rural areas (Aliber, 2009; Hart, 2009; Jacobs, 2009).

The promotion of subsistence farming in rural areas is the only viable option for poverty alleviation (Labadarios et al., 2011: 897). Baiphethi et al. (2009), Altman et al. 2009) and Aliber (2003) paint a depressing picture on the state of food security and its inherent challenges in South Africa. Despite agriculture being the only sector that has the potential to provide employment in order to improve the household food security

72 status of the country, it has failed to improve the general living standard of the rural poor. Yet, the subsistence agricultural sector is laden with an array of household specific challenges including gender disparities, food security, lack of interest in youth, the HIV/AIDS pandemic, drought, social grant dependency and lack of government support.

2.7 CHAPTER SUMMARY

South Africa has witnessed a continuous decline in agricultural food production throughout the years in both the commercial and subsistence sectors. This has contributed to escalating poverty in rural communities. The subsistence sector is the most affected sector due to the collapse of subsistence farming in former homelands due in most parts to a lack of access to land. Yet in the former homeland of Transkei, the land question is not a challenge. The traditional areas are characterised by large tracts of uncultivated communal land. The debates around the land question and rural development and land reform policies to redress the historical unequal distribution of land have yielded marginal results. This study seeks to establish the cause of the anomaly witnessed in villages of the Eastern Cape.

The combined impact of British and Boer hegemony, the discovery of gold and subsequent erosion of rural livelihood systems affected household economies as droves of men went in search of work. Patches of poverty in labour reserves worsened. Households, though maintaining a modicum of food production, lost their balance and resorted to alternative means of survival through wage employment. This chapter has highlighted some of the gaps in the literature, more prominently, how the literature remains silent on the resilience of rural communities to adapt to change and to readjust to preserve a level of food production.

As the land question amidst a plethora of post-1994 policy on land reform and agrarian development policies continues to take centre stage, the rural household in oblivion to these debates continues to confront and navigate a series of challenges. This chapter identifies the broad spectrum of challenges as a barometer to be tested in the field through qualitative research. Chapter Two through its conceptual framework sets the stage for identified research questions in this study inquiry. Chapter Three provides an overview of the research area and how it provides the experimental lab to visit key

73 elements that would contribute to the growing understand of land, agriculture, food security and a restoration of sustainable agriculture in rural South Africa.

74 CHAPTER THREE

PROFILE OF THE RESEARCH SITE: EMJIKWENI VILLAGE IN THE MHLONTLO MUNICIPALITY OF EASTERN CAPE PROVINCE

3.1 INTRODUCTION

This chapter introduces the research site, eMjikweni Village in the Mhlontlo Local Municipality of the Eastern Cape Province. It describes the demographic, socio- economic, settlement patterns and environmental profile of the research site against the backdrop of prevailing socio-economic conditions of the municipality under whose planning jurisdiction it falls.

3.2 DEMOGRAPHIC AND SOCIO-ECONOMIC PROFILE

This study was conducted in eMjikweni Village in Qumbu in the three-month period of April 2018 to June 2018. The research site falls under the Mhlontlo Local Municipality in the Eastern Cape, 60 kilometres to the north east of Mthatha. Mhlontlo Local Municipality has 35 wards and eMjikweni Village falls under ward 16.

3.2.1 Location of Mhlontlo Local Municipality

The Mhlontlo local municipality is located in the province of the Eastern Cape as one of six local municipalities in the greater OR Tambo District Municipality (Figure 3.1). Mhlontlo Local Municipality is a rural Municipality incorporating Qumbu and Tsolo rural towns. It lies on the North East side of the Eastern Cape Provincial border alongside the N2 route between Mthatha and Mount Frere and is bordered by King Sabata Dalindyebo Local Municipality to the South, Nyandeni Local Municipality to the East; both under OR Tambo District Municipality, Umzimvubu Local Municipality to the North and Ntabankulu on the North East, both under the Alfred Nzo District Municipality, and Elundini Local Municipality to the West which is under the Joe Gqabi District Municipality (MLM, 2019).

75

Source: www.municipalities.co.za Figure 3.1: Location of Mhlontlo Local Municipality in Eastern Cape

The municipality is one of the five municipalities that constitute the OR Tambo District Municipality which falls under the Province of the Eastern Cape. The municipal area covers 2,826 sq. km and has a population density of 66, 6 people per sq. km. The study area of eMjikweni Villages lies in the heart of the MLM, inland along a major national road, the N2 Freeway, which permits fairly easy access to larger cities of Durban, Johannesburg, East London, Port Elizabeth and Cape Town (Figure 3.2 and Figure 3.3):

76

Source: Google Maps (2019) Figure 3.2: Location of eMjikweni Village within Mhlontlo Local Municipality

Source: Google Maps (2019) Figure 3.3: Satellite Image of eMjikweni Village relative to surrounding localities

77 3.2.2 Population and Employment

Mhlontlo Local Municipality is characterised by very high poverty levels (more than 78%) and significantly higher than the provincial level. Consistent with these high poverty rates is high dependence on social security grants with household grant dependents higher (77%) compared to those of the OR Tambo District Municipality (75%) and significantly higher when compared to provincial (64%) levels. Mhlontlo Local Municipality also has very high unemployment rates estimated at 83% in 2005 compared to 70% in 2000 (Mhlontlo Local Municipality, 2007) with a decline to 43% in 2011 (Stats SA, 2011). Infrastructure development projects through the Expanded Public Works Programme (EPWP) have been implemented as a key instrument to provide jobs in the municipality. Its demographic profile illustrates that only 54% of the municipality is economically active. Unemployment is rife in the local Municipality of Mhlontlo estimated at 43 %, with an estimated youth unemployment rate of 59% (Stats SA, 2011).

Most of the population are employed in the community services sector (56.9%) followed by households (16.4%) and agriculture (11.7%). This confirms the importance of agriculture in Mhlontlo Local Municipality’s economy. While 60% of the population in the study area is dependent on government grants, the role of agriculture in broadening economic opportunities for rural communities in the municipality becomes heightened. The Municipality faces challenges to promoting its agricultural sector. These include the absence of a conducive and more supportive agriculture industrial and value added approach, lack of adequate infrastructure and equipment to support small farmers and a low skills and knowledge base among the local and household incumbents expected to drive and promote significant agricultural production.

3.2.3 Education and service delivery

In terms of level of education, only 12% of the municipality’s population has obtained matric and 5% of the population has achieved a higher education level status. With the exception of the provision of electricity (72% households have access to electricity) in terms of service delivery, the municipality is lagging behind in providing basic services to the communities in its jurisdiction.

78 According to Stats SA (2011), the total number of households in the Mhlontlo Municipality stood at 43,414 in 2011, a 0.98% decrease from 44,494 in 2007. In the same period the density of households per km squared also decreased from 15.8% in 2008 to 14.4% in 2011 (Stats SA, 2011). It is not immediately clear why household density dropped in the three-year period. The drop in the density of households cannot be directly attributed to rural-urban migration patterns as migrants maintain their rural household linkages. Key constraints to service delivery include the predominantly rural nature of the municipality characterised by poor and inadequate investments in economic and basic infrastructure, high levels of functional illiteracy and low skills base (Local Economic Development Strategy, 2007).

3.2.4 Basic infrastructure and services

Access to basic infrastructure and services is considered both a constitutional right of every South Africa citizen and an important foundation for stimulating socio-economic growth and development. Despite progress made in the Mhlontlo Local Municipality in providing basic infrastructure and services huge backlogs still remain to be addressed. The rural nature of the municipality significantly affects provision of basic infrastructure and services to all areas of the municipality. More than 97% of roads in the municipality are gravel and are generally not in good condition and this poses a major challenge for socio-economic development (Mhlontlo Local Municipality, 2008). Maintenance of roads infrastructure is identified as a major challenge for the municipality and so is strategic road connectivity to various other parts of the municipality and developmental nodal areas. In general, the condition of roads leading to the eMjikweni Village where farming land is away from the main roads is poor. Most access road surfaces in the municipality are gravel (untarred) roads which can only handle limited volume and payloads. This becomes a significant challenge for transporting agricultural raw products that are usually bulky and heavy in nature as proposed by the municipality’s integrated development strategy.

3.3 THE DEMOGRAPHY OF EMJIKWENI VILLAGE – THE STUDY SITE

The demographic profile of eMjikweni Village on its own shows similar trends with that of the municipality. Youth in the village are mostly unemployed. According to Stats SA (2016), the estimated population for eMjikweni Village is 743. The number of males

79 who are economically active is 188 while 207 females are reported as economically active. Youth unemployment is estimated to be 74%. The proportion of the village’s population of 20 years and older who have attained at least a matric certificate is at an all-time low of only 3%. The majority of the village population have some primary education, with up to 20% having reportedly had no schooling at all by 2016. Low literacy levels coupled with a high unemployment rate, make for a toxic foundation for rural poverty in the village.

Table 3.1 below gives an overview profile of the village study site as it compares to its local municipality. As a demarcated ward of the municipality, the village accounts for only 4% of the municipality’s total population. Compared to municipality statistics eMjikweni Village displays higher than average levels of unemployment and illiteracy, with no access to water. Its electricity supply is higher than in most other parts of the municipality but in general, access to basic services is not adequate. The household income data does not exist at a lower geographical level to uphold confidentiality of household information, which is a critical gap in policy and planning in data administration for better service delivery.

80 Table 3.1: Profile of Mhlontlo Local Municipality and eMjikweni Village Mhlontlo Local eMjikweni Village Indicator Municipality (Ward 16) Demographic Profile Total Population 188 226 743 Population Under 14 38.3 % 39 % Population 15 - 64 54.5 % 31 % Population Over 65 7.2 % 21.9 % Dependency Ratio Per 100 (15-64) 83.5 % 7.9 % Sex Ratio Males per 100 females 86.8 % No data Population Growth Per annum -0.75 % No data Labour Profile Unemployment Rate (official) 48.9 % 25.8 % Youth Unemployment Rate (official) 59.5 % 74.2 % 15-34 Education Profile (aged 20 years and above) No Schooling 14.7 % 20 % Matric 12.3 % 3 % Higher Education 4.9 % 1 % Household Profile No. of Households 43 414 174 Average Household Size 4.20 4.3 Female-Headed Households 56.9 % 64 Formal Dwellings 34.1 % 69 Housing Owned 53.9 % No data Household Services Profile Flush Toilet Connected To Sewerage 2.9 % 0 % Weekly Refuse Removal 4.8 % 0 % Piped Water Inside Dwelling 4.0 % 0 % Electricity For Lighting 72.6 % 77% Household Income No income 38.9 % No data R 1 – R 400 40.3 % No data R 401 – R 800 4.5 % No data R 801 – R 1600 13.5 % No data R 1 601 – R 3 200 1.6 % No data Source: Stats SA Community Survey Results, 2011

3.4 THE GEOGRAPHY OF EMJIKWENI VILLAGE IN THE MHLONTLO LOCAL MUNICIPALITY

It is estimated that 98% of the Mhlontlo municipal population live in rural areas with the remaining 2% residing in urban areas. Spatially, Mhlontlo Municipality incorporates two main urban centres, namely Tsolo and Qumbu. While most rural settlements are characterised by uneven and low levels of services, peri-urban and settlements near major intersections and on major routes have developed into rural service nodes. The

81 aerial photograph of eMjikweni Village (Figure 3.4) illustrates the spatial location of the area and the arable communal land (shaded) that could be revitalised for crop production using water resources at its disposal. The disadvantage is the land degradation, which is cause by soil erosion. This will require intensive capital injection to build the infrastructure in the area to encourage the productive use of the land.

Source: Stats SA GIS, 2016 Figure 3.4: An aerial view of eMjikweni Village in Mhlontlo Local Municipality

The topography of the village and its surrounds provides context for much of the agricultural activity in the area. The western-most area is relatively steep compared to its eastern plain plateau. EMjikweni Village falls under the eastern part of the Mhlontlo Local Municipality. The major rivers in the municipality area are the Tina and Tsitsa rivers, which cut through the western and eastern sections of the municipality. EMjikweni Village is situated at the river banks of the Tsitsa river (MLM IDP, 2017) a source of water crop production, which, with adequate rainfall, has potential for productive agricultural use of the land. Annual rainfall for the majority of the areas ranges between 701 and 800m, with the portion of the western areas experiencing higher rainfall than the eastern parts of the municipality. A closer aerial view of eMjikweni Village in Figure 3.5 better demonstrates the inherited patterns of communal land tenure wherein indigenous people were moved from their ancestral land, to common demarcated areas marked residential purposes, communal grazing land and communal crop fields, the latter being the focus of this study.

82

Legend: Demarcated area for residential purposes Demarcated communal land

Source: Google Maps (2019) Figure 3.5: Satellite image of demarcated land use in eMjikweni Village

According to Figure 3.5, the demarcation of land demonstrates how communal crop fields are farther away from the homesteads which have also contributed to the challenges they face in respect of access and the ability to guard their fields against stray livestock. In Chapters Five and Six, the study findings will demonstrate how subsistence farming of staple crops such as maize in eMjikweni Village grows in increasingly more difficult for households to cultivate, the reliance instead on homestead gardens becomes more common as the gardens are closer to their dwelling units and more manageable in size (see Figure 3.6):

83

Legend: Homestead Gardens

Source: Google Maps (2019) Figure 3.6: Satellite image of homestead gardens near eMjikweni Village dwelling units

3.5 OVERVIEW OF LAND USE IN MHLONTLO MUNICIPALITY

The municipality is generally well-endowed with vast arable land with great potential for mass food production and farming that can stimulate economic growth in the area. According to MLM IDP (2017), various programmes have already been implemented such as Massive Food Production Programme, Ntinga, and OR Tambo Development Agency for agricultural development in the Mhlontlo Local Municipality area. Yet, these programmes are not yet fully implemented in rural areas with visible proof of large area tracts of land in the rural communities remaining uncultivated for more than thirty years.

In a significant paper on an infrastructure development proposal for sector development in the Mhlontlo Local Municipality, Chakwizira, Nhemachena and Mashiri (2010) observe that with approximately 76% of the land cover being either degraded grassland or unimproved grassland, the municipality has much scope to reclaim land through innovative agriculture methods so that it is available for more enhanced agricultural production. Another important observation they make is that only about

84 17% of land cover is cultivated on a semi-commercial/subsistence basis. Forest plantations constitute about 8% while urban or built-up residential covers about 5%. This implies the need to identify economic potential and the necessary infrastructure requirements to stimulate development and socio-economic development of the currently unimproved underdeveloped land areas.

The Mhlontlo Local Municipality has a high agricultural potential with its good climatic conditions, soils and land abundance which point to the richness of the municipality and potential in high value crops and fruit production. The municipality has a huge potential for agriculture that still needs to be developed, as well as improved utilisation of available arable agricultural land. Lack of existing infrastructure and other supporting structures has constrained productive utilisation of a number of areas and implementation of agricultural and rural development projects in some areas. Figure 3.7 presents the key agricultural zones in the municipal area respectively.

Source: Adapted from CSIR (2010) Figure 3.7: Agriculture zones of Mhlontlo Local Municipality

3.6 CHAPTER SUMMARY

This chapter has sought to provide an overview of the socio-economic profile and the geography of the Mhlontlo Local Municipality and the research site of eMjikweni Village. While not comprehensive due to limited data availability at ward level, it illustrates a broad yet not unusual picture of the rural landscape under study. It also

85 points to potential benefit that can be derived from its natural and human resources given its endowment of arable land that can be used for crop production. The village’s close proximity to the Tsitsa River presents an added advantage for effective use of the available water for effective and efficient use by the rural community. That the research site still has high unemployment raises sufficient enquiry on how best the local authorities could take advantage of its currently able-bodied labour for the advancement of local economic and development, rural development, poverty eradication and sustainable household food security. The process of how the research was conducted will be extensively shared in the following research methods and research methodology chapter.

86 CHAPTER FOUR

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

4.1 INTRODUCTION

This chapter is a discussion of the research design that is informed by the research questions, and research methodology of the study. The chapter will outline the research approach, strategy and process, including the data collection methods, selection of the sample, data analysis, ethical considerations and the research limitations of the project. Berhanu, Cameron and Coutts (2003) argue that one of the characteristic features of research that involves subsistence farmers has been the use, among most researchers, of an unyielding research design mostly prepared as part of desktop research, far removed from the context in which they are implemented.

Accordingly, they make a case that that very little opportunity exists for the local people under study to participate in identifying research topics, framing research problems, and prioritising issues to be addressed by the research. In this case it is argued that researchers tend to conduct most of their interviews and observations in and around villages so that only a restricted view of how farmers work both individually and mutually to manage their farms, protect their land and how they combine farming and livestock together, if at all. A second major feature of subsistence farmer-oriented research that Berhanu et.al. (2003) identify is the use and emphasis on the village community as a unit of analysis rather than the entire farming community. In this latter case, attention is given to actual and practical problems facing subsistence livelihoods (e.g. farms or gardens, livestock, land, trees, water, pasture), most of which are located away from the villages where farmers reside.

This approach in this study has pursued a reconsideration of these two orientations insofar as they could contribute to improvements in the process and methods of data collection, quality of data gathered, and overall understanding of rural subsistence farming communities in the study area. A study focused on exploration and documentation of farmer perspectives of subsistence farming with the intention of exploring the contextual process factors underlying interactions between farmers and government-assisted programmes was considered an appropriate policy-oriented research intervention for the eMjikweni Village.

87 4.2 A THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK ON SUBSISTENCE FARMING IN EMJIKWENI VILLAGE, MHLONTLO LOCAL MUNICIPALITY

The current reality facing rural communities is that of a collapse in subsistence agriculture over time. In the case of eMjikweni Village, its rural community is saddled with large tracts of communal land, which are uncultivated in the face of high unemployment, high poverty levels and a large number of food insecure households. McAllister (2008), Andrew et al. (2003), Andrew and Fox (2013), Fox (2010), and Khapayi (2016) in their various pieces of research set out to explore and understand the fundamental reasons behind the collapse of subsistence agriculture in these areas. A common thread that emerges from this research is the epistemological approach adopted, that through practical knowledge of the existence of the problem, factors may be identified which may solve the challenge of the demise of subsistence agriculture in South Africa’s rural economies.

In this study, while taking cognisance of a similar epistemological approach, the study also adopts a contextual framework as an appropriate methodological approach to subsistence agriculture and small-scale farmer-oriented research. The justification for this theoretical framework finds itself from the nature, design and implementation of most government and development agency programmes that have been implemented in the Mhlontlo Local Municipality and eMjikweni Village in particular. They largely have been characterised by policy, technical and physical constraints, with the consequence that programmes are typically technologically and crop production- driven. These programmes are also characterised by uniform solutions provided despite a limited capacity of farmers in sustainable agricultural methods. The implemented programmes most of the time, are under-resourced, with one or no extension officer assigned to cover the 700-plus rural households and are compromised further by the overlay of political and administrative functions in terms of programme beneficiaries. There is documented evidence to prove that programmes tend to be unstable as a result of an untested design and implementation often limited in potential benefits due to fluctuating interest of households in subsistence farming. Most the time, the programmes become limited in relevance as an outcome of changes in household size due to out-migration from the village and the prevalence of an ageing population unable to work the land.

88 Peterson (2013) argues that practical knowledge is concrete, emerging from a complex and ambiguous context which warrants action to be taken. Since knowledge arises from action, then practical knowledge is actionable. In this particular study, case studies are identified to demonstrate the practical knowledge of subsistence agricultural farmers in the face of debilitating conditions collapsing the sector more than its gains. As a theoretical framework seeking to uncover present day challenges to subsistence farming in the face of what appears to be full access to means of production, contextualism, coupled with an exploratory approach, allowed in this study an opportunity to understand farmer behaviour in the context within which it is embedded systematically (Berhanu et.al., 2003). Opportunities were also presented to understand events (and decisions) in their interrelatedness, or interpret people’s lives as a whole, by uncovering what is meaningful to them in terms of social rules and practices (Flood, 1999). Finally, contextualism assisted this research to recognise the essential intertwine among the socio-economic and agro-physical factors within which human action is rooted (see for example, Foley, 2011). In this case, the research’s focus on case study methods was useful in establishing how the eMjikweni rural community perceive their efforts on subsistence farming in view of the government programmes at their disposal.

4.3 RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODOLOGY

Flick (2014:112) defines a research design as a plan for collecting and analysing evidence that will make it possible for the researcher’s questions to be answered. The design of an investigator informs the minute detail of data collection and selection of techniques of data analysis with an aim of helping in achieving the research objectives and answering the research questions of the study. It also assists in collecting relevant data and how to analyse it. Owing to time and cost constraints, a longitudinal study design could not be adopted for examination of the challenges to revitalising subsistence farming eMjikweni Village. Instead this thesis adopted a cross-sectional research design, aided in some way by pre-existing contextual observations over time by the researcher on the state of subsistence farming in eMjikweni Village.

The design of this research study therefore took into consideration three major activities. First, there was a need to establish an appropriate theoretical basis for the study through a review of related literature. Second, while a familiarisation with the

89 research setting is encouraged before beginning the actual fieldwork, in this case as the researcher was more than familiar with the area, a cross-check of research questions and relevance was made to ensure that the research instrument was suitable. Finally, a pre-test of the instrument was conducted and then the actual fieldwork conducted in the period April 2017 to June 2017. The various activities of fieldwork were aimed at obtaining good quality data. Such data was dependent on good and resourceful informants cultivated and made easier by the fact that the researcher was also a resident of the local village. While this in itself may create certain information biases or falsification of information, the trust element between researcher and informants far outweighed the risk factors involved in soliciting quality information.

Maxwell (2013: 101) makes a significant observation that ‘the methods the researcher uses to collect data do not necessarily follow the logical deduction from research questions. The research methods are the means to answer the research. The research questions formulate what the researcher wants to understand. The researcher’s interview questions are what the researcher asks people to gain that understanding.

4.3.1 The review of literature

The use of secondary sources in the literature review assisted in developing a theoretical framework. In this phase the researcher undertook a systematic search to review the different schools of thought and existing body of knowledge that influence ideology and ideas about interactions between land and agrarian reforms. The review assisted in the reconstruction of a historical narrative of the sensitive relations between subsistence farming, agrarian reform and food security in South Africa and how these have influenced gender, race dynamics and rural livelihoods. Other documentary sources that were consulted included Agrekon journals and articles, the South African electronic publications, Academic Source Premier and books, government policy, legislation, various government and local government strategic plans, official publications, official reports, published and unpublished papers, electronic media interviews and archive material. Government reports, academic publications on land reform and rural development and reports on non-governmental organisations were also reviewed. Government reports provided information on the implementation of the land reform programmes in general and land redistribution for agricultural developments. These documents were reviewed as part of the literature review. Some

90 of the information was used as checks and balances on the information which was obtained from the primary sources.

Various databases with relevant information were also used such as Sabinet databases; The Nelson Mandela University library and others and Google Scholar, as well as dissertations, theses and abstract databases. Secondary sources of research, especially a review of literature, were important as an anchor towards establishing theoretical roots on the topic under study. More importantly, the process assisted in identifying key themes and debates that would help to respond to the research questions. It also served to enhance and consolidate the knowledge base and contextualise the theoretical and conceptual frameworks of this proposed study.

4.3.2 Research site familiarity

For study design purposes, vital information about the selected sample households was extracted through discussions with a headman. Coincidentally, the headman was the chairperson of the newly formed agricultural cooperative consisting of fifteen members in the village. The researcher consulted the headman for the register of people who are active in subsistence farming. The headman assisted in the identification of individuals or groups of individuals with 10 years or more of experience that are specifically knowledgeable and experienced about the phenomenon under investigation. This local cultural context becomes a very important caveat or anthropological consideration insofar as scientific study sampling is concerned. The success of social research in local contexts of the nature of eMjikweni relies heavily on the approval of the local authority, without which research may not take place. This implicitly also informed the sampling method adopted in this study. Similarly, contact was made with relevant municipal officials and provincial development agencies and rural cooperatives. After a required lengthy period of bureaucratic approvals, all of these potential informants were contacted, and permission sought to conduct interviews between April 2017 and June 2017.

Though familiar with eMjikweni Village, the researcher still sought to conduct a pre- fieldwork visit to the village to confirm ground realities. This included attending a community meeting and being given an opportunity to explain the purpose of the study while at the same time, confirming the prevalence of subsistence farmers and non-

91 farmers in the village. During this visit, the researcher also sought to seek new insights on the research questions and adaptability of the semi-structured interview instrument. Also, one focus group discussion comprising former and current farmer participants was held in a village in April 2017. The focus group discussion, which revolved around the questions about history and an exploratory survey, helped to re-establish the village size and the current cropping pattern in the area, as well participation, non- participation, challenges and benefits, and problems encountered with government programmes on supporting subsistence farmers in the village of eMjikweni. This pre- fieldwork, as any other detail in respect of consultation with key stakeholders, concepts and variables, identified that it influenced the householder behaviour regarding participation in subsistence farming and gardening.

Different concepts were also generated using a literature review, focus group discussion and semi-structured interviews with stakeholders, which addressed the research objectives, and which were transformed into relevant variables of information. Then each variable was translated into clear questions to obtain answers. This pre-field consultation provided the researcher with the opportunity to revisit the interview schedule which had a combination of open and closed-ended questions to organise questions in a coherent manner to elicit data from the respondents. It also lends credence to a growing argument on how respondents in a social science enquiry must assist to identify the key issues of investigation. The structured interview schedule that was finally adopted was pre-tested with seven household respondents as a basis of finalising the final interview-structured instrument.

4.3.3 Conducting fieldwork

A qualitative research strategy was adopted in this study to fulfil the research objectives. Quantitative data was also collected insofar as the demographic and economic profile of households interviewed was solicited. Qualitative research is best described by Hennink, Hunter and Bailey, (2011) as an approach that allows the researcher to examine people’s experiences in detail. This is done by using a specific set of research methods such as in-depth interviews, focus group discussions, observations, content analysis, visual methods and life histories and biographies. In this case, the character of the study required access to policy, implemented and lived information on the topic of agrarian reform and agricultural development post-1994 in

92 South Africa from the perspective of the policymaker, implementer and the rural villager with access to land but no means of food production. This information could not be acquired through a standardised questionnaire with predetermined answer categories as used in quantitative research. The aim was not to measure or quantify a concept but to improve the understanding of the phenomenon by obtaining information from the respondents. Significantly, this assisted the main focus of the current study which was on how uncultivated communal land that is readily available to communities can be revitalised for food production.

In this study only qualitative research methods were employed in collecting data from the households on the collapse of subsistence agriculture and the related challenges facing the rural community of eMjikweni Village. An unstructured household questionnaire was used in collecting data from key informants (see Appendix A). The questionnaire had five sections (Sections A, B, C, D, and E). Section A requested personal and economic data from the respondents. Section B looked into the needs/objectives of rural households. Section C focused generally on the perceived challenges of subsistence farming in the eMjikweni Village. Section D probed the livelihood strategies of villagers in view of current challenges related to agriculture, unemployment and other social ills that plague the village. Finally, Section E sought to establish the extent to which government and other state-driven programmes are known at grassroots level, and how their impact and possible strategies could be adopted for revitalising subsistence farming as a mode of production for a food secure eMjikweni Village. The interview schedule of questions had a combination of both open-ended and closed-ended questions.

On post-fieldwork reflection of the fieldwork results, a second sweep of fieldwork was conducted by the researcher based solely on purposes of gleaning more detailed information on key issues that arose from the interviews. This second round of fieldwork employed a case study and focus group discussion approach. The following section describes how each phase of fieldwork was conducted.

4.4 DATA COLLECTION IN THE EMJIKWENI VILLAGE

In seeking to achieve its research objectives and to explore how the remnants of the fertile fallow land can be used towards improving food security and household

93 livelihoods, a sample of 100 households in the eMjikweni Village were selected drawn from the approximately 174 households actively engaged in agricultural activities in eMjikweni .

Sampling design is one of the most fundamental elements of data collection for any scientific research. It plays a critical role in ensuring that data is sufficient to draw necessary conclusions. For the purpose of this study, a non-probability sampling method was employed, with the agricultural household being the sampling unit. This method also served to ensure fair representation of all variables required for observation in the study. Notwithstanding the mandatory role of the village headman in sampling study households, this study chose to use the purposive sampling method to recruit selected households because, as Kumar (2011:20) states, purposive sampling is very useful when a researcher wants to construct a historic reality, describe a phenomenon and develop a perspective about what is little known.

Purposeful sampling is widely used in qualitative research for the identification and selection of information-rich cases related to the phenomenon of interest. This involves identifying and selecting individuals or groups of individuals that are especially knowledgeable about or experienced with a phenomenon of interest (Cresswell & Clark, 2011). In addition to knowledge and experience, Bernard (2002) and Spradley (1979) note the importance of availability and willingness to participate, and the ability to communicate experiences and opinions in an articulate, expressive, and reflective manner. In contrast, probabilistic or random sampling is used to ensure the generalisability of findings by minimising the potential for bias in selection and to control for the potential influence of known and unknown confounding variables.

For the purposes of this study, using purposive sampling made it easier to select the widest variety of the participants from the study population as it enabled easy identification of households involved in subsistence agriculture by walking through the village until the required 100 households were identified according to gender of household, so that male- and female-headed were equally sampled. In this study a seven-step sampling method was used (see Figure 4.1):

94

Figure 4.1: Research steps & considerations adopted in eMjikweni Village study

As the fieldwork proceeded, it became apparent that there was an anticipated need already to revisit emerging issues such as the heterogeneity of food security levels of different households in relation to income level and gender, as well as the challenges related to subsistence farming and any collaboration with government. This compelled the researcher to revisit selected households and/or respondents and include government officials and traditional leaders needed in the sample. Patton (2002) refers

95 to this phenomenon as the act of following new leads during fieldwork and taking advantage of the unexpected as emergent sampling.

4.4.1 Fieldwork: The interviews

In this study, open-ended interviews formed the basis of face-to face encounters between the researcher and the informants with a view to understanding informants’ perspectives on their lives, experiences, or situations as expressed in their own world. This method combines a structured and semi-structured type of questionnaire with both standardised and open formal questions (William, 2016:128). Open-ended questions allowed respondents to give in-depth detailed data on experiences, opinions, beliefs, facts about attitudes and how subsistence agriculture contributes to the food security of the household, community development and local economic development of the municipal area they lived in.

Final interviews were conducted primarily with any adult person within the household who is considered as the chief decision maker regarding farming activities, as well as those actively involved in agricultural production. Participation of respondents for the study was voluntary, with no direct benefits. They were informed that the conversation would be totally confidential and would be used exclusively for the study purpose.

The interview schedule of questions was administered to all 100 people engaged in subsistence agriculture in eMjikweni Village. The language used to conduct the actual interviews, focus group discussions and case study oral histories was isiXhosa, the local and primary language spoken in the village. Participants were purposively selected and the researcher tried to balance gender as much as possible. The face- to-face interviews were conducted for all the sampled participants with the use of a tape recorder with the permission of respondents for purposes of accurate transcribing while the researcher only captured key information and relied on the tape recordings for the individual responses, classification of information and analysis. Owing to financial constraints, one research assistant was employed to assist in the monitoring and administering of the interview schedules.

Additionally, unstructured interviews were conducted to supplement some information that could not be captured by the interview schedule as a check-and-balance process

96 for consistency of responses from the fieldwork experience of households. These unstructured interviews were also posed in the focus groups and case study household visits which were conducted separately to the interviews in the fieldwork using the interview guide approach, with the wording of questions predetermined, but with the sequence determined during the conversational flow. The advantage of this approach is that it makes data collection more systematic and ensures that certain topics and issues of interest will be covered. It allows the researcher to gain in-depth information and personal experiences. It is useful for sensitive issues and allows the researcher knowledge to identify the context of participants’ lives (Hennink et al., 2011:52).

Each household interview lasted between two to three hours (undertaken in the local language of isiXhosa) taking into account interruptions and conversation diversions consistent with some of the topics discussed. In no standard order per household, each interview sought to glean information on age, gender, school enrolment, number of years of schooling, current wage, salaried job, migration experience, information on the farming status of each household and the use of various farm inputs and technologies such as tractors, pump sets, chemical fertilisers, and pesticides (herbicides and insecticides), agricultural training and conservation agriculture knowledge, as well as farm implements in crop production, and other information such as the size of cultivated land, land ownership, livestock holding, ownership of a house plot, and house quality.

The disadvantage of this interview method is that confidentiality can be compromised when dealing with sensitive questions. It is challenging to manage group dynamics and less suitable for personal information experiences. Therefore, building rapport is important for the researcher to enable the respondents to respond freely during interviews. The basic principle of qualitative research is to be familiar with the topic one is researching as it occurs in the natural setting. Gaining trust and empathy during interviews with the respondents is essential. It was easy to gain trust because the researcher was known by most families as it is her home village. Though the interview schedule did not contain any sensitive questions in all the data collection methods, there were areas of discussion that respondents would be reluctant to disclose such information to the familiar person. Three such topics were that of the impact of

97 HIV/AIDS; the specifics of the household diet; and, decision-making in the household. An added advantage to their otherwise enthusiastic participation was that the community took an interest in the topic under investigation at the risk, however, of raised hopes that the study would assist in solving the well-known challenge of non- cultivation of communal land in the community. It is this context that stresses for validity to be established in qualitative studies. Validity, in qualitative research refers to whether the research findings accurately reflect the true situation that is being researched (Van Rensburg et.al, 2010: 137; Leedy & Ormrod, 2014: 141).

4.4.2 Fieldwork: The focus group discussions

Focus group discussions are a type of group interview which concentrates on in- depth discussion on a particular theme or topic with an element of participation. Kumar (2011: 160) defines focus groups as a form of qualitative research in which a group of people are asked about their perceptions, opinions, beliefs and attitudes towards a particular concept. Flick (2014:243) defines focus group interviews as interviews with a small group of people on a specific topic, typically with six to eight people to participate in a half-an-hour to two-hour session. The smaller group allows space for active engagement and prompt feedback from using the small group. Struwig and Stead (2001) further emphasise that the participants’ participation in a focus group is voluntary and that they should have homogeneous characteristics and traits in some respect. Flick (2014) and Wilkinson (1998) regard focus group interviews as a highly efficient method of data collection in qualitative research while Wilkinson (1998) cautions that focus group methodology when used in social science research can be “deceptively simple”.

Following household interviews in the study of revitalising subsistence farming in the eMjikweni Village, focus group discussions were held to probe further some of the emerging issues that arose from the household interviews. Key emerging issues that arose in the focus group discussions included inter alia: revitalising subsistence farming in eMjikweni; the impact of food production on eMjikweni household economies; access to and impact of mechanisation of food production; the role of the government and its agencies in improving subsistence farming; stock theft; gender issues in household economics and food insecurity in eMjikweni; women, land and

98 food production and unemployment, the social grant and alternatives to state dependency.

Two focus group discussions were held on different days at a neutral venue identified by key informants in the village. Each focus group had no more than eight people each, selected with the assistance of key informants to participate in the group discussions. While this selection may have created some form of bias, it still assisted in providing deeper insight and extensive engagement during the discussions. The advantage of using a smaller number of group participants is that it is easy to control the discussions and the participants are in a position to give detailed information about the phenomenon under discussion.

Two focus group discussions were held, namely because in the village, due to prevailing cultural, social and patriarchal values, men and women could not be part of the same discussion group which in their view was treated in the same regard as a community meeting to discuss community issues. The first focus group discussion was held with men only. The second one was held with women only. While this denied the researcher an opportunity to gain a collective view on issues that hinder progressive subsistence farming, the two focus groups separated by sex eliminated gender dynamics that otherwise could have silenced the voice of one sex over the other. To this day, at community meetings in eMjikweni men tend to dominate discussions and women are not comfortable voicing their views in the presence of men. Customary Xhosa culture still dictates the silence of women and disallows them from debating or arguing with men in any community engagements.

In the focus group interviews, the researcher explored the perceptions, experiences and understandings of participants based on common experiences with regard to subsistence farming and the lack thereof in eMjikweni. Discussion topics were identified in advance by the researcher and the informants while others emerged as part of the discussion, and members of the focus groups were free to express their opinions while discussing these issues. In the focus groups, questions focused on unearthing some of the challenges affecting subsistence farmers in the community. They were asked about their level of satisfaction with access to services and resources, employment opportunities (agriculture-linked) and household food security status. Participants provided checks and balances for each other, thereby eliminating

99 any false or extreme views. The focus group discussions helped the researcher to glean information and diverse views, thoughts and ideas. The researcher ensured that whatever was expressed or discussed was recorded accurately. Once again, with the consent of participants, a tape recorder was used during the focus group discussions to record the relevant information for a high level of accuracy and consistency that would assist during the transcribing process and during data analysis. The researcher also recorded detailed field notes during the discussions (cf. Van Ransburg et al., 2010: 243).

However, there are limitations in this data collection method. Firstly, there are a limited numbers of questions one can address. Secondly, the researcher is faced with the challenge of taking notes during the interview. The employment of at least a pair of interviewers is usually encouraged so that the research assistant can document the proceedings while the principal interviewer manages the interview. The main advantages, though, of group discussions are the low costs of conducting the interviews and the rich data gained. Group discussions stimulate respondents and support them in remembering events and they can provide answers that far exceed those that can be derived from a single interview (Van Rensburg et.al., 2010).

4.4.3 Fieldwork: Selected case studies (oral history)

The literature review pointed to a general consensus on key issues that contributed to the collapse of sustainable subsistence agriculture in rural Eastern Cape. The documented experience of subsistence farmers of the time who witnessed and lived through the gradual collapse of a way of life is not always available. This research study sought to identify key informants to use as case studies through which the oral history data collection method was employed for the historical account of events or to gather undocumented historical knowledge as viewed by individuals.

Albeit these informants would be over the age of 70, very few informants were available to present or interpret historical and current patterns of subsistence farming based upon personal experiences or stories told by their own forefathers. According to Kumar (2011), oral history is more commonly used for learning about a historical event or episode that took place in the past or for gaining information about a cultural custom or story that has been passed from one generation to another. Oral history is

100 used when the researcher wants to gain information about historical, social or cultural events. Information gathered from oral history will give a deeper understanding of the problem under investigation.

Elderly people are the obvious choice for this method of data collection as they are perceived as having deeper insight, knowledge and relevant information of the problem under investigation over a historic period of time (Kumar, 2011). In this project, six elderly participants were selected through snowballing sampling, where one respondent refers one to another who refers one to yet another on the basis of their knowledge of growing up in the area in the same historical era and they can thus confirm and corroborate events. The use of a tape recorder was an added advantage to record the narration that was provided the participants so that the accuracy of the information would be preserved. The concern about this method was the difficulty to generalise their lived experience of the collapse of subsistence farming. They also tended to romanticise “the good old days” with few facts on why challenges arose as they did. To mitigate this challenge, the researcher confirmed their information against other documented sources (Marshall & Rossman, 2011).

4.5 FIELD STUDY LIMITATIONS

This study was not without its limitations which provide direction for future work. First, from a methodological perspective, notwithstanding the merits of the purposive sampling method, as sample selection criteria, it has its own disadvantages. There is no formal procedure for selecting the sample from the population and the researcher cannot therefore determine the sampling error. Nonetheless, disadvantages can be reduced by working with a heterogeneous population and increasing the sample size. The advantages of using this method are that it saves time and costs. In most cases, qualitative researchers rely on a small number of participants for the major part of their data. When the participants are purposively selected and the data are seen as valid, there is no guarantee that the selected participants’ views are typical.

Second, also from a methodological perspective, the explanatory variables on the collapse of subsistence farming in the rural Eastern Cape and the controls against the agrarian decay in the past five to six decades were difficult to measure against current agrarian decline. The line between historical cause and contemporary failed

101 programmes was difficult to draw. However, the strength of this study lay in its ability to tease out the human factor as a variable influencing the state of agrarian transformation today as households are spoilt for choice between staying behind and engaging in subsistence farming or migrating to the cities or succumbing to dependence on social welfare.

Third, this investigation was unable to control whether a household engaged in subsistence agricultural operations as another viable income-generating activity or not. The study lacked this particular measure.

Fourth, the findings are based on data from only one part of the Mhlontlo Local Municipality, and a very small part of it, and therefore may not be generalisable to other rural areas.

Fifth, as stated in the sections above, a number of challenges also arose with disclosure of information. Because the researcher is a resident of the village and is known to the villagers, some households may not have disclosed accurate income data for fear of “disclosing too much”.

Finally, and perhaps more relevant, is that the findings regarding how state-assisted programmes can be up-scaled as an appropriate foundation for country-wide policies must not be made without due consideration given to the socio-economic factors that have influenced current skills levels, perceptions and attitudes towards subsistence farming in rural areas. This becomes a very critical ingredient ln the current land reformation debate swirling in South Africa.

4.6 DATA PROCESSING AND ANALYSIS

Maxwell (2013: 105) and Struwig and Stead (2001: 169) maintain that, in qualitative research, data collection and data analysis should happen simultaneously. Kumar (2011) suggests that data processing should involve editing data that has been collected from the field by examining any shortcomings that may have occurred during the data-collection phase, such as incomplete sentences and incorrect coding of responses. On the other hand, Flick (2014:237) summarises the data analysis process as involving three phases, namely data reduction, data re-organisation and data representation.

102 Based on reported best practice, in this study, data was processed immediately after the interviews in order to obtain meaningful information obtained from the respondents during data collection, and to mitigate the risk of losing the rich depth of the narrative of the study respondents. This method also enabled the researcher to return to a household for missing information, and to identify a household for further examination if required. Before the data analysis commenced, all the field notes were consolidated, interviews transcribed and focus group discussions and case study notes completed.

The study employed two major techniques that were used to analyse the data collected in this study: qualitative and quantitative data analysis techniques. For the qualitative research, because the results are descriptive in nature, keywords were identified from the collected data. Analysing and interpreting qualitative data was done by deeply immersing in the questionnaires. Struwig and Stead (2001:169) explain that data analysis enables the researcher to organise and bring meaning to large amounts of data. Based on Maxwell’s (2013:105) recommendations, the researcher listened to the audio tapes and went through all the field notes and interviewer transcripts before writing memoranda and notes on what she had seen or heard from the data. The researcher wrote memos while doing data analysis. The advantage of writing memos was that it not only captured the researcher’s analytical thinking about data, but also facilitated such thinking to stimulate analytic insight. The interview scripts were typed verbatim and not paraphrased. Thereafter, a researcher could develop tentative ideas about categories and relationships. The researcher had a number of analytical options such as coding and thematic analysis, as well as connecting strategies such as narrative analysis (Maxwell, 2013:105). This was the approach pursued in this study.

Data was coded in order to develop the interpretations that formed the analysis of this thesis. Codes are labels that assign units of meaning to the information obtained (Struwig & Stead, 2001: 169). Codes can be linked to a word, a phrase, a sentence, a paragraph, or larger sections of data when the researcher is analysing interview transcripts. Codes should be interpreted within a certain context and in relationship to other codes. Codes can be further divided into subcategories and these are known as split “categories” (Struwig & Stead, 2001:169). This analysis was organised into relevant themes and patterns to tell a comprehensive story-line. These themes and patterns were compared with other theories through an inductive approach.

103 Through the inductive approach, the researcher collected data which was checked against recurring or emerging themes which formed the focus of the data findings chapters. After the coding process was completed, the researcher identified main themes and codes. Subsequently, the responses were classified under the main themes and codes (Maxwell 2013: 105). It was after this point that the researcher developed tentative ideas about categories and relationships. At this point, the researcher has a number of analytic options. They fall into three categories: coding and thematic analysis, as well as connecting strategies such as narrative analysis. Subsequently, the researcher was in position to get a sense of the meaning the data provided. Finally, the researcher integrated and summarised the data which was packaged into organisational schemes such as tables, figures, matrix and hierarchical diagrams (Leedy & Ormrod, 2014:160).

With respect to the quantitative data collected, data was coded into numerical representations, so that a series of statistical analysis could be performed using the software package called the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS). The software package enabled the researcher to enter and store data, utilise retrieval strategies, engage in statistical analyses and descriptive statistics such as graphs, charts, tables, percentages, frequencies and averages. The software also assisted the researcher in explaining clearly and explicitly the data collected about the extent of subsistence agriculture in the eMjikweni Village. Tables and graphs were used to identify trends, show proportions and the distribution of values and to compare visually the relationship between subsistence agriculture, employment, social welfare dependence and food security.

4.7 RESEARCH DATA QUALITY, RELIABILITY AND VALIDITY

Evaluating the quality of research, its validity and reliability is essential if findings are to be utilised in practice and incorporated into evidence-based decision-making. While these are concepts normally associated with quantitative research, it does not preclude similar caution being applied in the collection of qualitative research if the research findings are to have any meaning.

104 4.7.1 Data quality in the study

Generally, to ensure quality, Patton (2002) argues, rigorous methods of data collection are the most important element on which the credibility of an inquiry depends. The use of rigorous methods in this study was evident through the employment of systematic data collection during fieldwork, which included interviews, focus group discussions and the recording of oral history, and culminated with systematic analysis strategies of the collected data. Systematic analysis strategies of the collected data is what Patton (2002) calls integrity in analysis: generating and assessing alternative explanations of the phenomenon studied through a method of triangulation, or the use of multiple methods of data collection and analysis to authenticate data gathering and analysis tactics. This study focused primarily on data triangulation (comparing different data sources and points of view), as well as on theory triangulation (interpreting data from different perspectives).

4.7.2 Ensuring validity of research data in the study

Welman and Kruger (2001) describe validity as a mechanism that ensured that the process implemented to collect data, has in fact collected the intended data successfully. Validity refers to the extent to which an empirical measure adequately reflects the real meaning of the subject under investigation. To ensure that the data collected was valid in this study, an extensive literature review was done. Secondly, the purpose of the study was clearly explained to the participants and finally the respondents were assured of absolute anonymity and confidentiality to encourage genuineness during the interviews. These steps served to ensure that the interviews were conducted under conditions and in an environment acceptable to the participants, and hence ensured that the data collection process was trustworthy.

4.7.3 Reliability of the research study data

Reliability relates to the consistency of the data to be collected. Reliability refers to the degree to which other researchers performing similar observations in the field, as well as analysis, would produce similar predictions and results. In qualitative research designs reliability is concerned with the trustworthiness and dependability of the data generated. In this study, by ensuring the anonymity and confidentiality of the households involved, respondents were able to provide information to be used strictly

105 for the purpose of the study only. More significantly, to assess the reliability of the data collected in this study, before leaving the field, the researcher asked the following questions to assess the reliability of the data extracted:

a) Were the research questions clear and are the features of the study design similar to them? b) Was the researcher’s role and status with respect to the study clearly explained? c) Are the findings significantly comparable across data sources? d) Was the data collected across the full range of appropriate settings, times and respondents as proposed by research questions? e) If multiple field works are involved, do they entail similar data collection methods and techniques? f) Were coding checks made and did they show sufficient conformity? g) Were data quality checks made? h) Do accounts from multiple respondents correlate in instances, settings or times, when they might be expected to?

Responses to these guideline questions being in the affirmative were sufficient to conclude that the data in this study was indeed as reliable as can be.

4.8 ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS

The researcher assured the respondents that any information they provided would be used for academic purposes only, and for the fulfilment of the requirements of a Doctor Philosophiae (PhD) Degree. The identity of all the participants would be kept confidential. The participants were informed of the nature of the research to be conducted, and they were given the option to participate and were told that their participation is voluntary, and it was within their rights to withdraw at any time. The report would be presented in an honest manner. The researcher was careful to abide by the ethical code of conduct pertaining to research at the Nelson Mandela University (NMU). The participants were informed in advance not to expect any form of monetary incentive for their participation in the study.

106 4.9 CHAPTER SUMMARY

This chapter has outlined the epistemological framework within which the fieldwork for this study was defined. The study adopted a predominantly qualitative research approach which sought to extract the lived experiences of the sample respondents in understanding the continued challenges of subsistence farming in a once breadbasket corner of rural Eastern Cape. By means of homogeneous and emergent sampling procedures, 100 respondents were interviewed, and interviews were conducted with the aid of an interview guide that covered the major topics of the research questions. Other data collection methods were employed including in-depth interviews, focus group discussions and recording of oral history. On the basis of the interview transcripts, a content analysis was conducted with the help of a systematic coding procedure. Quality was ensured through data triangulation and through the application of a systematic pattern and content analysis. The next chapters will present the results of the research investigation.

107 CHAPTER FIVE

STUDY FINDINGS PART I: AN OVERVIEW OF CONTEMPORARY SUBSISTENCE FARMING IN PRACTICE IN THE EMJIKWENI VILLAGE

5.1 INTRODUCTION

This chapter is one of two chapters that present the research findings of the study conducted in the eMjikweni Village in the Mhlontlo Local Municipality, Eastern Cape. This chapter is divided into three sections. The first section presents a brief demographic and socio-economic profile of the respondents who took part in the study, with focus on the gender of the household head, gender of the respondents, age structure, and marital status, level of education, longevity of respondents and employment status. The second section presents a status quo of contemporary subsistence farming in the study village, while the third section seeks to establish how significant the contribution of subsistence farming is to the livelihoods of those rural households engaged in it. Generally, the findings of this study are presented and interpreted within the broader context of South Africa’s post-1994 agricultural and rural development (Figure 5.1):

Post-1994 South African Agricultural & Rural Development Policy

Misaligned synergy in policy Environmental Factors & programmes of Agriculture and Rural Development Interventions Persistent Drought and Food Production & Food Security Climate Change Factors

Land Lack of Farming Inputs, Poor Redistribution Land Degradation Infrastructure, Lack of Skills and Persistent Stock Theft Legacy & Soil Erosion Financial Resources

Figure 5:1: Socio-historical and policy context for the decline in subsistence farming in Eastern Cape

108 5.2 SOCIO-DEMOGRAPHIC PROFILE OF EMJIKWENI VILLAGE

Based on the fieldwork of this study, which was conducted at the end of 2016 and in the period March to June 2017, a brief socio-demographic profile of the respondents is provided as a backdrop to an understanding of the state of subsistence farming in the study area, and understanding the competing factors to its revitalisation as a sustainable livelihood.

5.2.1 Age and sex structure of study respondents

In this study, 100 homesteads were visited in the period of April to June 2017. The majority (52%) of households were headed by females as illustrated in Figure 5.2 below.

48.2% 51.8%

Male Female

Source: Field Study, 2017 Figure 5.2: Gender of household head in eMjikweni Village study

In the study sample, 12% of respondents were in the age group 15 to 34 years, constituting younger people who had left their homes to establish their own households and gardens, for a variety of reasons. These reasons constitute some of the contributing factors to revitalising subsistence farming as household heads and composition are generally younger in age. Only 10.8% of respondents were between the ages of 35 and 44 years, accounting for a possible universe population of migrants to the urban areas within this age bracket. The majority (53%) of respondents who participated in the study were 55 years and older. The advantage of older respondents was that they were more acquainted with a storyline that witnessed, at different points

109 in their lives, the changes in rural livelihood patterns and shifting patterns over time of subsistence farming in eMjikweni Village.

Further analysis was done of respondents in the age group above 55 years of age, which found that 64% were women while only 36% were men. Again, the age and sex patterns in the study sample are consistent with the Mhlontlo Local Municipality’s Integrated Development Plan (IDP) (2017) which portrays a decline in the Mhlontlo municipality population of an otherwise predominantly female and youthful population in composition. This reality requires the municipality to further strengthen development interventions that are targeted towards special programmes such as children, youth, women, the elderly and people with disabilities.

60.0 53.0 50.0

40.0

% 30.0 24.1

20.0 9.6 10.8 10.0 2.4 0.0 18-25 26-34 35-44 45-54 55+ Age Group

Source: Field Study, 2017 Figure 5.3: Age structure of study respondents in eMjikweni

The food security and land debates in contemporary South Africa have to date paid very little attention to the issues of age and sex in the agricultural sector. With only 12% of study’s respondents found to be below the age of 35, at one level, questions arise on the role of youth, especially unemployed youth, in revitalising a vibrant and sustainable subsistence farming sector in this corner of the Mhlontlo Local Municipality. If the majority of farming households are above 55 years of age, what measures would need to be in place to ensure sustainability of subsistence farming livelihoods? These immediate questions arise in studying the demographic profile of the eMjikweni Village.

110 Male 36%

Female 64%

Source: Field Data, 2017 Figure 5.4: Distribution by sex of study respondents above the age of 55

Ageing amongst farmers is a global concern further aggravated by the low levels of youth participation in agricultural activities. The age disparities in the agricultural sector are widespread and not only confined to subsistence agriculture but are also found in the commercial agricultural sector. According to findings of the FAO (2015), the average age of the farming population in the Americas is 55 years and older, while in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Africa it is 60 and 62 years respectively (Bhandari and Mishra, 2018). These statistics are a cause for concern if sustainable food security is to be established as a central pillar to achieving the sustainable development goals.

A diminishing labour force in the agricultural sector has subsequent consequences on food production, food security, living standards and, at a more macro-level, export deficits. This scenario is what Bhandari et.al (2018) refers to as “an old age time bomb” waiting to explode and ultimately affect global food security. In South Africa, the “old age time bomb” in the agricultural sector is partially related to the perceived unwillingness of the youth to engage in agricultural activities. This conundrum has attracted much attention from key role players, including government and farming associations such as AgriSA, who have voiced their concern about the ageing labour force in South Africa’s farming sector and have called for the overhaul of the curriculum and introduction of practical agriculture at school level. Unless the land debate goes beyond historical disenfranchisement and restorative justice, the fight against poverty through food security will be far from won.

111 This study found that youth do not want to associate themselves with agricultural activities as they regard them as an “old person’s job” or “not as glamorous” as white- collar jobs. Young Professionals in Agriculture Development (YPARD) (2016) recognise a lack of interest by youth in agriculture as a global concern and therefore seek to address the challenge by demonstrating the importance of agriculture to the youth. Unless governments of the developed and developing countries, more especially Sub-Saharan Africa, adopt pro-youth policies to entice them into the agricultural sector, food shortages and poverty levels will continue to rise and the inequality gap will continue to widen drastically between the poor and the rich people of the world. A few countries are making in-roads in making the agricultural sector appealing to the youth. These efforts, which seek to attract the youth into the agricultural sector, will be dealt with extensively later in the chapter. It is not only age disparities that have negative effects on the agricultural sector, but marital status and customary laws also indirectly affect agricultural development in rural areas.

5.2.2 Gender roles in agriculture

At another level to that of age are the sex and gender roles in agriculture. The findings of this study found that up to 82% of women were involved in agricultural activities with only 48.2% being heads of their households, and by extension, primary decision- makers. These findings draw fairly close similarities with those of Boserup (1970), Bhandari et.al (2018) and FAO (2015) – wherein women were actively engaged in agricultural activities. Boserup et.al (2007) and Bhandari et.al (2018) show how rural women in particular have always performed general work as subsistence farmers, paid or unpaid workers on the family fields and homestead gardens, or as entrepreneurs operating on or off-farm enterprises. These observations cause a need to shift the spotlight towards who works the land in the South African agricultural sector, or who will work the land when land reform processes have run their cause.

There are still gender disparities which are prevalent in the rural areas as depicted by the study findings in Table 5.1 below which highlights gender classification and agricultural roles performed by people who are active in the agricultural activities in the village with 82% of female respondents principally involved in subsistence farming and spend most of their time performing the household’s agricultural activities compared to only 53% of male respondents. Consistent with global patterns, women

112 and girls in eMjikweni primarily carry the burden in the production of food in the traditional farming systems. Shackleton and Hamer (2010) agree that the organisation of agricultural work in the traditional households revolves around women and girls, while Boserup (1970) writes that it is not uncommon in traditional areas for rural women to work longer hours than men. It is for this reason that they are referred to as the backbone of food production in the developing world. Without their active participation in agricultural activities, the global food security status can be severely affected. Therefore, pro-poor and pro-women development initiatives are required to improve household food security and that of the country in general. However, the study findings do indicate that boys participate in agricultural activities. This may be attributed to parental control, meaning that when they become young adults they are more likely to become less willing to perform agricultural duties or, migrate out of the village in search of non-agricultural employment.

Table 5.1 Agricultural activities by gender

No of Respondents Engaged Primarily in Agricultural Activity Gender Number Percentage

Adult male 44 53.0

Adult female 68 81.9

Male child 20 24.1

Female child 13 15.7

Source: Field Study, 2017

5.3 MARITAL STATUS OF STUDY RESPONDENTS

Marital status is a significant indicator of a number of factors that potentially influence agricultural development, food production and food security. In his study of food security in the township of Kwatsikwatsi, Free State Province, Sekhampu (2017) found that households of unmarried heads of households tended to be more food insecure. This finding is echoed by Ngema, Sibanda and Musemwa (2018) in their study of household food security determinants in the Maphumulo local municipality of KwaZulu- Natal.

113 As in most parts of Africa, in South African traditional culture, marital status determines access to land, which in turn determines the food security of a household. The findings of this study (Figure 5.5) reveal that in the eMjikweni Village 72.3% of the respondents interviewed were married (civil rights and customary law) while 14.5% were widowed, 13% of respondents reported being never married and only 0.2% reported their divorced status. The low rate of divorce may well be related to under-reporting because of the rural cultural stigma of being divorced or the complication of defining divorce in the context of customary marriage.

0% 15% 13%

Never married Married Widowed Divorced

72%

Source: Field Data, 2017 Figure 5.5: Marital status of study respondents in eMjikweni

The disproportionately high percentage of 72.3% of the study respondents who reported being married is not unusual in rural Xhosa communities given the strong traditional customs in rural Xhosa communities and South African customary law. In the first instance, marital status has implications for access to land. This deep-rooted tradition for centuries allowed only married persons to own a piece of land for residential and agricultural purposes and this continued in areas such as the former Transkei even after the adoption of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa in 1996. Historically, unmarried men and women were denied access to land for residential and agricultural purposes. Land was only given to married men and by extension, married women albeit restrictively, access to land by marriage. After 1994, constitutional obligations meant that these customary restrictions were relaxed for

114 unmarried women, while for unmarried men the status quo has not changed in some parts of the rural areas of the former homeland of Transkei (see Lahiff, 2014; Claassens, 2013; Leahy, 2011). One possible reason has to do with land being associated with the establishment of a household by a married man.

In the second instance, marital status influences the parameters of decision making quite significantly in a rural household. Rural women, in general, whether married or unmarried, are generally side-lined, overlooked and marginalised by not only the traditional authorities but by the very land reform policies that should protect them from the long standing discrimination imposed by traditional law. This challenge severely limits their ability to exercise decision making on land use and agricultural production. Rural women still endure challenges in respect of land rights, most of the time fuelled by a patriarchal culture that still persists even after the advent of a democratic state. In the previous section, the survey results highlighted that within the elderly bracket of informants, up to 82% of women perform agricultural activities in the study village with only 13% of the unmarried people participating in agricultural activities. This essentially means that in conformity with Xhosa culture, while a large percentage of women work the land and have inherent privilege to use the land to produce food for the entire family, they still have little decision-making influence over how the land must be utilised. Their role becomes essentially one of household labour. It is in this context that Ndulo (2011) argues for the expansion in the heterogeneity of the farming population as a matter of precedence in South Africa.

5.4 PERIOD OF RESIDENCE OF STUDY RESPONDENTS IN THE EMJIKWENI VILLAGE

This study sought therefore to establish the period of residence of the respondents to better understand their present agricultural activities, spend and livelihood. In many rural communities in southern Africa, the period of residence in an area becomes a determinant in land allocation and land use, as in the cases of eSwatini, formerly Swaziland (Hughes, 1972), Malawi (Nothale, undated) and Zambia (Von Loeper, 1999). Entry of new residents with no apparent historical ties to a rural area can often be a lengthy process, requiring several negotiations, transactions and formalities which will also determine the extent of a resident’s rights to land allocation and use. Length of residence in the Eastern Cape is not dissimilar to other parts of the southern

115 African region. Findings from the study established that 68% of the respondents were born and bred in the village, while 28%, all women, came to the village through traditional marriage rites. The study respondents were therefore well-suited to providing the historical context of the rise and fall of subsistence farming in their life time, to aid a better understanding of possible interventions in rural agricultural development. The study concluded, therefore, that the period of residence of eMjikweni Village validated the study respondents’ contribution to the understanding of land access, challenges in subsistence farming and contribution to land issues and to the narrative on the rise and fall of subsistence farming over time in their village.

5.5 LEVEL OF EDUCATION OF STUDY RESPONDENTS

The study found that 60.2% of respondents had completed primary education only; 21.7% had completed secondary school, and only 8.5% of respondents had post- matric qualifications, while 9.6% of the study sample was illiterate, with no formal education.

70.0 60.2 60.0

50.0

40.0

30.0

Percentage 21.7 20.0 9.6 10.0 4.8 3.6 0.0 No education Primary Secondary Matric Diploma education education Educational levels

Source: Field Study, 2017 Figure 5.6: Level of education

Several factors emerge in this study on the impact of educational level of subsistence farmers. First, respondents conceded to how their overwhelmingly low levels of education affect their ability to access government support even when they are aware

116 of government interventions at their disposal: This phenomenon is widespread in developing countries with a high proportion of illiterate women living in rural areas. It also affirms the finding of the World Population Review (2018) that the majority of people living in rural areas of the developing countries are illiterate, especially rural women as indicated by one of the study respondents. It must be noted that because this study has drawn heavily on the lived narrative of its respondents, excerpts from their stories are presented in English as a verbatim translation from isiXhosa, the language used during the interviews:

The majority of us in this village lack good education. This level of education makes us feel uneasy to approach government officials to ask for assistance with regard to agricultural development. Lack of education (has) delayed progress in this village (Responded interviewed, 05 May 2017).

Second, their lack of education serves as a major hindrance to embracing new farming methods, innovations and finance vehicles that would enhance subsistence agricultural production:

Because of our lack of education, we take a longer time to understand farming systems introduced by the government … These cooperatives they have introduced are new (concept) to us (Respondent interviewed, 09 May 2017).

It is precisely the status of literacy that poses a serious barrier to how information on the new models and vehicles of financial assistance offered by government, development agencies and other stakeholders is embraced by rural communities. Their level of education has contributed to reluctance; almost fear, to embrace new farming methods and approaches introduced by government to advance agrarian reform.

De Villiers (2018) highlights the unhappy marriage between low education levels of subsistence farmers and low agricultural productivity in cautioning that the policy implications of subsistence farmers’ literacy levels on rural development programmatic interventions and agricultural extension services cannot be ignored. De Villiers (2018) findings maintain that illiterate subsistence farmers tend to resist change and technology that would be beneficial to the self-development, self-enrichment and advancement of rural development. Instead, rural communities want to maintain their old ways of ‘doing things’. These findings are also supported by Khapayi (2016) and

117 du Toit (2018), whose findings revealed the unwillingness of rural people to engage in subsistence farming activities different from their own tried and tested traditional way of farming.

5.6 EMPLOYMENT LEVELS IN EMJIKWENI VILLAGE

“…subsistence farmers affect the unemployment count” (Posel & Casale, 2001)

In their study of gender aggregates, on measuring unemployment in South Africa, Posel and Casale (2001) argue that, while Statistics SA produces unemployment figures on a quarterly basis and as long as participation in subsistence farming is not recognised as “work”, a distortion of labour market statistics will continue to prevail as a result of the under-count of South African economic activity. In its labour force and employment surveys, Statistics SA counts unpaid workers who work for more than 15 hours in any family-owned business.

Notwithstanding Posel and Casale (2001) and Stats SA’s considerations of employment, employment and unemployment definitions assumed in this study relate to Stats SA’s broader definition of employment insofar as it considers the search for income-generating work – whether, having actively or having become discouraged.

2%

Employed Unemployed

98%

Source: Field Study, 2017 Figure 5.7: Employment patterns in the study area of eMjikweni

118 Employment data for the Mhlontlo Municipality bears testimony to its inability to create employment, or absorb labour, in a stagnating local economy. The employment status of the study sample is reflective of a general national unemployment crisis, which is exacerbated further by excessive inequalities and rampant poverty. This picture could be attributed to a lack of employment opportunities in the village or the low level of education among the potentially economically active age bracket. At one level, however, this high unemployment rate in the village of eMjikweni makes a compelling argument in favour of revitalising subsistence farming given the supposed availability of labour. But at another level, sustainability of subsistence farming and its ability to create the income needed by households to meet their non-food needs such as education, healthcare, transport and clothing costs become an urgent matter for discussion.

It must be cautioned that the employment status of the respondents did not necessarily reflect household income, which may or may not be supplemented by the income of working members of the household and/or social grants. The next section considers the sources of household incomes in the study area.

5.7 HOUSEHOLD SOURCES OF INCOME IN THE EMJIKWENI VILLAGE

In probing their sources of household income, the study found that no less than 90% of the respondents highlighted that their source of income was a government social grant while only 8% of respondents relied on migrant remittances and 2% on formal employment as depicted in Figure 5.8 below. The sources of income clearly show that the government social grant has replaced subsistence agriculture food production as the livelihood strategy in rural communities.

119 Social Grants Migrant Remittances Formal Employment

Source: Field Study, 2017 Figure 5.8: Household sources of income in study area of eMjikweni

Because generally subsistence farmers only produce food for their own consumption with minimal surplus left to sell, with the current socio-economic conditions confronting rural households in eMjikweni, a small few are forced to diversify to non-farm activities to earn a living while the majority have to depend solely on social grants as their only safety net.

5.8 SUBSISTENCE FARMING IN HOUSEHOLDS IN THE EMJIKWENI VILLAGE

One of the research questions that this study set out to answer was to establish the status of subsistence farming in the Eastern Cape. Volumes of literature attest to its vibrancy in the precolonial era. The literature also confirms how draconic apartheid laws further eroded the agricultural livelihood of rural communities. What remains of rural economies such as those of the eMjikweni Village under prevailing socio- economic, demographic and environmental conditions, is what will assist in charting the way towards a revitalised subsistence farming sector, the transition to commercial farming and sustainable rural development.

This section presents findings on the state of subsistence farming in the eMjikweni Village. Based on the study findings, this section explores issues pertaining to land availability for food production, water resource management, and food production strategies employed in the eMjikweni Village. In response to this exploration as part of the fieldwork, respondents in this study were asked to elaborate specifically on the

120 challenges they face with respect to their current subsistence agricultural activities. These included lack of water, lack of infrastructure, and lack of financial resources, which will be discussed later, to use the communal land for extensive food production that would yield more harvest for commercial sale.

It has already been established that 53% of respondents in the study were women, with 72% respondents listed as married, 82% actively involved in agricultural activities but no less than 90% solely dependent on social grants and a sweeping majority of 98% unemployed. With these depressing statistics that paint a picture of a near hopeless situation in the eMjikweni Village, raises the foreseeable question of how land at their disposal is utilised. This chapter has already made reference to land access in the village and its correlation with marital status, which in turn influences decision making and land use. With up to 72% of respondents married, the study findings confirmed that an overwhelming 90% of respondents indicated satisfaction with the amount of land at their disposal for food production, which included vegetable gardens and communal maize fields or intsimi. Only 10% of the respondents felt that they did not have enough land to produce food. This, the study found, was due to unavailability of land for further allocation in the area.

Chapter Three of this thesis takes note and context of the findings of Chakwizira et.al. (2010), who correctly observed that approximately 76% of the land cover in the Mhlontlo Local Municipality is either degraded grassland or unimproved grassland. With 5% covered in forest land, 17% used for agriculture and the remainder on urban use and infrastructure, the findings of this study confirm three key points. First, the findings confirm that if 90% of the respondents were satisfied with their small piece of land for subsistence farming, there is no real appetite or appreciation in the eMjikweni Village for subsistence farming. Second, the findings further confirm that if only 10% of respondents appreciated limitations to land availability for farming purposes, with 76% of the municipality lying unused, this leads to a conclusion that rural development interventions have to actively re-educate villagers on subsistence farming as a livelihood option and source of revenue alternative to paid work. Finally, emphasis must be placed on putting in place plans to reclaim unused land through innovative agriculture methods so that it is available for more enhanced agricultural production.

121 If the appetite or enthusiasm for subsistence farming in the eMjikweni Village is at an all-time low, the study sought to establish why those who actively engage in subsistence farming do so, considering the alarming dependence on social grants as a rural community. The following section addresses this question with a view to identifying the gaps in policy interventions on rural development and food security in rural Eastern Cape.

5.9 CONTRIBUTION OF SUBSISTENCE FARMING TO HOUSEHOLD FOOD PRODUCTION AND LIVELIHOODS IN THE EMJIKWENI VILLAGE

A growing body of literature has already been examined in Chapter Two, which amongst other issues makes a strong two-fold argument. First, food security in South Africa lies in the development of sustainable subsistence agriculture and second, that as this sustainability is maintained, a switch transition to commercial agriculture must be made. Although not stated explicitly, much of the policy instruments in post-1994 South Africa adopt this utopic assumption, notwithstanding the factors that led to the collapse of rural subsistence economies. The 1913 Land Areas Act and subsequent apartheid manoeuvres by and large disconnected the rural dweller not only from their land, but also from a livelihood that not only supplements household income streams, but assures household food security and makes a transition to commercial agriculture easier.

A case in point is that of the Kingdom of eSwatini (formerly Swaziland) whose experience of colonialism, labour extraction and labour migration, combined with devastating spells of drought and livestock destruction, mirrors that of the former Transkei in roughly the same period of history (see Chapter Two). Though a poor country, in terms of human development indices and Gross Domestic Product, the Kingdom of eSwatini enjoys the benefit of a small population of 1.1 million people (eSwatini Population Census 2017) with a long history of agricultural food production at household level. Today, the smallholder agricultural sector in eSwatini remains as the largest contributor to the livelihoods of the majority of the population. Maize is the dominant crop and remains the staple food grown by the majority of rural households in the communal Swazi Nation Land (SNL) which accounts for about 86% of the land area planted (FAO, 2005).

122 What sets eSwatini apart from rural Eastern Cape is that while rural household incomes are drawn from paid employment in urban areas, Swazi culture in itself has not been redefined so that rural livelihood patterns become disengaged from subsistence farming. Rural households to this day continue to plant maize annually regardless of whether household members reside in the rural or urban area, and regardless of alternative sources of income. This practice is largely embodied in the annual Swazi ritual of Incwala (Ceremony of First Fruits) wherein the whole nation (regardless of sex, place of residence or income group) gather to weed the King’s field, as a symbol of both their cultural connection to the land and to the cultural bond of communal farming as a nation.

Notwithstanding that eSwatini has not been immune to drought, climatic changes, rising inflation and increasing costs of consumer price inflation, farming inputs and extension advice, their lifestyles as a people still remain connected to the tradition of subsistence farming, making government efforts to stabilise and promote subsistence farming and a transition to commercial farming easier. This is seen in the efforts to improve Swazi Nation Land farming through the Rural Development Area (RDA) programmes. The aim of this programme was to bring subsistence farmers to commercial or semi-commercial level through the use of yield-increasing inputs and expanded extension advice (FAO, 2005). The merits of the programme are not for discussion in this section except to point out that such innovative programmes stand a far better chance of working in communities already engaged in subsistence farming as a way of life. It is against this backdrop that this study has sought to examine the extent to which subsistence farming in rural Eastern Cape contributes to household livelihoods, and how therefore, this may form a basis for enhanced policy interventions to revitalise subsistence farming in case study areas such as eMjikweni Village.

This chapter has already demonstrated how government social grants are the main source of (monetary) livelihood in the area of study. The majority of the residents are uneducated and lack the skills to compete for the limited job opportunities in the Mhlontlo Local Municipality. Notwithstanding the limited job opportunities, the study found most households engaged in varying forms and levels of subsistence farming. With the current challenges facing the agricultural sector in South Africa, with particular reference to subsistence farming and emerging farmers, rural households are finding

123 it increasingly difficult to produce enough food to sustain their needs at any given time. This study sought therefore to assess why rural households in the eMjikweni Village engage in subsistence farming, cognisant of the costs involved of farming inputs, limited access to water and relatively basic know-how on farming methods for maximum crop yield. The study also sought to establish whether the food produced by the individual households was enough to feed the entire family for extended periods of time.

These findings assist in providing insight to the research question identified in this study that seeks to evaluate the extent to which subsistence farming contributes to household food production and the general livelihood of households in the eMjikweni Village. This perspective becomes critical with a view to contributing to the broader debate in South Africa on land reform. As a country are we asking the right questions? Do we leave the debate to parliament to consider whether to make the necessary constitutional changes that will accommodate land expropriation without compensation? At the time of my writing this thesis, the President of the Republic of South Africa has assured the public and investors in particular, that expropriation without compensation is “but one of the ways to reform South Africa’s plans to achieve agrarian reform, spatial justice, as well as individual rights to land …” (President Cyril Ramaphosa, 2019. This was in Response to the 2019 State of the Nation Address (SONA) Debate, Parliament of South Africa, Wednesday 28 June, 2019). Once land has been expropriated, what next? The study in the village of eMjikweni in the Mhlontlo Local Municipality gives a small outlook into what could possibly materialise if one looks into the current contribution of subsistence farming to rural households.

5.9.1 Declining household food production in the eMjikweni Village

Since the majority of households were established in the village for periods of well over 20 years, over time as socio-economic conditions in the village began to deteriorate, many households were forced to either diversify to non-farm activities to earn a living or to depend solely on social grants as their only safety net as farming costs escalated. Respondents conceded that the state of agriculture in the village in 2017 was a far cry from what it was three or four decades ago:

124 ..When we were growing up as children, our parents did not need to buy groceries as we do today. Maize was ground to make mealie meal and we also made samp. We had vegetables. We ate ‘amasi’ (sour curdled milk) from the cattle. Every household had fruit trees. A chicken or sheep was slaughtered often for us to eat. We all worked together in the field and we all knew our responsibilities … (Respondent interviewed, 11 May 2017).

Older respondents in the study do have recollection of periods in their childhood and youth when households relied solely on food produced by them. However, they also concede that as conditions changed in the village, men started to go to work in the mines, labour to work the fields declined and environmental changes set in, causing land degradation; levels and sole reliance on subsistence food production started to decline. The impact of HIV/AIDS on household labour is a fact little explored in this study because of the sensitivities around respondents knowing the researcher and being reluctant to explore such a discussion.

As national unemployment continued on the rise, mining houses shed jobs and the economic recession set in; with the drought and erratic climatic conditions, for many households food production declined, reliance on subsistence farming alone also became untenable. With time, dependence on state social grants has become the main source of livelihood. It is cautioned in this and the next chapter, that for purposes of confidentiality, all names used in case studies, are not the real names of the respondents. Kaiser (2006) cautions on the inherent risk of sharing rich detailed accounts of social lives of respondents in social research by proposing the use of pseudonyms (fictional names) be used as a common practice in social science research where either sensitive issues are being investigated, or if the community being investigated is small enough to identify respondents.

125 Case Study 5.1: Mama Nobonke (FROM SUSTAINABLE FARMING TO SOCIAL GRANT DEPENDENCE) Mama Nobonke is 57 years old, born in the nearby village of eNcemeni and married into the village of eMjikweni. She never went to school beyond second grade (SUB-B). Her husband is unemployed having worked in the mines in Carletonville for 23 years. He stopped working after contracting TB. Together they have 6 children, including two whom they took in after the death of Nobonke’s brother-in-law and his wife. Nobonke has never worked except for occasionally assisting other farmers weed their fields in exchange for food such as beans or bags of maize. She has a garden of her own, has planted beans, cabbage, tomato and some maize. Her husband has maize fields within the communal fields, which they do not plough anymore due to lack fence, lack of funds for seed, fertiliser or tractor hire. They also cannot afford to hire casual workers to assist in the fields. Nobonke therefore uses the little resources she has to grow her garden which allows her to be closer home, look after the children while also tending to household chores. The yield of her garden is not much; she manages to get some maize, spinach, tomatoes and some cabbage even though the quality of her produce is not good due to stunted growth because of water shortage. Nobonke cannot solely rely on her garden produce. Her family instead relies on the combined income of their social grants. Her husband receives monthly pension and Nobonke receives child grants for 3 of their children. Their combined income is less than R5000 a month and is barely enough to buy basic goods, electricity and pay for transport, school uniform and social commitments, including burial societies. They also have to occasionally, send money home to help her mother and her relatives who live in East London. Like others in eMjikweni,, Nobonke does not foresee how her garden can produce beyond what it does already. She does not see how she can rely on her garden to sustain her family if it were not for social grants to carry them through each month. For now, there simply is nothing left to buy inputs or hire labour to grow maize and scare away livestock in the nearby 1.5 hectares of communal field. Like most families in the village, this is the situation. Nobonke does not see it changing, at least not until the children grow up, finish school and find employment to pull the family out of their situation as it is.

The case study of Nobonke is not a unique one in eMjikweni Village. The state social grant has become a significant primary income source rather than a secondary supplementary source. This finding concurs with a similar study in rural KwaZulu-Natal by Olayemi and Nirmala (2016), who found that the majority of the rural dwellers in the Mtubatuba Municipality area rely on subsistence farming, while others depend on government social grants or remittances from family members living and working in urban areas to sustain a living. The income received is often insufficient to cater for their daily needs; resulting in a high percentage of rural community members of South Africa living below the poverty line (Stats SA, 2016).

This shift away from sustainable agricultural production to dependence on state grants has meant that households are also producing less as they invest less on subsistence

126 farming. For Nobonke and others access to land is not a relevant argument at this point in time. For them the priority is to feed their families, clothe and educate their children while also supporting extended family. Instead, for the village community of eMjikweni, the issue of subsistence production on a scale larger than the family garden can only be revisited should the communal fields already allocated to households be fenced and the quality of the soil revitalised after damaging exposure to soil erosion over time. Subsistence farming in their case and under the circumstances is not a considered option to supplement household income as it too requires an investment in inputs and labour which they do not have.

When asked whether what they produced was satisfactory to feed their families, less than 12% of respondents indicated that they were satisfied with the current food production levels and were able to feed their families. When respondents who were asked to elaborate on strategies that they think could improve the level of food production in their homestead gardens, the majority suggested that the use of farming inputs such as fertiliser, insecticides, training and availability of water would greatly increase food production.

The community was faced with the more critical challenge of water. Not only is the water for drinking purposes shared with livestock, but it is also in short supply to water gardens. The past three to five years in South Africa have witnessed record erratic rainfall patterns and both commercial and subsistence farmers bear the brunt (Olayemi & Nirmala, 2016). Subsistence farmers have no fall back to the risks posed by climate change as they have no access to credit or insurance that give more resourced farmers a hedge against the negative risks of climatic change.

With the persistent shortages of water in the village, the worst-hit crop is maize because it is not irrigated but relies on unpredictable rainfall. Late rains or no rains could mean up to a 40% reduction in the national maize crop (Olayemi & Nirmala, 2016). This study found that 96% of respondents cultivate homestead gardens once a year as they depend on summer rains to produce enough food to feed their families. Their main source of water is the Tsitsa River, whose water reduces tremendously during the winter period from April to September. A stumbling block to the growth of subsistence farming in the study area is thus the erratic rainfall, which is the only source of water supply for crops. The case study of Melikhaya (also not his real name)

127 is a case in point (Case Study 5.2). Soil fertility is also fast declining which often affects crop yield to an unbearable extent, as reported by one of the subsistence farmers interviewed who dates drought conditions eMjikweni Village to as far back as the 1980s:

It was the persistent droughts that killed most our cattle. It was during 1983 that our community stopped cultivating the fields as we did in the past. Community members, in most of the time end up missing the ploughing season due to long queues to get the tractor, and/or due to late summer rains (Respondent interviewed, 04 May 2017).

Water availability in eMjikweni Village is on the decline, and forecast to worsen with time. According to respondents, water shortages in the village also are likely to spread due to increasing demands from the village population, development pressure on land for construction, the prevalence and spread of invasive alien plant species, difficulty in finding new water supplies, the changing climatic and precipitation patterns. More recently, the Tsitsa River water resources have been polluted by upstream effluents and agricultural run-off and livestock litter.

Only 3.6% of respondents had received formal training on crop production, and were able to assess the soil type to plough suitable crops. The majority of respondents g. who made up this meagre 3.6% were the very few who had received training from government as members of a cooperative which excluded most respondents and many people in the village. The conclusion drawn from this finding is that the selection process for training by government will not be effective if its implementation model uses the cooperative as the unit of selection of participants.

128 Case Study 5.2: Tata Melikhaya (FEELING THE BITE OF DROUGHT) Melikhaya is the head of his household, having lived in the village since his childhood. He is 49 years old and owns both a garden and communal fields. He lost his job in the mine of Marikana near Rustenburg when the mining houses shrunk jobs. After several failed attempts at finding employment, Melikhaya invested half of his retrenchment package in farming inputs and donkeys to stimulate his garden, which is just less than half a hectare in size. With high- yield seed and fertiliser, he planted potatoes, spinach, maize and beans, which in the first two years provided a yield enough for him to sell, make a profit and re-roof his house. However, in late 2005, heavy rains and hail destroyed his crops and he has failed to recover since as drought set in and much of his crop has provided barely enough to feed his family. With shortage of water in the village, Melikhaya further put more strain on the few donkeys he owns, to use them as a form of transport to fetch water for sale to other households. The donkeys were also used in cultivating and planting the gardens just to make enough money to meet the basic family requirements. Melikhaya has also diversified in non-agricultural activities by fencing homestead gardens and charges R1400.00 per garden. Lack of water in the village has been the greatest risk factor for Melikhaya’s crop and vegetable gardens.

The effect of government’s model in eMjikweni Village is that in any given community, only a handful (cooperatives members) of village farmers will benefit from government support to the exclusion of the greater majority. This exclusive approach to training has left the majority (96.7%) of respondents to continue to use their indigenous knowledge for crop and livestock production. Case study 5.3 of Mama Thandiwe is testimony to the exclusion of the majority of the citizenry in favour of a few who have ‘inside contacts. Mama Thandiwe, like many others, rely on contacts within government that provide privileged information, and privileged benefits that are otherwise not accessible to the general public. The study also found that all the study respondents were practising intercropping on a very small scale. In addition to crop cultivation, the rural households were growing a variety of vegetables as depicted in Figure 5.9. Most respondents reported the lack of capacity to grow more vegetables caused by limited land and water.

129 Case Study 5.3: Mama Thandiwe (THE PRIVILEGE OF PROGRAMME INCLUSION) Mama Thandiwe is 38 years old. She is currently unemployed but used to work for the Department of Agriculture as a contract worker between 2006 and 2009. While employed there she learnt about funding for cooperatives and training of cooperatives. When her contract was not renewed, Thandiwe immediately joined a local cooperative, which according to her; you join only on a member referral basis. She paid up to R3800 annual once off joining fee and pays the monthly subscriptions of R800 per household for the services of a shepherd.. The cooperative provides access to training by government departments exclusively by its members. It also allows them to be privy to information on agriculture-related activities as well as meetings, fundraising expos. Through the cooperative Mama Thandiwe has also received extension advice and seasonal farming input from the Eastern Cape Department of Rural Development & Agrarian Development as it is called in the Eastern Cape, as well as the national Department of Rural Development & Land Reform.

Other 72.3 27.7

Beetroot 73.5 26.5

Carrots 74.7 25.3

Maize 92.8 7.2

Spinach 75.9 24.1

Cabbage 75.9 24.1

Potatoes 77.1 22.9

0.0 10.0 20.0 30.0 40.0 50.0 60.0 70.0 80.0 90.0 100.0

Yes No

Source: Field Study, 2017 Figure 5.9: Maize and vegetable crops cultivated in study area of eMjikweni Village

Case study 5.4 of Mama Nolizwi, a female head of household in the eMjikweni Village is symptomatic of the nature of the villages of the Eastern Cape today. Since the 1930s, family composition, structure and roles were reconfigured as labour migration was enforced. Years later, many village households comprise predominantly migrants because there is no employment in the village and surrounding areas because subsistence farming has collapsed.

130 Case Study 5.4: Mama Nolizwi (THE MIGRANT HOUSEHOLD) Nolizwi is a female head of household who inherited the land she lives on from her father who passed on in 2001. Nolizwi is a divorced woman, 58 years of age with three (3) children and seven (7) grandchildren. All her children and grandchildren visit the village home during school holidays (Easter or Christmas vacations). Nolizwi is a public servant who works for the provincial government of Eastern Cape based in Kokstad (200km northwest from Mthatha) where she works as a junior clerk. She too only visits the family home month end and during public holidays, Easter and Christmas vacations. There is nobody left at home in eMjikweni on a daily basis. The household garden is only planted during the December vacation when everybody is home. The family fields in the communal area have not been planted for over 15 years because the fields are not fenced, the soil is not arable and labour to work the fields under supervision is not available since most members of the household are away in the course of the year.

The story of Nolizwi is another demonstration in itself that, subsistence farming does not contribute to family income in any significant way, if at all, nor can it be considered a viable livelihood. Unless drastic measurements are taken to revitalise subsistence farming as an after-effect of a series of damaging legislation, intrusions and injustices to the rural communities of South Africa over decades, rural villages once bread baskets of their time, are no more than dormitory hamlets in rural South Africa. For all intents and purposes, this situation cannot persist if South Africa is to realise its objectives of a food secure nation at household level.

5.9.2 Contributing factors to declining household food production

Having established that households in the eMjikweni Village generally do not rely on subsistence farming in any meaningful way for their livelihood, the study sought to isolate some of the key factors that contribute to the decline in current food production even on a small scale. Two primary factors or causes emerged from the study findings. They are the debilitating after-effects of history on rural communities after 1936; and, the gendered division of labour in households.

5.9.2.1 The effects of history on rural communities’ food production

Having demonstrated the current status quo of subsistence farming in the study area of eMjikweni Village, the Mhlontlo Local Municipality in the Eastern Cape, the researcher now probes the brutal history of land expropriation, labour migration,

131 environmental hazards over time (discussed in Chapter 2) and how they continue to have debilitating effects on subsistence farming in the area. Earlier in this chapter, it was noted that subsistence farming was the main source of livelihood in eMjikweni Village. However, the majority of its residents, certainly in this study sample, have low levels of education and lack the required skills for limited job opportunities that the Mhlontlo Local Municipality can offer. Most of the households farm mainly for food security and as part of their lifestyle. Drawing from the historical experience of older respondents interviewed in the study, this section reports on how a once sustainable subsistence farming sector in eMjikweni Village became weakened, unviable and unsustainable over time. Their identified factors continue to this day to contribute to declining food production even in a democratic South Africa.

Chapter Two demonstrated extensively how many parts of southern Africa prior to colonialisation had thriving sustainable agricultural economies based on a delicate balance between subsistence farming and trade. The advent of colonialism with its drive for cheap black labour to work the gold mines, especially in the Witwatersrand, saw the beginning of the collapse of the rural economy, its way of life and family units as men were withdrawn through forced cohesion into the labour migration system. There are various causes identified by the respondents as the causes for the collapse of subsistence agriculture in rural communities including drought, animal diseases, cultural beliefs, and colonial policy (see Figure 5.10).

Nonqgawuse Cattle Culling Land ownership, Land Stock Drought expropriation drought, stock Theft & theft and policy 1936 cattle Drought implementation Rinderpest Culling Cattle Disease

1857-1899 1936-1982 1998-current

Figure 5.10: Factors influencing the collapse of the subsistence economy in the Eastern Cape

132 Since 1994, more specifically 1998, when policy came into being that attempted to address the injustices of the past, certain challenges continued to prevail to this day that have been difficult for the democratic government of South Africa to overcome due to the deep-rootedness of their causes, and also because some factors of a meteorological nature were beyond government’s control. Some of these factors include droughts and animal diseases, especially rinderpest, stock theft, lack of infrastructure and lack of financial resources as the primary factors that have led to the characteristic unploughed communal fields of the former homeland of the Transkei.

(a) Drought and cattle loss: Livestock keeping is common in Xhosa culture; animals provide meat, milk and a continuous supply of manure. Cattle and sheep are put out to graze on communal pasture land and kraaled at the homestead at night. During the dry winter months very little grazing is available and cattle are commonly fed on maize stalks during this time (maize stalks is the leaves and stalks that remain after harvest). The bio-physical constraints to production that study respondents identified during the fieldwork included inadequate fencing; low soil fertility; unavailability of water; weed pressure; and pests and plant diseases.

In the early part of the 20th century as disruptions began to take place in rural areas through labour migration and land dispossessions, rural communities struggled to replenish their livestock. Rinderpest, stock theft and taxes combined, crippled their herds of cattle and the ability to keep cattle as their inheritance in the family for future generations. By the 1980s, with drought conditions that killed off more livestock, many households had to confront the introduction of mechanisation which was introduced through tractors in the early 1980s. Tractors were seen as the most modern, effective and efficient method of cultivating the fields and homestead gardens instead of using oxen. Yet, they were limited in number causing high demand for its services as people who depended on them for cultivation of their land increased. The cost per hire of R2500-700 per homestead garden, depending on the size (roughly 3,800 per hectare fields) was unaffordable. These costs of cultivating land are generally not affordable for village locals. One of the study respondents highlighted that:

Lack of cattle to plough as we did in times past within the eMjikweni Village has forced us to rely on tractors from neighbouring villages. We would wait for days in

2 (USD) $1 is the equivalent of (ZAR) R15.43 as at 09 August 2019

133 the neighbouring village before we could bring tractors to our village. Other households would end up not cultivating their gardens because of the long wait (Responded interviewed, 12 May 2017).

Lack of cattle as a traditional source of capital coupled with the introduction of unaffordable mechanisation plunged eMjikweni Village deeper into a state of “de- agrarianisation”. De-agrarianisation, by definition, is the process whereby rural dwellers have abandoned agriculture activities as a means of livelihood for a variety of reasons. Before the mechanisation of agriculture, many households were ploughing both gardens and fields using cattle and family labour. With the number of cattle in eMjikweni Village succumbing to drought, diseases and stock theft, the community has witnessed declines in food production. One respondent emphasised the on-going scourge of stock theft in the study area as follows:

The community want to start livestock production but we are feeling uneasy because of livestock theft that has started again in the village (Respondent interviewed, 27 April 2017).

Drought causes a high rate of mortality among livestock due to dry vegetation, lack of maize stock residue to feed on, dehydration due to lack of water and crop failure. These conditions reduce stock ownership in rural areas as Mama Nongwane’s story (not her real story) confirms (Case Study 5.5), but livestock diseases also present a risk. Mama Nongwane’s experience brings to bear how for many rural households in eMjikweni Village witness a drastic decline in their capacity to cultivate fields and produce fields in account of land dispossession, drought and livestock reduction.

One of the older oral respondents commented that:

It was the persistent droughts that killed most our cattle. It was during 1983 that our community stopped cultivating the fields as we did in the past. The droughts signalled the beginning of a decreased communal land under cultivation and ended abandoning field cultivation. The dwindling stock level coincided with the mechanisation of subsistence agriculture in the rural areas. It became difficult for most of us to hire tractors as we lack financial resources. Recently, it is quite the opposite phenomenon, households with financial means are struggling to cultivate homestead gardens due to lack of tractors in the village. Community members, in most of the time end up missing the ploughing season due to long queues to get the tractor and/or due to late summer rains (Respondent interviewed, 04 May 2017).

134 Another female respondent commented on the difficulty endured with shortage of tractors as the new method of cultivation said:

I had to travel long distances to request a tractor from nearby villages to render service for households who can afford to use tractors to cultivate their household gardens. At the same time, households with financial difficulties hire donkeys which are affordable compared to the tractor services (Respondent interviewed, 26 May 2017).

Case Study 5.5: Mama Nongwane (LAND DISPOSSESSION) Mama Nongwane was born in 1960 in the rural village of Willowvale. When she was growing up, her family engaged solely in subsistence farming, though her father did occasional work sometimes at the harbour in Durban. She married Mr Nongwane in 1980 and they lived in eMjikweni, bore four children and stayed with his parents. Mama Nongwane was one of three daughters-in-law who together with their mother-in-law and six daughters, worked the family fields planting maize, and the family garden where they planted potatoes, beans, sorghum, spinach, tomatoes, some sweet potatoes and a few medicinal herbs. The men in the household ploughed the field using yoked oxen from their 21 herd of cattle. Mama Nongwane was told through oral history stories that by early 1950s, White officials who said they were from the government came and told her mother-in-law that they would be moving. They visited the local chief’s residence who then called them to tell them they were to move within the month. Representatives were appointed to show each household where they would be moving to, which was further up field from the Tsitsa River than where they were closer to its banks. They were also told their cattle would now graze on allocated land only. Where they were moved to were crowded plots, and gardens were also smaller. Even the communal fields were moved and became smaller. It took a while to adjust to this change. Mama Nongwane was told about the persistent droughts which caused cows to die and the soil started to erode. By the time the families in the areas started to settle into the relocated village, the Nongwane family had already lost 13 cattle to the drought: three were too weak to work the fields; two had to be sold to compensate for the loss of seed and storage facilities they lost during relocation and a further three died from unnatural causes. This left the family with no recourse to plant their fields. Until 2002, most of the men in the family migrated to the city in search of employment to replace their herd, while two of the daughters-in-law sought domestic work in nearby Boer farms. Mama Nongwane stayed behind because of the passing of her in-laws, to take care of the homestead. By 2003, her husband and his one brother had died of unknown causes. The family had grown and money to replace the herd never materialised. Their allocation of communal land lay unused since 1997 to this day for lack of fence, seeds, fertiliser and tractor hire. Many attempts were made to cultivate manually which were ineffective because the fields were unfenced and open to damage by stray animals. The family has survived on the combined social grants of the children, the elderly and three disabled members of the family.

135 The more elderly respondents in this study who had witnessed the depressing turn of events that led to the demise of subsistence agriculture as a way of life were able to provide this study with deeper insight into the reality of the self-sufficiency they once enjoyed and how it had been replaced by alternative farming methods that were not accessible, thrusting them further into a lifestyle of dependence on markets for food supplies. The story of Mama Nongwane is a case in point.

As the rural subsistence economy was slowly plunging into collapse, most rural households had to resort to the migration livelihood strategy which today has become a way of life for the Xhosa people, almost a “rite of passage” in one’s life-cycle. By the late 1990s, despite the new democratic dawn, social conditions impacted negatively on rural communities as they encountered difficulties in providing for the basic family needs, thus making them vulnerable to hunger, starvation and poverty.

(b) Land dispossession: Case study 5.5 makes references to the lived experience or rural communities of being relocated from their ancestral lands to new land areas on the insistence of the then colonial (British) government. This experience narrated by Mama Nongwane, though much later in its implementation, was a result of the 1936 Betterment Policy which set the stage for later re-organisation of land by the apartheid regime into small plots designated for planned settlement areas in the Bantustans and former homeland areas. The agricultural land that the indigenous populations were forced out of was also further divided into pastures for animal husbandry and crop production (Walker, 2002; Ntsebeza, 2000; Hendricks, 2013). According to McCusker and Ramudzuli (2007), the aim of the policy was to save the land from “dangers of overgrazing and inefficient African land use”. Yet it is also clear from Mama Nongwane’s story that these reasons were never properly articulated to the rural peasantry, nor were their views sought on the matter. Nonetheless, the provision of the act itself propelled the dangers of overgrazing, as well as overpopulation of humans and livestock. To reduce overpopulation of stock, the government passed another policy that encouraged culling of cattle to minimise stock levels to save land from further degradation. It is hard to tell if the Nongwane cattle were also wiped out as a result of this culling process, though it is a highly probable assumption.

136

There is the factor of traditional leadership that casts further shadow into the land issue in rural Eastern Cape. After the land dispossessions of yesteryears, local chiefs were empowered particularly during the homeland government era. During the controversial era of farce homeland governments like Transkei, chiefs were empowered to oversee land allocations. Their vested powers still prevail in present times as local chiefs are at liberty to use communal land which was demarcated for agricultural purposes to allocate residential plots to more people needing land to settle. More often than not this tends to be land along the major national roads (Hebinck, 2013:197; Hendricks, 2013:11). These socio-economic and political dynamics not only shifted centres of power but also disarmed rural dwellers of their potential to be self-sufficient to produce enough food to feed their families.

(c) Erosion of social relations and social organisation in the community: The majority of community members today still use donkeys to cultivate and plough their gardens as a result of shortage of cattle for cultivation. Tractors are scarce, expensive and have to be sourced a long distance off in nearby villages. Though the spirit of “Ubuntu” still reigns in the village, it operates in a different context than it did as some level of erosion has taken place over time on the premium placed on cooperative and social organisation work in subsistence agricultural activities. The study findings confirmed how social cohesiveness and social engagements are practised in the rural areas as one person would sacrifice his/her time to make the long distance travel to hire and fetch a tractor for the benefit of the whole community; however, it does still remain quite different from historical accounts of rural communities working together.

Relocation from ancestral land meant realignment in the organisation of families upon allocation of land in the new area. This also meant that distance was put between families with rich histories together, causing strain on trust levels, especially in the apartheid era when some community members would break rank and work as “insiders” for the apartheid regime. Social relations and social organisation breakdown became the unforeseen consequence. Whereas in the past, in terms of material assistance, wealthy subsistence farmers would assist poor neighbours by cultivating

137 their fields and homestead gardens on their behalf, the research findings of this study found that this practice had fallen away. Where the villagers formed work parties to work each other’s fields by roster, this too had fallen away as a practice.

Without farming inputs, cattle to plough, finances to hire tractors or labour to work the fields, the great majority of households were forced to abandon the communal fields which remain abandoned to this day. Instead, homestead gardens have become the only source for food production in the rural areas of the former homeland of the Transkei and as such cannot meet the demands of the basic needs of the family. Yet, the incapacity of homestead gardens to produce enough food has resulted in food shortages culminating in starvation and poverty. It is this breakdown in social organisation that has further encouraged the exodus to the cities in search of employment (see Case study 5.6):

Case Study 5.6: Tat’omkhulu Dlamini (BREAKDOWN IN SOCIAL ORGANISATION) Seventy-eight year old, Tat’omkhulu Dlamini still cannot comprehend how social relations and social organisation in the village has changed since he was a boy growing up in the village. Born and bred in eMjikweni since 1941, Dlamini grew up in a household of subsistence farmers. He is still a subsistence farmer to this day, though his yield is very low. Annually he is privileged to harvest at least three bags of maize, tomatoes, 10kg of sugar beans and 20 heads of cabbage. He sells his cabbages in the nearby town of Qumbu. The three bags of maize are just enough for consumption which are supplemented by maize meal, rice bought from the local market in the nearby town. His low yield, Dlamini attributes to the fact that villagers no longer work together. Growing up, the villagers formed their own work parties to work each other’s fields by roster. They assisted each other to harvest. They assisted each other to repair storage tanks or repair fencing, weeding, ploughing and harvesting. This social organisation helped ease the burden that today one has to carry alone financially. He attributes this change to the infiltration of modern ways, attitudes and norms that have caused an undesirable breakdown in how society relates.

(d)Stock theft: The Stock Theft Amendment Act of 1986 defines stock theft in subsections 4 and 6 as “any person who in any manner enters any land enclosed on all sides with sufficient fence or any kraal, shed, stable or other walled place shall be guilty of an offence. Any persons who do not have a document of identification to be furnished by person who disposes of stock shall be guilty of an offence”.

138 Stock theft is rife in the rural areas of South Africa. This phenomenon has contributed to fewer households rearing livestock in the rural communities as they fear losing their stock to stock thieves. Rural communities have become discouraged to continue to rear livestock due to persistent stock theft practices. The recurrence of stock theft is a major concern in the village as they are interested in starting livestock production. One respondent commented on the lack of livestock in the village as follows:

The community wants to start livestock production but we are feeling uneasy because of livestock theft that has started again in the village (Respondent interviewed, 27 April 2017).

Stock theft is prevalent in the Eastern Cape. It is the leading province in terms of the number of reported cases of stock theft. In 2016, nationally, the total number of cases reported for stock theft in the Eastern Cape was 1812. It also accounted for 1049 reported cases, of which 477 came from the Qumbu police district under which eMjikweni Village falls (Maluleke et al., 2016). In general, Qumbu is well known as the town where stock theft is more predominantly widespread than any other area within the province. This is the area where violent crimes are taking place and one of the notorious places, which are regarded as hot spots. The two leading hot spots in Mhlontlo Local Municipality are Qumbu and Sulenkama police districts. Study respondents are well aware of stock theft in the Qumbu district, which thy pointed out has become very violent. It is a common practice for stock thieves to take all the livestock from households and still commit violent crimes against members of the household. The findings of this study confirm those of Maluleke et.al. (2016); Lombard, Van Niekerk, Geyer and Jordaan (2017); Geldenhuys (2012); Peires (1974), who emphasise how stock theft has become organised, violent and widespread in some parts of the country identified as hot spot areas because it is regarded by perpetrators as a means of getting quick cash by selling the stolen livestock in faraway villages. (Lombard et al., 2017: 2). Stock theft syndicate networks have allegedly spilled over to neighbouring Lesotho.

In this study, the rural community of eMjikweni Village was found to have abandoned livestock production in the past twenty years because of stock theft, even though a small minority have recently started to venture into livestock production in the village

139 for commercial purposes related narrowly to cultural events or ceremonies rather than for meat or milk production. It is important, however, to note that “stock theft is not a new crime – it is probably as old as agriculture itself” as the old adage goes. It has only changed in its intensity, violence and prevalence in the farming community. Nowadays, stock thieves take truckloads of cattle and leave the family empty handed. The research findings by Maluleke, Mokwena and Motsepa (2016) confirm the effect stock theft has on the livelihoods of the ordinary rural communities as stock theft strips households of their source of income, food and dignity and prestige. As long as stock theft remains a lucrative business and a form of quick cash, its consequences on the household economy will remain dire.

Case Study 5.7: Tata Mjindi (A CASE OF STOCK THEFT) Mr Mjindi is a subsistence farmer in eMjikweni Village. He is 54 years old and was born and bred in eMjikweni. Realising the risks of crop production in eMjikweni, Mr Mjindi and his older brother inherited herds of livestock from their father who was “filthy” rich in terms of livestock ownership. They continued to jointly focus on livestock production. Today, their herd of cattle is over 500 and the sheep over 2000 by 2017. For years, they were able to rear livestock and sell to traders in the village and nearby towns, Qumbu and Mthatha. They had heard that the MEC (Member of Executive Council) for Rural Development in the Eastern Cape was promoting the sale of local beef to the meat industry. Though not members of any formal beef producing association, they were still able to take advantage of the rural development policy directives of the Provincial government. They are hesitant to join the farmer’s cooperatives, Red meat or woolgrowers’ association. During the interviews, they voiced their concern of the lack of grazing land in the village. They wanted a procedure to et a farm for their livestock. It was the morning of Saturday 24 September 2015, when disaster struck. They awoke to find many of their cattle gone. Of their 500 cattle by then, twenty cows were stolen. Neighbouring households spoke of the sound a truck in the early hours of the morning. They were one of three households stolen from in that weekend in the local municipality, according to the Qumbu police station. It has been hard to recover from that experience and his household has lost its main source of income, with nothing in the way of insurance.

The story of Mr Mjindi (Case Study 5.7) is one of a villager who saw an opportunity, used it and benefited, but was crippled by the plague of stock theft. The provincial government of Eastern Cape has been at pains as part of its rural development strategy to promote livestock production of Eastern Cape within the province on a value-chain basis. Its objective is to ensure that black farmers in red meat production become part of the country’s mainstream economy. However, in noting the risks to the

140 industry, stock theft is not listed alongside lack of pastures, infrastructure and veld (field) fires (see News24 Article titled “Eastern Cape plans to buy Less Red Meat from other Provinces,” 29 July 2018). This unmitigated risk has crippled many farmers like Mr Mjindi. Stock theft inadvertently has affected even whatever efforts there have been to plough communal lands, resulting in households having to hire tractors, thus pushing up the costs of producing food on communal land. This again has contributed to the factors that have led to the abandonment of crop fields by many households. In summary, thee historical effects of agrarian decline continue to reverberate through rural subsistence economies to this day as the cocktail of requirements such as land, suitable soil, capital to purchase inputs and high input costs, infrastructure, plough oxen and labour are the major constraints in the development of subsistence agriculture in the rural communities.

The next section revisits the issue of household labour reconfigurations over time and the implications thereof.

5.9.2.2 Gendered Division of Labour and its Impact on Food Production

Bhandari et.al (2018) and Boserup et.al (2007) draw attention to the gendered division of labour at household level that becomes a significant factor in agricultural production patterns in rural communities. Their work confirms the critical role of women in household agricultural production. Their findings are confirmed in this study, which found that of 82% of respondents actively engaged in the household’s agricultural activities and food production, more than half of them were women. Similarly, women and girls made up 55.9% of the study sample’s combined agricultural labour force.

Study respondents were asked to list the primary agricultural activities (time use) that they perform on a daily basis. The results revealed that more than 90% of respondents in the village practised crop production, while 87% practised mixed farming. About 79% of households were practising livestock production as depicted in Figure 5.11. Mixed farming is the combination of crop production, poultry and dairy farming and is the dominant system practised in the rural areas in the eMjikweni Village. The predominance of livestock production, mixed farming and crop production in the study area prompts the question of who does what in terms of gendered division of labour.

141 Domestic activities 96.4

Non-farm activities 91.6 0.0 Mixed farming 13.3 0.0 Livestock production 21.7 0.0 Crop production 6.0

0.0 20.0 40.0 60.0 80.0 100.0 No Yes

Source: Field Study, 2017 Figure 5.11: Household time use in study area of eMjikweni

Gender disparities are still prevalent in the rural areas as depicted by the study findings which highlight gender classification in the agricultural roles performed by people who are active in the agricultural activities in the village. Women and girls remain central to the production of food in the village. Shackleton and Hamer (2010) share similar views that the organisation of agricultural work in traditional households revolves around women and girls. Boserup (1970) also points to the period of time women spent in food production, which tends to be longer hours than men. In this study, findings suggest that female respondents spent most of their time performing the household’s agricultural activities. Yet, adult males spend less time performing agricultural activities. These findings, while universal to southern Africa, are also symptomatic of the after effects of agrarian decline brought about by colonial and apartheid measures to extract African labour for industrialisation and to dispossess them of their land.

Historically, rural subsistence farmers had organised labour system farming within both the household structure and the community structures centred on a division of labour dictated to by gender, family values and culture. Young children played a significant role in the process of growing of food by guarding crops and chasing away livestock and birds from destroying crops. Women tended to carry out household chores in addition to planting, weeding and harvesting while men oversaw livestock and its related activities such as ploughing. Additionally, married men formed part of

142 the village council. While women provide the majority of the labour in agricultural production, their access and control over productive resources is greatly constrained due to inequalities constructed by patriarchal norms.

Chapter Two has already demonstrated the chain of events that led to forced labour migration. A plethora of literature also exists that highlights the plight of “women left behind” in rural southern Africa as an outcome of enormous social disruption including radical changes in family and gender relations and in the gender divisions of labour (Dodson, 2013). Central to this plight was the rapid decline in agricultural production as able-bodied men left for the gold mines on the Witwatersrand, wholesale loss of cattle and children having to play a greater role in agricultural activities. While women left behind took on a narrow scope of decision-making, absent men still remained the major decision-makers. As many miners returned home sick with TB or HIV-related illnesses, the responsibility to care for them fell on women again. This in turn meant for many women, time spent producing food was lessened. Almost a century later, three identifiable trends linger on in terms of the gender roles in agriculture that were defined prior to the advent of colonialism.

First, the gender roles and responsibilities in subsistence economies of rural Eastern Cape became dynamic and changed with new economic situations. One of the important changes noted in the first decade of 21st century was increased participation of women in agriculture as men continued to migrate to work outside of agriculture. Second, the proportion of female-headed households has surged significantly since the 1990s. However, the majority of these are de facto headed households and arise because male heads migrate in search of other income-earning opportunities. The female-headed households tend to be more heterogeneous, smaller in size, have lower incomes and are less likely to adopt technology. Household headship plays an important role in agricultural productivity to the extent that as female-headed households are smaller, they are less productive than male-headed households due to shortage of labour especially in peak seasons. Furthermore, as these households have lower incomes, their ability to adopt technology is also restricted. Finally, with the introduction of compulsory schooling, children’s labour, which played a role in food production, was unavailable; the withdrawal of children from the food production value

143 chain had a negative effect on the traditional farming system as crops became vulnerable to livestock. As one respondent noted:

It was mandatory at the time that children of school-going age must attend school on a full time basis leaving crops without herd boys (Respondent interviewed, 10 May 2017).

Case study 5.8: Tata Bomela (A SOCIAL & HOUSEHOLD LABOUR EQUILIBRIUM SHATTERED) Tata Bomela is over 70 years. He is not too sure of his exact age. He was born some 20 kms away from the eMjikweni Village and his family later moved to eMjikweni with other families. He does not know why they were moved only that it was government officials who told them to move. Cattle in their time were used for ploughing up to harvesting (both gardens and crop fields. Hunger in Bomela’s recollection, was a word unknown in their vocabulary because households produced enough food, had beasts to slaughter and had a communal sense of sharing with the less fortunate or with the family that had not harvested as much. Intercropping was prevalent in his time, which meant that a variety of crops were planted. Surplus crops were stored in traditional storage facilities and families were guaranteed a balanced diet. The Bomela family kept chickens and livestock and the apartheid government distributed fruit trees to every household. There was no experience of poverty in olden days. He did not go to school for very long, but does remember that in his childhood, as children, their role was to assist the men to herd the cattle, and during harvest time to ward off birds. When fields were ploughed they would watch how the men supervised the cattle for ploughing in the hope that when they grew up they would do the same. That day however, never came because Bomela had to leave for the mines like other men from their late teens till 2005 to supplement household income and the need for farming supplies started to take effect, also schooling became compulsory for children and competing resources started to take effect. . Bomela recalls how he would plan his annual leave, together with other men from the Eastern Cape, Lesotho and eSwatini to coincide with the harvest season back home. While away in the mines, they would receive messages from home that the cattle had died or had been stolen. Initially, he says they blamed the women for negligence, but then with time realised it was the state of affairs: drought, hunger, disease and other factors that killed off their cattle. Then they’d be told that field fences were destroyed, and with children away at school even crop fields were left unattended. The situation (decline of subsistence agriculture) intensified in 1980 due to drought which killed more cattle and more crops; then tractors were introduced, adding to further financial strain. Though local shop owners took the opportunity to provide this service; many households still could not afford tractors. According to Bomela, what the community needs is assistance with fencing to revisit the former way of life of subsistence farming. But the government has not been forthcoming. As a demonstration of their eagerness to go back to basics, a few community members came together and formed a cooperative for crop production in 2016. People with average financial standing join the cooperative. With no access to markets and many dry spells of rain they make a loss most of the time. Another challenge they face is the lack of modern storage facilities in the village. They use rondavels and there is a high risk of crop decays these storage facilities are ineffective

144 5.10 CHAPTER SUMMARY

Through the careful analysis and corroborating application of qualitative data drawn from the study of subsistence farmers in the village of eMjikweni in the local municipality of Mhlontlo, Eastern Cape Province, this chapter has sought to explore and shed light on two research questions pursued in this research study. First, this chapter has reviewed the state of subsistence farming in the eMjikweni Village as an attempt to provide a snapshot of what is currently on the ground - whether at one level, the narrative of food security is still to hold; and at another level, whether the narrative on land reform rages on legitimately, taking into account the intricacies that have led to and continue to uphold the current state of subsistence farming.

Second, the study has allowed the reader to take a step back and revisit the combined factors that led to agrarian decay in the Eastern Cape, and to isolate those factors whose legacy continues to adversely affect food production. These findings lay the ground for Chapter Six, which will explore why agricultural development through subsistence farming in the Eastern Cape, once South Africa’s food basket, continues to falter. Third, Chapter Six will shift the lens towards current government initiatives, their success and limitations.

Finally, the case for qualitative data, while holding limits to the extent to which generalisations can be made, also demonstrates the potential value of a bottom-up development approach to rural development. As beneficiaries of state-run programmes, subsistence farmers cannot be excluded from policy dialogue. Their witness of how a once sustainable rural economy has collapsed and intermittently struggles to revive as a critical driver of food security and household livelihoods in the Eastern Cape is very significant in policy dialogue. While the findings of the study therefore reveal how the costs of producing food for households in communal land are a combined cocktail of factors which include lack of resources, lack of capital to purchase inputs and high input costs, lack of infrastructure and more significantly, poor extension services, these with drought, livestock disease and stock theft, have left rural communities with limited recourse in the face of mechanised solutions to cultivating their land to continue farming. It is these intricacies that form the basis for discussion in Chapter Six.

145 CHAPTER SIX

STUDY FINDINGS PART II: REVITALISING SUSTAINABLE SUBSISTENCE FARMING IN THE EASTERN CAPE: TOWARDS AN INTEGRATED APPROACH TO LAND, AGRICULTURE AND POLICY

6.1 INTRODUCTION

In Chapter Five, sufficient course was provided to understand the combined factors that led to agrarian decay in the Eastern Cape. Each of these factors, albeit not exhaustive, was isolated to explain their adverse effects, then and now, on rural household food production. The ground is therefore set for this chapter to explore the critical findings on why agricultural development through subsistence farming in the Eastern Cape, once South Africa’s breadbasket, continues to falter. Current government initiatives, their success and limitations will also be examined against the backdrop of post-1994 policy frameworks on agricultural and rural development in South Africa.

Chapter Six will rely heavily once again, on the lived experience of subsistence farmers in the eMjikweni Village to examine the current realities and challenges that give rise to rolling acres of visibly unutilised land in the Eastern Cape. This discussion becomes pertinent at a time when the call for land expropriation without compensation is a raging debate in South Africa. It makes for the humble contribution of this study to be one that cautions against making the land debate and redresses of the past, about land only. Chapters Five and Six together submit to an already impressive body of literature for the need to uncover the social and economic factors that influence current day land use and food production, if a “return to the land” must be a successful policy reform to bolster agricultural production, its contribution the GDP and to food security.

Chapter Six is divided into two sections. First, the chapter will examine the challenges through local realities that have led to current abandonment of subsistence farming land in the Eastern Cape. Second, in view of the policy framework in South Africa set out to promote subsistence agriculture as a livelihood, the chapter examines some of the key elements that act against government interventions in achieving their objectives. Chapter Six will use the agricultural and rural development framework

146 (Figure 6.1) identified earlier in Chapter Two to establish the extent to which government is able to not only grasp the issues at hand, but also formulate and implement relevant holistic interventions:

Figure 6.1: A prototype framework for agriculture and rural development

147 6.2 CHALLENGES AND REALITIES OF SUBSISTENCE FARMING IN THE STUDY AREA OF EMJIKWENI VILLAGE

In this chapter, study findings are scrutinised in understanding the underlying factors which contributed to households in the eMjikweni Village (and rural Eastern Cape) abandoning communal crop land at a time in history when the land debate is growing significantly. The findings of the study therefore examined the following factors with the view to establishing their contributory role to the decline and complete abandonment of crop farming:

a) Environmental issues; b) Financial resources, or the lack thereof; c) Approaches to food production; d) Community empowerment; e) Infrastructural support; f) Water resources; and, g) Household labour gaps.

6.2.1 Environmental issues and revitalising conservation agriculture

In Chapter Three, land use of the Mhlontlo Local Municipality was extensively described. This description alluded to up to 76% of land in the entire municipality being made up of degraded or unimproved land, with only 17% of land under cultivation for subsistence and commercial purposes. This is characteristic of most rural areas of the former homeland of the Transkei, including areas falling under Mhlontlo Local Municipality. In the eMjikweni Village large tracts of communal fields have lain uncultivated for the past thirty years. The question is why. This is one of the research questions this study sought to answer at a time when land access through expropriation, with or without compensation, seems to be a central point, yet rural corners of South Africa like eMjikweni Village are suggesting that land access cannot be viewed in isolation of underlying factors that cause available land to lie uncultivated or unused.

The findings of the study revealed that the community of eMjikweni has had access to large areas of land, for years, but is unable to use it for several reasons. A number of reasons were cited by study respondents. Additional to the matter of fencing discussed

148 in Chapter Five, these reasons included land degradation and its associated effects of soil erosion and overgrazing.

According to the Environmental Management Agency (EMA) (2015), land degradation is any change in the condition of land which reduces its productive potential. It also defines it as the deterioration in the quality of land, its topsoil, vegetation, and/or water resources which are caused usually by excessive or inappropriate exploitation. But a more simple definition of land degradation is the decline in the land's suitability for use. Land degradation is often caused by multiple forces, including extreme weather conditions, particularly drought, and human activities that degrade the quality of soil affecting food production and livelihoods of rural people. A noticeable feature of the land degradation is soil erosion, with dongas that have formed across the fields. This has decreased the amount of land suitable for cultivation, even should all the challenges preventing cultivation be addressed. The major causes of land degradation include biophysical, socio-economic and political factors, which include urbanisation, competition for scarce water, unsustainable water management and government policies that contribute to land degradation.

The phenomenon of land degradation has two serious implications for agricultural production. First, it reduces the land area available for agricultural activities, which further compromises a fledgling subsistence economy, and second, it destroys traditional systems and social practices that safe-guarded land use patterns by season, with the exercised control of communal land by the traditional authorities in the former homeland of the Transkei. For the purpose of this study, the understanding of land degradation was restricted to the biophysical factors, which include soil erosion, poor farming practices, loss of vegetation due to overgrazing, over exploitation, deforestation and veld fires. The most noticeable features of land degradation in the communal fields of eMjikweni Village are overgrazing and soil erosion, which will be discussed in the next section systematically.

6.2.1.1 Effects of overgrazing in the village of eMjikweni

Overgrazing is one of the biophysical causes of land degradation. It is the extensive grazing of livestock over a period of time in one large enclosure, a process that threatens wildlife, livestock and human development and that depletes wildlife and

149 natural vegetation as livestock consume undeveloped plants without giving them enough time to fully mature. Overgrazing can have devastating environmental implications when combined with overpopulation of both humans and livestock in a particular area. In the study area, it was found that after land dispossession and land relocation to what is currently eMjikweni Village, land for grazing was under-allocated, creating pressure on pastures. With time, as rural households began to abandon communal crop fields, these same fields began to be used for livestock grazing – which accounts in part for the disproportionate amount of land described as “degraded or unimproved land” in the Mhlontlo Local Municipality. The uncultivated crop field area is populated by shrubs, which attract goats and other livestock. One of the respondents commented about the effects of lack of fencing and said:

Lack of fencing in the rural areas has made it difficult to control livestock. They roam around and sometimes wander about to the neighbouring villages. It is difficult to practise rotational grazing in order to prevent overgrazing with the current situation (Respondent interviewed, 04 May 2017).

The most common cause of overgrazing is drought. The persistent and extended droughts cause permanent damage to vegetation. During the drought seasons, livestock feed on pastures that will not replenish. The situation is worsened by lack of precipitation that causes grass and plants to die. In this regard, the research findings of Morton (2007) and Mortimore (1993) are confirmed by the respondents of this study who also stated that if overpopulation of humans and livestock is left unchecked, it may contribute to land degradation in the rural areas. Overgrazing and related soil damage usually create conditions that allow the growth of invasive plants, these being conditions witness by Tata Matiso as a case in point:

150 Case Study 6.1: Tata Matiso (OVERGRAZING IN EMJIKWENI VILLAGE: STRIKING BALANCES) Tata Matiso is 67 years of age, and is one of the few villagers with quite intimate knowledge of the ecology of the eMjikweni Village. An ardent livestock farmer, Tata Matiso is one of those who were forced to take his cattle and sheep to the unutilised communal fields because there simply is not enough grazing land in the allocated village pastures. Owing to financial constraints, he is not able to buy cattle fodder. The reason for grazing his cattle in the communal fields, he asserts, is to try to strike a balance between feeding livestock, giving pastures some rest, and allowing for villagers to plant their gardens unhindered. In his view Tata Matiso feels that the village is over-populated, has more livestock than its pastures can hold and for now, with no solution to the communal fields’ cultivation saga has any choice but to use these fields because they are not planted and because they have become overgrown by a shrub that is good for his livestock. He realises the long-term damage of grazing on communal fields, but in the light of no other suitable grazing arrangement, does not have any choice.

Boserup et.al (2007) maintains also that it is not only climate related factors that cause land degradation but non-climate stressors such as overpopulation. The land degradation in the research site of this study is best described as that caused by residents who have been forced by socio-economic circumstances to destroy their own natural base just to remain alive. Rural communities have cut down trees, shrubs and vegetation (inkanga and irangasi) for fuel for cooking and heating, destroying the environment in the process. The root cause of this degradation was the re-zoning of land by traditional chiefs who were forced to allocate residential sites on the grazing land. The experience of Tata Matiso in case study 6.1 is a testament to this fact. One of the respondents complained about the lack of clearly demarcated grazing land and commented that:

The lack of zoning-off of grazing land with fencing has led to overgrazing in this village. In the olden days, the land in the rural villages was subdivided by fences into three distinct categories, the grazing land, the settlement plots and communal land. In those days, the community practised traditional rotational grazing. In winter, especially after the harvest, livestock were grazing in the communal fields, feeding from maize stock residue. Livestock were not allowed to use the pastures during that period, to allow the grass and other vegetation to grow. Nowadays, there is no fence dividing the land and no stock maize residue since there is no cultivation in the field crops to allow for a grazing rotation process. It is not uncommon to find cattle wandering about into nearby villages due to lack of enclosed grazing land (Respondent interviewed, 09 May 2017).

In correcting one wrong though, Tata Matiso commits another wrong. This is the vicious cycle that consistently threatens the food production capacity of the people

151 living in rural areas. One of the respondents commented about lack of land for allocation of residential sites and said:

There is no more space for further allocation of residential sites in our village. Our children have grown and are married. They need to establish their families separate from the main house. We have asked the traditional chief to allow for residential sites in the grazing area (Respondent interviewed, 04 May 2017).

The Natives Lands Act of 1913 made no provision for potential population growth and the competing activities for land such as grazing and food production. The concentrated settlement in the villages which were formed as a result of this Act was likely to result in erosion in the affected rural areas as rural communities were removed from large and scattered, sparsely populated settlements to densely populated small plots which also contributed to the destruction of the traditional management system. The movement of communities to new settlements widened the distances from their communal fields. This, according to McAllister (1988), was a key factor that contributed to the subsequent abandonment of fields for cultivation. One study respondent who has a large herd of livestock, especially sheep, remarked that:

The grazing land in the communal fields is not enough for my livestock. I would love government to assist me as the emerging farmer, to allocate farms for people like me that will have enough capacity for the effective animal production and management (Respondent interviewed, 28 April 2017).

This comment is testimony to a lack of even policy implementation across the rural landscape of South Africa. In the year 2013, the Department of Rural Development and Land Reform unveiled its Animal and Veld Management Programme; a programme to support farmers in parts of South Africa that have been historically overgrazed. Launched in the village of Msinga in the province of KwaZulu-Natal, it aimed to assist farmers with soil rehabilitation, spatial decongestion and re-greening of the environment. Hailed as a programme to reverse the legacy of the 1913 Natives Land Act which led to the congestion of the majority of black people into 13% of the land, resulting in overcrowding and overgrazing, at the time of undertaking this research study, this programme had not been implemented in the eMjikweni Village or nearby villages.

152 Remedial action to overgrazing in the eMjikweni locality is long overdue. Cattle control and effective management of grazing pastures are strategies that can be employed to avoid land degradation and soil erosion in rural areas. Allocating a larger area for grazing would create a lower livestock density and a continuous grazing system which is economically and environmentally sustainable. Effective management of pastures would reduce degradation by maintaining the traditional practice of rotational grazing, which is a widely used technique in developing countries (Eaton et al., 2001:141). Unless there is an effective and efficient management of grazing pastures to reduce degradation by maintaining the traditional practice of rotational grazing, a widely used technique in the rural areas, very little change can be expected to what is seen in the aerial view of Figure 6.2 which demonstrates the extensive damage of communal land, creation of massive dongas through soil erosion caused by overgrazing and water run- off. These factors will be discussed in the following section.

Source: Stats SA GIS, 2016 Figure 6.2: Aerial photography of eMjikweni Village

6.2.1.2 Effects of soil erosion in the eMjikweni Village

Soil erosion is a critical global land degradation phenomenon affecting rural populations’ basic sources of livelihood from the land. However, changes in land use worldwide have been recognised as capable of accelerating soil erosion, making degraded soil unproductive depending on the severity of land damage. It remains as one of the unresolved problems of rural agriculture in the Eastern Cape.

153 To reflect on the socio-economic and demographic profile of the study area of eMjikweni Village, findings revealed that most respondents are female (52%), who are above 55 years old (64%). Most of whom (70%) had some or no education below grade 7. Further, the majority of them (90%) depend on social grants as sources of income. This profile becomes critical in terms of understanding the ability of study respondents to ease the effects of soil erosion in the village of eMjikweni. Most respondents confirmed that erosion occurred naturally through heavy rainfall and persistent drought while human causes that facilitated erosion included farming activities, livestock grazing and indiscriminate bush burning and firewood gathering that exposed the soil to the impact of rain. Respondents in this study also affirmed that erosion contributed to the poor health of their livestock as a direct result of lack of pasture grass to feed on, loss of grazing land and poor bush regrowth.

Soil erosion in the eMjikweni Village has been responsible for much of the damage inflicted on agricultural land over the years. Loss of top soil, formation of dongas and gullies has still extensively reduced the amount of land available for crop production. The communal land in the village is characterised by dongas and as one of the study respondents noted:

These dongas have created a condition that will make it difficult for maximum crop production as bigger parts of the hectares are taken up by them. In most cases they split the household hectares into two, reducing cultivatable land, (Respondent interviewed, 03 May 2017).

Dongas or gullies splitting a household’s fields in two are a common phenomenon in the Eastern Cape. This not only reduces cultivation land, but makes it extremely difficult for already strained farmers to work land split by a deep gully:

As a community we are concerned about the gully formation in the communal fields because they have reduced significant amounts of land for other households. We also find we have a gully running through the middle of our fields and cannot cross to the other part of the gully with ease. The government is not doing anything to prevent further formation of dongas in the field (Respondent interviewed, 03 May 2017)

The delayed cultivation of the fields has caused a lot of damage in the fields. There are dongas everywhere. My hectares are affected by the formation of the dongas which split my hectares into two parts. It will be difficult to use my hectares productively when the conditions are conducive to start farming again in those fields (Respondent interviewed, 28 April 2017).

154 The views expressed by these two respondents highlight the state of degeneration of the communal fields. It is not a problem exclusive to the eMjikweni rural community. In a study of soil erosion and the agricultural potential of the Eastern Cape, Madikizela (2000) notes how soil erosion has significantly reduced the agricultural potential of the Mount Ayliff and Mount Frere rural areas in the Eastern Cape, findings also corroborated by Ighodaro, Lategan and Yusuf (2013) thirteen years later in the Sheshegu village of the Eastern Cape, implying little relief to the scourge of soil erosion in the province. Study respondents in eMjikweni Village were concerned with the intensive soil erosion happening in their communal fields as gully formation accelerated in the agricultural area that was once the source of food for the whole community. In some cases, their individual fields had become drastically reduced in size because of soil erosion, which lowered the little yield they made. This meant that their per capita spend on food increased, straining already constrained household budgets and leaving many households more food insecure.

Case Study 6.2: Mama Nomalima (SOIL EROSION AND FOOD INSECURITY) Mama Nomalima is a single mother aged 47 years. She is a mother of three and lives in the eMjikweni Village with her children, two of her late sister’s children and her ageing mother. For the past 55 years, her family has always planted maize intercropped with pumpkin and different legumes. However, in the early 1990s the rains with alternating dry seasons and generally unpredictable weather patterns gradually started to take their toll on the household. Up till then, the family was able to produce enough maize for the year, with a few bags to sell. Then from Nomalima’s mother’s pension grant, with five children’s grants, they were able to supplement their diet, their household needs (electricity, transport and non-perishable food items). In the year 2012, Nomalima’s fields started to take strain from the persistent effects of soil erosion, until then she and a few other women were able to plant some shrubs interspersed with small rocks or large stones to prevent water and topsoil runoff. But the task was intensive and ate into their other household chores. It was a serious storm in 2013 that reversed any small gains they had made in managing water and topsoil runoff. It rained for two weeks uninterrupted. When the rains stopped, small gullies had formed between the crop lines, crops were destroyed and much of the soil washed away. Since then, the condition of her fields deteriorated further and her maize yield diminished by up to 75%, leaving the family no choice but to dig deeper into their grant-dependent income for food purchases. Mama Nomalima talks of how she has attempted to make critical trade-offs on the household’s budget items but still there is never enough. Since her crop fields washed away, her family has never enjoyed food security as they did because of the increasing demands on non-agricultural income.

155 Case study 6.2 of Mama Nomalima echoes the sentiment of many women interviewed in this study. The respondents worry endlessly about the fact that as long as the challenge of soil erosion persists and donga formation is left unchecked and uncontrolled, the irreparable damage to their agricultural land will leave their households extremely vulnerable, not only in terms of food security, but also in meeting their daily basic needs. It is recommended that awareness on the negative effect of human causes of erosion should be created while simple technologies on soil erosion control should be made accessible to subsistence farmers, especially women who make up the bulk of agricultural workers in the study area.

The next section will be discussing the impact the input costs have on crop cultivation. The various agricultural inputs are important to enhance soil fertility to get higher output but the challenge is that they are very expensive and rural communities are unable to purchase them due to financial constraints and competing demands.

6.2.2 Household financial resources in the study area

In Chapter Five, employment data for the Mhlontlo Municipality was discussed insofar as it bears testimony to its inability to create employment, or absorb labour, in a stagnating local economy. As a brief recap, Mhlontlo Local Municipality is characterised by very high poverty levels (more than 61% in 2015), significantly higher than the provincial level. The upper poverty line is defined by Stats SA as the level of consumption at which individuals are able to purchase both sufficient food and non- food items without sacrificing one for the other. This variable measures the number of individuals living below that particular level of consumption for the given area, and is balanced directly with the official upper poverty rate as measured by Stats SA. Consistent with these high poverty rates is high dependence on social security grants with household grant dependents higher (70%). The economic structure and performance of the Mhlontlo Local Municipality is important for making recommendations for subsistence farming developments and increased food security. With an economic growth rate of 1.78% in 2015, the Mhlontlo Local Municipality holds a practical view of realising that sustained higher socio-economic growth rates will remain a major challenge. An imperative recommendation becomes one of improving the predominantly rural nature of the municipality which is characterised by poor and inadequate investments in economic and basic infrastructure, high levels of functional

156 illiteracy, a low skills base and relatively low per capita income of the local municipality’s population (Mhlontlo Local Municipality, 2016).

The South African government has, in the past 25 years implemented several policies and programmes, as well as increased the budget spent on the agricultural sector in a broad effort to support agriculture. However, very scanty evidence is available to make the presumption that these attempts had been successful (see National Treasury, 1996, 2004, 2005, 2008, 2010; Aliber & Hall, 2012). Instead, a number of programmes and attempts by government and development agencies have exacerbated rather than alleviated the difficulties that farmers face as will demonstrated later in this chapter. Subsistence farmers in the eMjikweni Village still living below the poverty line are faced with difficulties in sustaining their farms. This, combined with an unintended consequence by government to plunge them further into economic despair, has given rise to an increased need to understand how subsistence farming households in this study area of eMjikweni Village continue to face challenges in respect of access to financial resources, high transaction costs and sustaining their agricultural efforts.

The employment status of the study sample in the village of eMjikweni itself is also reflective of a general national unemployment crisis which is exacerbated further by excessive inequalities and rampant poverty. In this study, an attempt was made to identify the sources of income by household in order to establish baseline information that helps thread together the causal factors for an ailing subsistence agricultural sector in the eMjikweni Village.

This study found that no less than 90% of the respondents’ primary source of income was a government social grant while only 8% of respondents relied on migrant remittances and 2% on formal employment (refer to Figure 5.8 in Chapter Five). This pattern in respect of sources of income in the Eastern Cape is confirmed by Madikizela (2000); Chakwizira et.al. (2010) and Ighodaro et.al. (2013), suggesting that in more ways than one, the government social grant had replaced subsistence agriculture food production as the livelihood strategy in rural communities.

157 Case Study 6.3: Mama Zanendaba (JUGGLING THE HOUSEHOLD BUDGET) Mama Zanendaba is an unemployed female head of household. She is 63 years old and has lived in the village of eMjikweni since she was 8 years old. MaZanendaba lost her job ten years ago. She worked in the automobile industry in Port Elizabeth. Her eldest daughter passed away, leaving her eight grandchildren, three great grandchildren, and two other great grandchildren from three other relatives of hers. One of the grandchildren is blind. Presently, she is living with her five great grandchildren (all the grandchildren are away in the city to look for job opportunities). MaZanendaba depends on her social grant, child and disability grants combined. She has a small vegetable garden where she grows spinach, cabbage, tomatoes and beetroot. It is enough to occasionally supplement their dietary requirements but not on a consistent basis. MaZanendaba recounts the hardship of juggling a household income that is based solely on state grants. She talks of how the combined grant income has to cater for food purchases (50%), repaying loans to micro-lenders (30%), transport (5%), burial society payments (5%), and 10% remains to cover other costs such as school uniforms and school transport. The money is never enough. This forces her to keep going back to micro-lenders for extended credit, which keeps the household afloat but perpetuates the debt trap they find themselves in. What worsens her situation is that she does not have access to all the social grants for great grandchildren living with her as some of their mothers took the social grant cards with them to the city to access the money for their own use. Not only does this mean she has less income to depend on, but it means some of her dependents are relying on grant money of others, which causes family strife as those who give Ma Zanendaba access to the children’s grant resent that others do not. They in turn withdraw support for fear of subsidising those not contributing to their children’s social grant funds to the householder coffers, a bitter fight that ultimately affects Ma Zandendaba’s ability to juggle her budget and still feed every child under her roof. In her view, if she could only get money to purchase fencing, she could resuscitate her fields, extend her garden and even join a cooperative.

With their employment profile, grant dependency data and mindful of the environmental condition of the land, the study sought to establish the extent to which limited financial resources impacted on the inability of rural households to utilise existing communal land for subsistence farming and food production. The research findings revealed that because the majority of respondents were grant recipients which was their only source of livelihood the lack of or limited access to finances to buy agricultural inputs and resources such as buying of seeds and fertilisers and hiring of tractors and labour to work the land have influenced the decline in food production in the eMjikweni Village. This challenge was unanimously identified by study respondents regardless of age, sex or household head status. One respondent commented that:

Cost of cultivating the land is very expensive these days which often results in many of us abandoning the fields and rather buy food with the little money we have. In this village we cannot afford agricultural inputs, implements or even to hire tractors (Respondent interviewed, 09 May 2017).

158 This sentiment sums up the views of all respondents in the study, thus providing sufficient evidence to suggest that though land is available, they simply lack resources to sustain subsistence farming. This has resulted in the evident abandoned agricultural fields that grace the rural landscape of the Eastern Cape:

I am struggling to purchase fertilisers and insecticides because I do not have money. The social grant is not enough to meet all my family needs. I have a challenge of moles in my fields and I don’t even know the cure for it, thus making it difficult to plant vegetables and other food crops. The community has a challenge of water shortages and we don’t have money to hire a van/truck to fetch water from the river (Respondent interviewed, 11 May 2017).

The combined inability to purchase inputs (fertiliser, chemicals and seeds) with water shortages and poor extension support are sufficient cause for unsustainable subsistence farming in the Eastern Cape. Some households have opted for more creative ways of livelihood strategies to source funding for farming inputs through support from cooperatives as one such respondent highlighted:

I have decided to join the local agricultural cooperative which, at least assists me to plough a few hectares in the communal fields because its members enjoy government support in terms of agricultural inputs including manure, insecticides and seeds and also were able hire the services of rangers to protect the crops (Respondent interviewed, 11 May 2017).

6.2.2.1 Household expenditure demands

The land debate and related food security narrative can never be complete without a review of how household economics influence decision making and trade-offs in terms of what the household budget can or cannot support.

Baiphethi and Jacobs (2009) provide extensive insight into how poor households have to employ various modes of meeting household food needs which include accessing their food from the market, subsistence production and transfers from public programmes or other households. In the past, rural households produced most of their own food, but recently the dependence on market purchases has been on the rise; in some cases up to 90% of the food supplies of a household are purchased from the market instead of being harvested directly from their fields. Baiphethi and Jacobs (2009) further establish how food expenditure can account for as much as 60-80% of total household income for low-income households in

159 some parts of sub-Saharan Africa. Case Study 6.3 of Mama Zanendaba paints a very daunting picture of the financial pressure that the majority of rural households in the study area of eMjikweni Village face even as another respondent pointed out:

We divide our pension money to buy food, to pay school fees for children, burial societies and put money aside to cultivate gardens during the planting season (Respondent interviewed, 04 May 2017).

Mama Zanendaba’s story raises six socio-economic issues that cannot be ignored if subsistence agriculture must play an important role in reducing the vulnerability of rural and urban food-insecure households, improving livelihoods, and helping to mitigate high food price inflation:

a) In this study, over 80% of women above the age of 55 are responsible for household and agricultural activities. Yet, the case of MaZanendaba is an alarming indicator that additionally, child care and care of disabled family members are also increasingly becoming their responsibility to take on more and more of the role of taking care of grandchildren as the younger adult members of the family (and parents to grand- and great-grandchildren) migrate to the city to look for work. In terms of time use, this leaves even less time to focus on food production, resulting in lower food yields and even more reason to purchase food from the market;

b) With no employment options amidst family responsibilities, the growing dependence of combined social grants to enhance household income deepens as the only source of income as there is little or no food production left for sale;

c) Abuse of social grants is a known phenomenon in South Africa, with many anecdotes on how social grants are used for purposes other than what they are intended for. The case of MaZanendaba is a common one in the village of eMjikweni as many young mothers migrate to the cities taking along the social grant cards used to withdraw funds. Grant funds become migrant income in the city, while not contributing differently to child support even

160 when government has assisted through provision of grants, causing strain on an already fragile household budget. The story of MaZanendaba was a common thread found in the village for most female respondents. The tension it caused in the family because of uneven contributions being made to the upkeep of children served to only create a greater burden for MaZanendaba as a result of budgetary shortfalls; d) The shortfall had to be made up by accessing loans from “mashonisa” or local micro-lenders who charge interest of up to 50%, retaining your ID and bank or social grant card until the loan is paid up. This according to South Africa’s National Credit Regulator, is illegal and should be reported to the Regulator. However, village respondents indicated that they could not “bite the hand that feeds them” by reporting the “mashonisa” who is the only source of financial assistance. As MaZanendaba indicates in Case Study 6.3, loan repayments to “mashonisa” account for 30% of her budget. With her ID in the possession of “mashonisa” loan sharks, she is not able to do much else, or join a cooperative even if she had money to join; e) The disproportionate share of household budget that goes to food purchases for so many mouths to feed is a consistent pattern found in the village of eMjikweni. Many respondents indicated between 50-70% of their budget accounting for food purchases; and, f) No matter how tight the household budget is, many households made provision for burial society payments for three reasons. First, death is viewed as a foreseen consequence of the poverty lifestyle that rural households find themselves in. Second, to insure the family against funeral costs that they ordinarily would not afford – burial societies become a buffer to absorb the financial strain that death is likely to cause. Third, African culture places a high premium on dignity in death. Funerals therefore, are not to display a family’s vulnerability in terms of availability of a coffin, tent, chairs and food for the community in attendance. These are critical components of an African “dignified funeral” that has become an important social phenomenon for even the most vulnerable family.

161 The unsustainable expenditure on food purchases, coupled with other non- negotiable priorities for them, calls for food security mitigation interventions especially for the most vulnerable rural food-insecure households as seen in Case Study 6.3. One such intervention is the promotion of subsistence food production for household consumption that has to significantly increase as rural households remain vulnerable to market performance, inflation and increasing food prices.

6.2.2.2 The challenge of agricultural input costs

High input costs have been highlighted in many readings as a critical element to food production. Chapter Five demonstrated how with sufficient assets (land, water and human capital), subsistence agriculture can play an important role in livelihood creation amongst the rural poor of the eMjikweni Village. In the previous section, an argument has already been made for due attendance to factors that inhibit sustainable food production. This, inter alia, includes significantly increasing the productivity of subsistence agriculture through the use of improved farming inputs. This inevitably will require a dramatic increase in the use of fertiliser, seed, organic inputs and conservation techniques.

Study respondents in the eMjikweni Village however, are mindful of the high transaction costs of farming inputs and the risks involved in not affording them. They were also mindful of how increased productivity would have the desired effect of reducing pressure on unproductive crop land as arable land becomes more sustainably utilised. However, as the previous section demonstrated, already burdened household budgets leave little or nothing to purchase required inputs. The question raised becomes one of how to determine or identify cost-effective ways to improve access to inputs or earn off-farm income (besides social grants) to purchase the inputs.

The research findings in this study confirm that respondents recognised high input costs as the critical element to food production and the priority challenge for them at the same time. Sahel (2014) argues that agricultural inputs, irrigation technical knowledge and agricultural machinery and implements are said to be the bedrock of any agricultural activity. While true, the reality for the African farmer in general is that access to inputs, whether modern or rudimentary in nature, remains one of the biggest

162 challenges. The agricultural inputs that study respondents identified as out of their reach included improved seeds, fertilisers, pesticides, herbicides or fungicides, farm machinery, and technical know-how on irrigation, conservation farming, marketing, storage and distribution of crop commodities.

During the focus group discussions undertaken in the study of eMjikweni, the question was posed to respondents on whether if made available; would farming inputs make a difference to production on their land? An overwhelming majority indicated an eagerness to learn new farming methods to obtain higher productivity. Besides crop production, other community members want to diversify to other farming activities such as piggery and poultry farming but are wary of high maintenance costs involved in the activities. The introduction of machinery as a new form of farming to enhance human labour effectiveness and increase farm productivity was also identified. The majority of respondents echoed similar comments mentioned by one of the respondents as follows:

We are struggling to purchase fertilisers and insecticides because I do not have money. The grant is not enough to meet all the needs of my family needs. I have a challenge of moles in my field and I do not even know the cure for it. I was told of chemicals for the soil to rid the moles, but I cannot afford them (Respondent interviewed, 09 May 2017).

The majority of respondents highlighted that the community was interested and eager to use the fields again but discouraged by cost of cultivation and said:

The input costs are very expensive - as such we would welcome government’s support in providing agricultural inputs, including subsidised tractors, fertiliser, seeds and insecticides (Respondent interviewed, 11 May 2017).

One respondent, further requested, in addition to the agricultural inputs, assistance for starting community projects would be welcomed:

I would like assistance in getting government tractors, implements, start-up capital to buy inputs such as fertilisers, insecticides, and vegetable seeds. I would also want to be given start-up capital to start cattle farming, and a piggery, as well as chicken farming to earn money. As a community in this village, we are experiencing shortage of tractors and lack of financial resources to hire them. We have appealed to government for subsidised tractors to enable more households to start cultivating their household gardens. The willingness of this community in subsistence agriculture is shown by a few community members who are part of the project who have financial means to pay out of their pockets for the cultivation

163 services. This is an indication of our desire in revitalisation of the subsistence farming at a larger scale by cultivating the gardens and communal fields. Our desire is limited by financial resources, to hire a tractor, buy fertilisers, seeds and hire labour (Respondent interviewed, 11 May 2017).

For most respondents, fencing, pesticides and fertilisers were found to be most unaffordable. Their plea was therefore directed to government to assist each household with an elementary farmers’ pack of seed, fertiliser and pesticide. With the provision of state subsidised tractors and start-up capital to diversify to other farming activities such as a piggery, poultry farming and livestock production, study respondents felt there would be a strong basis to revitalise subsistence farming in the village.

Findings of the study concur with assertions made in the literature by Odhiambo (2015); Bernstein (1992); Khapayi (2016) and the Rockefeller Foundation (2006), that South Africa’s subsistence agriculture sector is severely constrained by the low uptake of modern farm inputs, high transport costs, weak farmer organisation, poor quality control and lack of information on markets and prices to sell surplus produce. This study differed quite significantly with the rather narrow argument of the Rockefeller Foundation (2006) which maintains that increased access to land for food production will solve the declining subsistence agriculture dilemma in South Africa. It is also the same implicit argument being made by the Land Debate of government at the moment – that access to land is the solution to rural (even urban) poverty. The assumption being made, quite unjustifiably, is that a household’s assets are the sole determinants for subsistence farmers to participate in agricultural production and markets to secure livelihoods. Therefore, the combination of few assets, limited cultivation plot sizes, poor quality land and lack of/ or non-availability of/ investment in an irrigation system are the determining factors for poor food production.

On the contrary, this study has demonstrated that access to land or increased land is not the core of the debate. One of the respondents reflected at length about the importance of land to solve the social ills of hunger, poverty and starvation among South Africa's black population and commented as follows:

Land is meant to feed the nation. Black people depend on land to survive. It is a heritage for the generations to come. Even if we don’t have money, we could not suffer from starvation as long as we have land. Land is an important asset that

164 needs to be effectively utilised to produce more food. The life of a black person depends on the land. It is important to start using the land to alleviate hunger” (Respondent interviewed, 10 May 2017).

Rather, the issue lies in the complexity of social, economic and demographic factors that have limited subsistence farmers in the eMjikweni Village to engage in food production or abandon farming entirely. This, according to the findings of this study, is the fundamental basis for land in the rural landscape of the Eastern Cape lying uncultivated for more than thirty years in many cases. The land, this thesis argues, is readily available to be used productively, yet, rural communities are unable to use it due to lack of necessary resources. Bernstein (1992) and Khapayi (2016) concur with the finding wherein they found a positive correlation between the provision of adequate resources and assets and increased agricultural production and sustainable rural development.

6.2.3 Household approaches to food production

Hart (2008) argues that agriculture is both a social and economic activity that plays an important role in the country’s economy and household food security. Socially, agriculture improves the standard of living of the people by improving household food security status. While economically, higher yields would improve the economic benefits of the households and the country through domestic sales and exports, as well as alleviating poverty at a household level. However, a pre-requisite to the defined role of agriculture that Hart (2008) describes that the household should first attain sustainable food production to improve its household food security status before embarking on a commercial venture.

South Africa’s National Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (DAFF) (2011) defines food security as the ability of individuals to obtain sufficient food on a day-to-day basis. Internationally, food security is defined as the ability of people to secure adequate food. There are various conditions to be met for households to qualify as being food secure; the food available for household must be shared according to individual needs; the food must be of sufficient variety, quality and safe food to be consumed and each member must be of good health status in order to benefit from the food consumed. Therefore, the household as the production unit must be able to produce enough food for their family members.

165 The World Food Program (WFP) (2018) argues that households are considered food secure when they have availability and adequate access at all times to sufficient, safe, nutritious food to maintain a healthy and active life. Conversely, food analysts focus on the combination of the three main elements of household food security: food availability, food access and food utilisation. For any household to be regarded as food secure, food must be made available in sufficient quantities and on a consistent basis. The food can either be produced by the family or sourced somewhere through trade or aid. Households must have access to food and must be able to regularly acquire adequate quantities of food, through purchase, home production, barter, gifts, borrowing, or food aid. The food that is consumed or utilised must have a positive nutritional impact on people. This entails cooking, storage and hygiene practices, individual’s health, water and sanitation, feeding and sharing practices within the household.

Against a backdrop of an ageing female population undertaking the bulk of agricultural activities in eMjikweni Village, the heavy reliance on social grants, uncultivated land due to environmental and financial constraints and limited access to agricultural inputs, this study further explored with the respondents, the extent to which under the circumstances households are able to achieve and/or sustain food security. First, study respondents were asked to describe their primary activities and agricultural farming practices system in the past twenty years. The study found that the whole community of eMjikweni practises mixed farming, which by definition, is the combination of crop production, poultry and dairy farming. This form of agricultural activity was the most practised form of subsistence farming during the study’s fieldwork. Livestock farming and crop production were the dominant agricultural activities, which have always been practised for decades. In Chapter Five, the findings of the study asserted that only 12% of village respondents were satisfied with the household’s ability to feed itself. Most of the respondents conceded that:

We are not satisfied with the yield we are producing but we are unable to feed our families for the whole year. We plant a variety of crops including maize beans, squash, pumpkins, vegetable, cabbage, spinach, and beetroot. We have also been rearing a few domestic animals and livestock …but it is never enough to feed us all (Respondent interviewed, 30 May 2017).

166 The study respondents were asked about how many times individual households took their meals per day. The study found out that most households ate one meal a day, the evening meal. Breakfast was mainly tea with bread if available. It is common amongst Xhosa households to bake their own bread rather than purchase from the market. This explains why flour was the one food item on the shopping list of all households interviewed in the study. However, an unforeseen limitation encountered in the study was in ascertaining the nutritional value of meals eaten by households. This made it difficult to confirm the nutritional content of the food consumed by households despite attempts to explain the basic elements of a balanced meal. A likely explanation could be that respondents felt a discomfort in disclosing the specifics of the meals they eat, the proportions thereof and frequency as most of them knew the researcher as a resident of the same village. It is likely that they deemed this embarrassing information to divulge.

Case Study 6.4: Makhulu MaRadebe (WHEN FOOD IS NOT ENOUGH) Makhulu MaRadebe is 71 years old, born in a village close to Durban but married Mr Ndlovu from the eMikweni Village. Widowed for 11 years, Makhulu lives with three teenage grandchildren (all boys) and three great-grandchildren between the ages of three and eight. She used to have communal fields when her husband was alive and they planted maize until 1992 when it started to become unsustainable. Makhulu has a garden that grows spinach and pumpkin, but because the teenage boys are lazy to help in the garden it is neglected, as she is no longer able to bend and cultivate for herself due to back and knee pains. Feeding her household of six children is very hard for several reasons. First, she is not receiving any financial support towards caring for the teenage boys. Her own pension has to cover food purchases, school fees and other requirements, transport, burial society payments and servicing a few small loans. Second, of the three great-grandchildren only one gets a grant that Makhulu has access to. The mothers of the other two went to Cape Town with the children’s social grant cards. Makhulu MaRadebe realises the need for the children in her custody to have food, but also, it must be nutritious. However, her budget does not permit her to keep a balanced diet. She therefore makes trade-offs in terms of her core basic food items. Her monthly grocery list includes flour to make bread, cooking oil, tea, sugar, maize meal, and samp and sugar beans (to prepare traditional dish of umngqusho). With these items, she is unable to provide a balanced meal to her children; the food is mostly a carbohydrate diet with spinach during summer season. The family eats that meal once a day. In the course of the day, what is available in measured amounts is bread and black sugary tea to sustain their energy.

167 While Case study 6.4 resonates with the testimonies of others in this study and in other studies (see Baiphethi & Jacobs, 2009) on how unemployment with social grant dependency influences household budgets and decision-making, the case study of Makhulu MaRadebe is also testimony to how households have to make certain trade- offs to ensure there is food to eat with basic elements of nutritious value. With an overwhelming number of respondents unemployed (98%) and dependent on (child and old-age) social grants to sustain their livelihoods, the choices made on household food production are very limited, if at all:

These days it is even difficult to hire donkeys to cultivate the homestead gardens with the social grant money. There are just too many things to pay for. A tractor is not an option, but even donkeys we cannot afford … we can’t plant” (Respondent interviewed, 08 May 2017).

South Africa’s first National Development Plan of 2010 commits to ensuring household food and nutrition security being attained by 2013. Yet, very little has been delivered on this promise as one of the respondents noted:

Lack of fencing is the main reason why we have decided to abandon the fields and opted to cultivate homestead gardens … If government can provide fencing as they promise on TV to improve rural areas, we can start cultivating our fields again ... (Respondent Interviewed, 12 May 2017).

The collapse of subsistence farming in the eMjikweni Village has had a negative impact on household food security and living standards of the rural poor, whether they realise it or not. With 98% of study respondents unemployed, the food security of village households is even more compromised as they have little recourse to grow their own food.

With the underlying assumption in this study, the literature in general and South African policy (including the National Development Plan) being that a solution to household food security is subsistence food production for self-provisioning, the study, therefore, explored this option with respondents in order to establish the extent to which it is indeed an option. A few respondents, albeit a small number (2%), did not see food production as a viable alternative any longer. The perception by these respondents related to how times had changed, an issue of competing lifestyles to be discussed later in this chapter:

168 Times have changed. People no longer depend on subsistence farming to feed their families as it was the case before. We are living in the modern times now where agriculture is no longer the main source of our livelihood as it was for our fathers and forefathers. This is why you see the level of agricultural activity has declined drastically (Respondent interviewed, 02 May 2017).

This perspective is perhaps a far more realistic, practical view of the current status quo in rural villages of the Eastern Cape. It also highlights the crux of why many government programmes are not working. Over the decades, as social organisation, family configurations and market forces all influenced rural economies and communities; an unintended consequence has been the onslaught of an agrarian livelihood that today doesn’t work for some rural folk. It in fact is no longer even a considered option for them, despite access to land. This view is corroborated by McAllister (1998) who first observed the prevailing phenomenon of market dependency for food supplies in the rural villages of the former homeland of Transkei. Respondents in the eMjikweni Village conceded that they have enough land to produce food in homestead gardens and in the communal fields. But, the socio- economic circumstances of the respondents have placed limitations on the use of land, or a complete disinterest in using the land at their disposal productively to produce food to feed their families:

We do have access to large tracts of land in the communal areas, as well as homestead gardens. Nevertheless, the challenge is to use the available land productively. At the present moment, we do not cultivate communal fields any longer except for few community members who joined cooperatives, which cultivate few hectares. I doubt we can ever get back to the state of subsistence agriculture that we once had. Even trying, is just a waste of money (Respondent interviewed, 3 April 2017).

“Even trying is just a waste of money…” This statement by one of the respondents provides deep insight into the extent to which government can successfully mobilise a new rural proletariat to lead the campaign for food security through sustainable subsistence agriculture. Unless South Africa’s land debate takes into account a holistic approach of all vestiges of subsistence agriculture, the land debate will not achieve much even after substantial investments made.

169 6.2.4 Community empowerment through cooperatives

The agricultural development community of practice at large of national governments, international development agencies and policymakers agree that co-operatives are an important tool for improving food security. As a result, co-operatives have become central in many development projects and goals that are aimed at alleviating poverty. More specifically, agricultural co-operatives play an important role in food production, distribution and in supporting long-term food security. Co-operatives can create productive employment, raise income and help to reduce poverty. Some agricultural co-operatives improve farm productivity by obtaining inputs at low cost, encouraging sustainable farming techniques and developing members' management and organisational skills. However, the findings of the study revealed that co-operatives were not a viable option for food production and subsequent poverty alleviation due to a high failure rate in the communities. The life cycle of the project in the village was very short due to in fighting emanating from lack of training in group dynamics, general management of the project as well as lack of marketing skills. The level of education of the respondents can also contribute to the high failure rate of projects in the village.

170 Case Study 6.5: Tata Mvoko (RURAL PROJECTS GONE WRONG) Tata Mvoko is a subsistence farmer in the village of eMjikweni. He is 66 years old, married with four grown children. Of seven grandchildren three teenage grandsons live with him and four great-grandchildren. His wife is 59 years old and also actively participates in the household’s agricultural activities. A former migrant labourer, Mvoko and his family have always relied on labour remittances to supplement farm production; even after he retired, the remittances from three of his children have been a significant source of income. Growing up, Tata Mvoko recalls that all households planted their fields and were allowed no more than seven herds of cattle per household. It was mandatory then to keep a minimum number of cattle as a cattle-culling strategy by authorities of the time in order to manage overgrazing and land productivity. Households, he recalls, organised themselves into work parties to get cultivation, weeding and harvesting done in record time. Similarly, even as a community, they organised themselves into work parties to assist each other so that no household lags behind, especially the households with less cattle. After the decline in agricultural development, after 1994, Mvoko recalls how the democratic government’s new Department of Social Development introduced a series of poverty alleviation projects in the area, with the aim of developing the local communities and boosting food security. The community was keen to participate with Mvoko being amongst the first to participate in the new rural projects. Less labour intensive for him and his wife, was poultry production. They started a poultry farm, which produced enough eggs to sell to the local and nearby communities. For a year or two, this seemed to sustain them, but slowly this project began to fail. Looking back, Mvoko realises that the project failed because government had not thought the project through carefully in terms of providing training in poultry farming, basic business skills and marketing. To this day the project has never been resuscitated nor has the Department of Social Development been back to assess the project’s success (or failure).

Armed with good intentions to correct the injustices of the past, the first 5-10 years of democratic South Africa were flooded with fragmented, uncoordinated programmes and projects under the policy umbrella of the Rural Development Programme (RDP). Focus in urban areas was on addressing housing as a basic human right. In rural areas, a smattering of rural (development) projects was also undertaken. The case study of Tata Mvoko demonstrates how well intended projects to develop rural economies were implemented. In retrospect, what is known now was not known then, that a rural project should encompass the whole private, public and infrastructure value chain of land and agriculture (Gumede, 2019).

Shackleton and Hamer (2010) identify a fundamental gap in the introduction of innovations to rural communities, that is, that there is a tendency for state-driven interventions to take on a top-down approach without involving or understanding the rural community dynamics concerned. The rural voice does not get heard, nor are local

171 rural contexts understood by government, development partners and extension services in implementing new approaches that will enhance agricultural production. Mvoko’s testimony is a clear example of a project parachuted into eMjikweni without due diligence made of skills sets available or market availability, which resonates with the findings of Dyalvane (2015) that one of the key factors that hinder progress in agricultural cooperatives in the Eastern Cape is the lack of capacity building. According to a baseline study conducted by South Africa’s Department of Trade and Industry in 2009 (DTI, 2009), it was found that lack of business and technical skills in agricultural cooperatives are some of the principal causes of the poor performance or failure even of cooperatives. A number of study respondents attested to this:

We took time to understand cooperatives or even find interest in them because we had seen many cooperatives fail due to infighting between the members who also didn’t know what government wanted them to do. People joined cooperatives, but were not trained … they don’t know what to do and it failed … I am still very reluctant to join … (Respondent interviewed, 05 May 2017).

Hailed as a vehicle of rural agricultural development, the rural agricultural cooperative and its effectiveness became an object for exploration in this study. The study probed respondents’ views, perceptions and experience of cooperatives, as an effort of empowering the community of eMjikweni and assisting in enhancing and promoting subsistence agriculture for food production and food security. The findings of the study found that there were broadly two perspectives:

Firstly, besides a few ad hoc rural projects like the poultry project that Tata Mvoko had participated in, a few unsuccessful attempts at forming cooperatives in the village had been made. However, only one cooperative has remained active, the eMjikweni Maize Project, formed in 2016 with membership of only 15% of the study respondents. Its members enjoyed benefits derived from the cooperative unevenly.

Secondly, an overwhelming majority of 85% of the respondents had not joined the eMjikweni Maize Project because they could not afford the joining fee of R1, 800. The community had seen its shortcomings such as the administration of the programmes, their assimilation into the community, the transaction costs involved, which did not provide an incentive for them to join, despite an initial keen interest.

172 6.2.4.1 A perspective from inside the eMjikweni Maize Project

During this research study, it was ascertained that only one agricultural cooperative existed. Others had been formed but quickly died out. The eMjikweni Maize Project is currently the only cooperative in the village. Established in 2016, it consists of only fifteen members – a very small number when you compare how many subsistence farming households in the village:

… Only people with financial means that are able to afford expenses for farm operations and for hiring labour are able to join the cooperatives … I was not able to join due to lack of financial resources. The high cost of joining the project, is not attracting enough membership for the project (Respondent interviewed, 29 April 2017).

To join the cooperative, an upfront payment of R1,800 is required. Annual payments of R1,800 are payable by the end of the winter season. For the 15-member cooperative, resources are pooled together to support only one hectare each of a member’s fields through tractor hire, seeds, fertiliser and the employ of casual labour to ward off stray livestock. The cooperative funds are not enough to erect fencing for its members.

The government, through the Department of Rural Development and Land Reform, has made an attempt to assist the cooperative through the provision of manure and insecticide to spray the crops during the planting season. However, the support of government in this case constrains cooperative member households to the cultivation of maize only. Cooperative members interviewed in this study indicated how government extension officers discouraged them from intercropping:

There are some benefits to joining the cooperative because we get seed, pesticide and limited tractor hire. The problem though is that the cooperative only helps you to plough one hectare of crops. It becomes useless to plant the rest. But, a bigger problem is that extension officers do not want us to practise inter-crop – we don’t know why. It is a problem for us because intercropping gives us diversity of crops to plant (Respondent interviewed 27 April, 2017).

Despite this limitation, members of the cooperative were enjoying the benefits of subsidised, even free inputs, from government:

… It is only us members of the community project that receive support from government in the form of fertilisers, seeds and chemicals. I am one of the

173 members of the newly formed community cooperative which receives inputs from government for free (Respondent interviewed, 11 May 2017).

What did not come out very clearly in the study was what the cooperative’s long- term strategy is to assist other households to join and share in the benefits as a community, thus strengthening its muscle to buy and sell crops. It was also not very clear to cooperative members what their sustainability plan would be when government exits or withdraws its support. It clearly did not seem as if there were any formal discussions between government and beneficiaries. Rather, government support was not only unpredictable, but not consultative.

With members of the eMjikweni Maize Project, the researcher undertook a SWOT Analysis of the Cooperative, even though at the time of conducting research the cooperative was only a year old. Figure 6.3 therefore indicates early signs of what the strengths, weaknesses, threats and opportunities of this fledgling cooperative are.

174

EMJIKWENI MAIZE PROJECT

SWOT ANALYSIS – MAY 2017

STRENGTHS WEAKNESSES • availability of agricultural equipment, • inadequate and inconsistent supply of agricultural inputs inputs • age of cooperative members • lack of training of cooperative members • cooperative organization • Inconsistent extension services • government assistance • lack of purchasing power of cooperative • provision of extension services members • absence of consultative platform with government to improve support • support confined to limited land acreage • support confine to food production for household consumption not for sale

THREATS OPPORTUNITIES • weak management systems • Collective price bargaining (seed, • illiteracy of cooperative members fertiliser, transport and storage) • lack of income to sustain membership • increased agricultural production • Old age • income • Lack of new membership due to • government assistance unaffordability of joining fees • easy market access • No access to markets • agricultural training • promotion of culture and unity through various social and religious activities within cooperative members that enhances cooperation

Source: Fieldwork 2017 Figure 6.3: SWOT analysis of the eMjikweni Village’s Maize Project

While still too early to tell, given that the eMjikweni Maize Project was only a year old at the time of conducting this fieldwork, it was already clear to its members that certain adjustments should be made in terms of how government re-designs its support intervention. The eMjikweni Maize Project in the village will not contribute to food security due to a number of challenges which include persistent soil erosion, unavailability of water, limited labour to assist in growing food, and more importantly, lack of fencing which reverses any gains as stray animals destroy their crops. Such challenges are a threat to the sustainability and continuity of the cooperative. Currently, government assistance to most of the approximately 50 crop production- based agricultural co-operatives in the Eastern Cape is deficient since it does not

175 cover all the resources required by beneficiaries, the village farmers. The eMjikweni Maize Project still has a long way to go in raising adequate funds, developing institutional management, sufficient skills and infrastructure to carry out agricultural activities effectively. In conclusion, the agricultural cooperative as a vehicle to enhance food production and food security has not even begun to address the problem of under-utilised cropland in the study area of the Eastern Cape.

6.2.4.2 Perspectives from outside the eMjikweni Maize Project

While only 15 members of the community enjoyed the benefits of the eMjikweni Maize Project, the vast majority of study respondents confirmed that in general there is a lack of understanding on the role of cooperatives in agriculture. Despite that in 2004 the Department of Trade and Industry had enacted legislation to promote cooperatives in South Africa, there is still little of this information available to the general public like the community of eMjikweni. The DTI has not considered the channels of making available information on cooperatives. While available on their website, DTI has failed to take into account that rural communities do not have access to internet, let alone the basic know-how on how to surf the internet. Packaging and distributing information in palatable and accessible format are some of the serious gaps identified between government and the rural population it serves.

The study sought to stablish the views of those subsistence farmers who were unable to join the eMjikweni Maize Project in order to establish whether they viewed the cooperative as a vehicle to reclaim the uncultivated fields in the village, notwithstanding their inability to join because of financial constraints. The study found that the general lack of understanding of cooperatives, coupled with social norms that render them submissive to authority, in this case, government officials, often made them uneasy and reluctant to engage in with government-related projects. The approach of government officials was seen by respondents as intimidating rather than approachable. In fact, some of the respondents went so far as to say government officials have “unbecoming behaviour” and are disrespectful. While this may have an element of truth, it may also be a result of different cultures of doing business between rural (mostly elderly) communities and government (mostly young and urbanised) officials. It nonetheless was sufficient cause for respondents to shy away from seeking advice from government officials or participating in their interventions. For the

176 researcher, this was a significant methodological and cultural component to be factored into the design and implementation of government programme interventions, if they are to succeed. This sentiment of the study respondents is a significant one considering the desired approach adopted by the Mhlontlo Municipality’s “Back-to- Basics Programme” which seeks to put people and their concerns first and ensure constant contact with communities through effective public participation platforms.

Respondents in this study further confirmed a level of mistrust of government officials because of the general lack of visibility of extension support in the rural areas. Women, as the active population group, should by now have been equipped with the necessary skills to enhance and broaden their farming knowledge to improve productivity and enhance food security of the rural poor. The improved agricultural productivity would also require additional labour to expand farming operations, thereby creating jobs to ease government’s burden of joblessness in South Africa. This has not happened, and once again can be noted as a glaring rural policy gap in agricultural development. This apparent disjoint between government and rural communities, coupled with what community members viewed as a top-down approach, is a justifiable reason for study respondents to opt out of joining a cooperative, notwithstanding the joining fee which they cannot afford. This implies that if government officials, their programme and approach, were more approachable, study respondents would make an effort to raise the required R1 800.00 to join the cooperative which currently they are not inspired to do.

This study in eMjikweni Village also found that generally the cooperative does not take into account the fact that over 80% of women are the primary drivers of agricultural activities. Despite the fact that women constitute the majority of farmers in the village, the cooperative has failed to address the needs of women in particular, nor has government considered gender issues in the agribusiness model that it is promoting with the cooperative. As one of the women commented:

We don’t see the need to go and borrow for money to join a cooperative that does not recognise the fact that, we women are the most farmers in this village. If they cannot address our challenges, joining (the cooperative) is just a waste of money (Respondent interviewed, 09 May 2017).

177 Government support concentrated on a few community members who were part of the maize production initiative of the cooperative. Most subsistence farmers are interested in diversifying their farming activities. The focus of cooperatives on maize production only was also a serious deterrent for many respondents:

I would like assistance in getting government tractors, implements, start-up capital to buy inputs such as fertilisers, insecticides, and vegetable seeds. Government cannot force me to plant maize only. I would also want to be given start-up capital to start cattle farming, a piggery, as well as chicken farming, to earn money (Respondent interviewed, 11 May 2017).

The current policy and donor-driven narrative, that promotes a transformation of subsistence farming in favour of modern mechanised commercial, albeit, smallholder farming through cooperatives as one of the solutions has proven not to work in the eMjikweni Village. The only agricultural cooperative in a village with large tracts of uncultivated land, is failing to revitalise meaningful food production because of its myopic support for maize production only while also failing to target and provide locally-adapted assistance to smallholder farmers, especially women farmers – who are currently insufficiently prioritised (ActionAid, 2013). While the underlying principles of the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) are not unique to Africa, with globally accepted principles aimed towards improved agricultural development and better food security, this study found that it is still premature in certain rural communities of South Africa to advocate for sustainable subsistence agriculture for food security, without addressing the basic elements of fair access agricultural inputs, assets and skills development through a gender equitable basis, driven primarily by the people. Unless this happens, the ploughing field in the rural landscape of Eastern Cape will continue to lie fallow.

6.2.5 The role of infrastructure in food production in the eMjikweni Village

Agriculture contributes to rural development as not only an economic activity and a livelihood, but also as a provider of environmental services – making agriculture a unique sector and a pillar that undergirds development, especially rural development (Chakwizira, Nhemachena & Mashiri, 2010). Chakwizira et.al. (2010) in their study on connecting transport, agriculture and development in the Mhlontlo Local Municipality, make a very compelling argument for improved road infrastructure as the bedrock for stimulated agricultural development in the municipality. They argue decisively for

178 infrastructural development in terms of roads and dams that will realise increased agricultural production, job creation, cheaper and easier access to markets and lower transaction costs, higher disposable income and improved quality of life (see Figure 6.4).

Source: Adapted from World Development Report (2008) and Chakwizira et.al (2010) Figure 6.4: Basic outcomes of the linkage between rural infrastructure, agriculture and development

While this study did not seek to explore rural infrastructure as a prerequisite for agricultural development, market linkages and rural economic growth, the concern of infrastructure was an explicit factor in the inquiry of subsistence farming in the eMjikweni Village. The focus being on why croplands remain uncultivated prompted respondents to focus on fencing, an irrigation system and building of dams, as well as water shortage for human consumption and vegetable cultivation. As already mentioned in Chapter Five and in this chapter, the majority of respondents are

179 concerned about lack of fencing of communal fields. Further to soil erosion, which grossly affects the productivity of their fields, respondents were concerned about how lack of fencing has encouraged stray animals to destroy their crops. This was cited as another major reason why fields have since been abandoned. For the purpose of this study, a look into the role of infrastructure was therefore confined to issues raised by respondents, these being lack of fencing, access roads and an irrigation system in the communal fields. Fencing in particular was highlighted by respondents as the major contributing factor to the current demise of subsistence farming in the communal fields of eMjikweni Village. The request for assistance from government to fence fields so that they can resume crop production more intensively remains a resounding call by villagers in eMjikweni as echoed by some respondents:

Lack of fencing in the communal fields is the primary factor that hinders the effective use of our crop fields. It limits us from producing food in the communal fields for our families (Respondent interviewed, 30 April 2017).

Lack of fencing is the main reason why we have decided to abandon the fields and opted to cultivate homestead gardens. If government can provide fencing, we can start cultivating the fields (Respondent interviewed, 12 May 2017).

The expressed concern of the eMjikweni community is one that finds itself in the enshrined mandate of the government’s Comprehensive Rural Development Programme (CRDP), which defines rural agricultural land, especially communal land, as a public good. The CRDP was launched in August 2009 and aimed at “creating vibrant, equitable and sustainable rural communities” through inter alia, the provision of fencing, water and road infrastructure, promotion of household gardens, water- harvesting and youth training in agriculture. Yet by 2017, the CRDP programme objectives had not been realised in eMjikweni. According to the Parliamentary Monitoring Group (PMG) in a briefing to parliament’s National Council of Provinces (NCOP) on the 7th February 2011, the Department of Rural Development and Land Reform reported that in the Mhlontlo Local Municipality the progress made was towards developing an agri-park. This happened despite the municipality having identified challenges in rural infrastructure for improved food production (www.pmg.za (accessed 30 July 2019)).

180 While it may be argued that the community should fence its own fields, a counter- argument in their favour is that prior to the democratic dispensation of 1994, in the former homeland of Transkei with the assistance of the nationalist government, the government of the day was responsible for erecting fences as part of the enforced demarcation of zoned land for residential, pasture and communal fields. Manona (2005) argues that their land categorisation model was based on priority of land use and productivity of the land used by rural black communities. Firstly, priority by the National party was land use for residential purposes and other livelihood-related activities like gardening and livestock husbandry. Secondly, priority was given to demarcation and fencing of the commonage, which was the area demarcated for grazing and arable allotments, referred to in isiXhosa as ‘intsimi’ which are used for crop production. The result of the land reallocations of the 1913 Native Lands Act placed the onus on the state to fence off the large tracts of land demarcated as a public good. To this day, the arrangement still applies, except that the fencing fell decades ago, in the case of eMjikweni, more than thirty years ago. With no resources to repair fencing or erect new fencing, crops were fair game for stray livestock. For this reason farmers ceased to plant crops:

In the olden days there was a fence erected to demarcated grazing land, fields and residential plots. Members of the rural communities were encouraged to use gates to protect the fence from damage. To enforce the rule, the local authorities hired two rangers in the village to preserve the fence from being destroyed by villagers. Decades later, the farm ranger system was abolished in the former homeland of Transkei. The fence was subsequently destroyed and later stolen by the villagers. The field crops became vulnerable to stray animals (Respondent interviewed, 04 May 2017).

Another respondent reiterated the same sentiments that:

… After the fence was stolen from the communal fields, it became very difficult to continue ploughing the fields under such conditions and the problem still persists even today. We can never afford to fence such large tracts of land even if we tried (Respondent interviewed, 10 May 2017).

The study found only one respondent, a female subsistence farmer, who with the help of her grown working children was able to fence her allocated crop fields in the communal area from their joint savings. However, she soon found the fence had been removed. She shared her frustrations and the pain she had to go through in trying to protect her crops from livestock damage as follows:

181 I decided to put a fence around my share of communal fields. For 3 hectares of land I paid almost R7000 for fencing from a farmer near Butterworth where my son works. We saved the money over six months. But some community members kept on destroying my fence so that their livestock can feed on my crops too. I decided to put down my fence and stopped using the fields. What is left of it is stored in one of my rondavels – I will see what to do (Respondent interviewed, 10 May 2017).

The various accounts by the respondents in eMjikweni Village highlighted not only a lack of or poor infrastructure development in rural South Africa but also a lack of political will by government to provide infrastructural support to rural communities. (See also Khapayi, 2016; Khapayi & Celliers, 2016; Sender, 2016; McAllister, 2008; Andrew et al., 2003; Andrew & Fox, 2010; Leahy, 2011;Hall & Aliber, 2010). Costly agricultural inputs, environmental factors, household labour constraints and lack of basic infrastructure are only some of the more solvable constraints that hinder revitalisation of subsistence agriculture in the rural Eastern Cape.

Lack of capital and infrastructural investment directed towards the development of subsistence agriculture in South Africa are major obstacles to subsistence agriculture, in what Chakwizira et.al. (2010) call an “agricultural investment dilemma”. The dilemma, it is argued, is caused by the slow and delayed returns on investment in agriculture which make governments and donors struggle to attract investment. Yet, such investment initiatives would foster economic growth through capital expenditure in building of roads for easy access to crop fields, ease of transportation of the produce, the provision of fencing, the building of dams and irrigation systems. In the study, findings suggest that for lack of fencing villagers have abandoned their fields for well over three decades. As result of this challenge, households have shifted focus from cultivation of crop fields to cultivation of homestead gardens, which are on a far smaller scale, yet still they too lack fencing and are still at risk by stray livestock:

Fencing of our homestead gardens is not of good standard, and therefore, we are requesting government to assist in fencing of household’s gardens like mine. I am struggling to buy inputs for fencing. Another request as the community to government is the provision of subsidised tractors, clean drinking water for consumption, livestock and agricultural activities during the period of droughts and in winter seasons (Respondent interviewed, 03 May 2017).

The CRDP of 2009 in its strategic plan highlighted the critical role of what it defines economic infrastructure in speeding up rural livelihoods. Support to rural gardens is

182 one such element of rural economic infrastructure (Department of Rural Development & Land Reform, 2009). It is on this basis that villagers still express a desire for assistance from government in view of the promises of the CRDP, Mhlontlo local municipality being one of the CRDP’s 21 project sites nationally:

The provision of infrastructure including fence, dams and installation of the irrigation system using the Tsitsa River would enhance our food production ... all we ask as a community is for farming implements, irrigation system, building of dams for the livestock as well as the provision of training on livestock and crop production (Respondent interviewed 10 May 2017).

The concerns raised by respondents in the eMjikweni Village are valid concerns raised by many subsistence farmers across the country as identified by the work of Khapayi and Celliers (2016); Sender (2016); McAllister (2008); Andrew et al. (2003); Andrew and Fox (2010) and Leahy (2011). South Africa’s rural poor lack proper physical, economic and social infrastructure such as roads, agricultural inputs, irrigation systems and fencing just as some of the fundamental requirements of a sustainable agricultural system. Unless these needs are addressed, the playing field for the Black subsistence farmer will continue to be uneven, and any hopes of revitalising a vibrant rural agricultural economy will be but a pipe dream.

6.2.6 Household labour for agricultural production

Chapter Five has already discussed how labour migration patterns out of the rural Eastern Cape have affected household labour dynamics. As more and more able- bodied and youthful members of households migrate to urban areas in search of employment to supplement the currently social grant-dependent household income, remaining behind are women, mostly older women and children. The domino effect of rural-urban migration is that the failure of subsistence agriculture sets in as Chapter Five and Chapter Six have demonstrated; subsistence agriculture also fails to transform itself into a sustainable food and income-generating system. This tends to lead to even higher levels of migration from the rural areas, particularly by men and youth, referred to in Chapter Five,5 as a “rite of passage” for growing men. The net effect of out-migration from the village is that of labour shortages that arise especially during planting, weeding and harvest seasons. The women who remain behind to continue subsistence production are considerably overworked in view of their wide range of responsibilities, including those that are traditionally shouldered by men

183 (Waceke & Kimenju, 2007). The situation is further exacerbated by the prolonged absence of men from their families, which has also heightened social activities that result in spread of HIV/AIDS. Studies have clearly demonstrated that HIV/AIDS is one of the major setbacks to agricultural productivity and smooth passage of knowledge and farming know-how from generation to generation (Drimie, 2002; Qamar, 2003; FAO, 2004). The aggregate of all these factors is a vicious circle of human suffering and hunger (Waceke & Kimenju, 2007). This section therefore combs through the effects of household labour on declining crop production; the effects of HIV and AIDS to a lesser extent, and the effects of an increasingly youthful population in the community.

6.2.6.1 Household labour patterns and their impact on food production

In Chapter Five it was highlighted that household members served as the unit of food production in the rural community of eMjikweni wherein traditionally, labour was not hired; instead every member of the household played different roles in the food production process. The division of labour was clearly defined by sex and age. It is important to acknowledge that subsistence farming is labour intensive in nature in order to produce food. During fieldwork discussions with respondents, it transpired that in the eMjikweni Village there is a dire shortage of labour to work the fields. The reason for this was stated upfront that it was that those left behind in the village who are actively engaged in agricultural activities are too old to work the land alone. This was confirmed in Chapter Five wherein 77% of the study respondents were over the age of 45, and 53% of them were over the age of 55.

The results of this research study confirm a global trend of the “greying farmer” as it revealed a disproportionately higher percentage of older people who were actively involved in subsistence agricultural work. The majority of respondents in this study were the elderly. The findings confirm the prediction made by Littlejohn (1977) in the 1970s that the aging structure of farmers as a global phenomenon will translate into fewer opportunities to pass the baton to the younger generation. It can be perceived that the aging structure is also affected by an intergenerational gap as youth filter very slowly into the subsistence agricultural sector as discussed later in this chapter. The views of a study respondent best capture this trend:

184 Persistent droughts and stock theft have contributed to the loss of many cattle in this village … it has affected our livelihood as rural people because we depended on cattle to cultivate the land. Nevertheless, I am among the few people in this village who still own a large herd of cattle and yet my children are not even interested in learning how to plough using cattle, in fact they are not interested in any agricultural activities. In our culture, it was a norm growing up that during the planting season, everybody, both young and old, men and women, were involved in the agricultural activities. Not anymore. Now, I am forced to use tractors to cultivate my garden because there is nobody to help. The children are not interested yet to hire a tractor is very expensive (Respondent interviewed, 04 May 2017).

Wen and Zhou (2015) in their analysis of the impact of an ageing Chinese labour population on agricultural production raise four critical factors that influence reduction in agricultural production by an ageing farming population. Firstly, physical strength is required for agricultural production after middle age declines; older farmers are able to do less work a day in the field. Secondly, the introduction of technological development in agricultural activities is the limiting factor, as agricultural production requires not only labour input, but also technological development. An ageing population is less likely to embrace technology and new methods of production, which subsequently affect crop yield. Thirdly, agricultural knowledge and skills in agriculture are an important resource to circumvent production, operation, and management decline where the farming population is ageing because they are less likely to embrace the knowledge and skills needed to maximise the efficient use of agricultural input, such as pesticides and fertilizers is diminished with age. Lastly, land provides a basis for agricultural production. The size of land cultivated determines output. As farmers have less labour to rely on, their choice of acres to cultivate also gets smaller due to constraints of growing older and being able to do less physical work as depicted by case study 6.6. As less acreage is cultivated, production drops.

185 Case Study 6.6: Makhulu Nombini (AN AGEING SUSBSISTENCE FARMER) Makhulu Nombini is 66 years old. She was born in Bizana and moved to eMjikweni when she got married. She remembers how as a young bride, there was always plenty of work to do in the village. While some ploughed the fields, others cooked to feed the work parties or did household chores. In this way, work was done more efficiently and more productively. As children and even as young brides everybody knew the role they had to play in making the household agricultural economy work. Only after the men started to leave for the cities did the problems begin. But even then, because they would send money home, she and the other women in the family were still able to hire casual labour to close the labour gap created by migration. Today Makhulu Nombini has abandoned her 1.5-hectare plot in the communal fields because she has nobody to assist her with farming it. Her husband is too old to work in the fields. He is 75 years old and suffers from arthritis. Her three sons all live in Johannesburg and come home during vacation. Their children live with them in Johannesburg. Theirs is an urban lifestyle. Makhulu Nombini lives with two teenage boys, children of a distant relative, who are always busy with school work or playing soccer. They only help her in feeding the chickens and fetching water. Makhulu has to tend to the garden by herself. It is difficult to bend at her age; she plants a smaller portion of her garden than she should. At her age she cannot stand for long, and has to rest often, which means she gets a little done each day. Even pushing a wheelbarrow is quite an effort for her as her physical strength dwindles with age. If she were younger she says she would get far more work done, plant more and produce more.

6.2.6.2 The impact of HIV/AIDS on food production

The HIV/AIDS pandemic presents a major threat to food security and agricultural production in rural communities of South Africa. According to the Mhlontlo Local Municipality’s IDP review of 2018-19, it is estimated that 9.63% of the municipality’s population was infected with HIV in 2018, a decrease from 11.1% in 2011 (Mhlontlo Local Municipality, 2019). HIV/AIDS prompts a downward spiral in the welfare of a family as health care expenses increase, productivity declines and family assets decrease as they are sold to care for the sick and pay for funeral expenses (Waceke & Kimenju, 2007). Though the impact of HIV/AIDS was not addressed in any specific manner during the fieldwork of this study, it inevitably came up in discussions of household labour and the impact of financial resources of the household:

We have lost many family members in this community to this disease. I don’t think any family here can say it has not touched them. It affects us all because we are left with no income if that member who died was a breadwinner. We cannot do much anymore to plant, or to take care of the family. It is a terrible thing this AIDS; it affects everything in the family (Respondent commenting in Group Discussion. May 2017)

186 The decrease in labour force also leads to a reduction in the area under cultivation, the number of crops grown and therefore farm productivity (Drimie, 2002; Qamar, 2003). Waceke and Kimenju (2007) also note that HIV/AIDS is responsible for the loss of local knowledge on farming know-how which is passed on from generation to generation. The story of Mama Mbuli (Case Study 6.7) confirms.

Case Study 6.7: Mama Mbuli (THE IMPACT OF HIV/AIDS) Mama Mbuli is 59 years old and lives with five grand-children. Until her daughters died, Mama Mbuli worked as a domestic worker in East London, while they worked the household farm in the village. Three of her grandchildren lost their parents not more than five years ago. She does not know the cause of their death, but suspects it was AIDS. Both her daughters who died were very active in the family’s farming venture. They assisted in ploughing the homestead gardens when they were home and sent money also to assist MaMbuli to hire labour. But when they started to fall ill, one after the other, they had to come home to be taken care of by MaMbuli. She had to nurse them like children over eight consecutive years. In those eight years, MaMbuli was not able to do any farming. It is twelve years now that her homestead garden has produced nothing. It is hard for her to start again because there is very little left after taking care of household needs. Compounding the problem further is the fact that her daughters understood farming better than Mama did. Now she has to re-learn some basics of food growing.

6.2.6.3 The contribution of youth to food production

… Youth are lazy and lack interest in agricultural activities. Children of today do not regard subsistence farming as the livelihood … they think agriculture-related activities should be done by us, older people. They are also to blame for the labour shortages we face, because they are here but don’t want to help … (Respondent interviewed, 04 May 2017).

The demography of the Mhlontlo Local Municipality shows in its population pyramid, that when compared with the national age structure, the most significant differences include the fact that first, in 2015 there was a significantly smaller share of young working age people - aged 20 to 34 (25.1%) - in Mhlontlo, compared to the national percentage of 29.0%. Second, also in 2015, the municipality in general demonstrates itself as a migrant sending area, with many people leaving the area to find work in the bigger cities. Third, the share of children between the ages of 0 to 14 years is significantly larger (36.9%) in Mhlontlo compared to that of South Africa (29.2%).

187 With a youthful population, the Mhlontlo Local Municipality has an opportunity to harness agricultural skills, which would lead to increased activity in agriculture and agricultural production. Yet, many studies (e.g. Ncapayi, 2013) attest to the youth’s lack of interest and unwillingness to engage in any form of agricultural activities which poses a challenge to the municipality’s ageing population. Seeking to understand what role youth can play in claiming back communal lands in the village of eMjikweni for sustainable agricultural development, food security, job creation and entrepreneurship, the study found that youth in the village hold no interest in pursuing a livelihood they have seen fail at the hands of their elders, despite the best of efforts.

In section, 6.2.6.1 it was demonstrated how the village’s ageing population has contributed to the decline in food production as tracts of land are left unattended by the older farmers. With at least 25% of its youth being below the age of 34 in eMjikweni Village, this study also concludes the lack of interest shown by youth in agricultural activities not only as farmers in their own right, but also to assist in household agricultural activities, which subsequently contribute to further labour shortage to grow food and more land left fallow and unutilised:

Youth do not believe that one can make a living out of subsistence farming. Parents and extension officers should educate youth and community about the importance of agriculture. Youth are not convinced that job creation can be realised through working the land. They regard it as boring, belittling and backward. Instead they prefer to spend their time in local taverns (Respondent interviewed, 04 May 2017).

The focus group discussions undertaken in this study comprised only the elder respondents. Younger respondents (12% of study sample) declined to participate in the focus group discussions for unstated reasons – a possible speculation could be that the generation gap would have made for an uncomfortable experience for them. Future research must therefore take into account intergenerational age gaps that influence respondents’ abilities to participate fully in a research inquiry. In an attempt to explain the lack of interest of youth in undertaking agricultural activities or assisting their elders in farming, views from the focus group discussions included the fact that:

The present generation was born after the collapse of subsistence farming in the rural communities; hence, they had never experienced hard manual labour. To teach them the culture of farming now is too late or would be a long-term process for them to understand the importance of land-based strategies and their inherent

188 potential benefit for employment creation. There is no hope that they will ever regard subsistence farming as an important agricultural activity that has a potential of providing sustainable jobs – as long as they regard agriculture as a backward activity that should be done by elderly people not modern youth (Respondent interviewed, 04 May 2017).

When probed into how corrective action can be applied to return youth to the land as an occupation to drive agricultural production and poverty alleviation, respondents in this study were not too optimistic:

These children are not the type to waste your time on trying to convince them about the importance of agriculture; they tell us that they do not even eat maize, but rice … Once we die, the elderly generation, so will be the final demise of the subsistence agriculture in this village (Respondent interviewed, 11 May 2017).

This study highlights the fundamental reasons contributing to the current state of affairs with regard to agricultural activities, the persistently low subsistence agricultural production in the former homeland of Transkei and why many young economically active people migrating to cities would rather go in search of job opportunities than engage in subsistence farming. One young respondent, aged 33, was interviewed and he felt that subsistence farming for youth in the eMjikweni Village is simply not an option. Unfortunately, his view represents that of many youth born and raised in and migrated away from the village:

189 Case Study 6.8: Odwa Mabizela (THE YOUTH DILEMMA ON SUBSISTENCE FARMING) Odwa Mabizela is a 34-year-old young man, born and bred in the village of eMjikweni. He works for government in Pretoria, is engaged to be married and has three young children. He left the village in 2001 when his mother was transferred from Mthatha government offices to Pretoria government offices. As a young man then, he finished his secondary school in Pretoria, went to Technical College to study Information Science and then also found a job with government. He remains passionate about his village, and visits his home in eMjikweni at least once every two months, for occasional family events and during holidays. He remains rooted in his rural heritage and has assisted his mother in renovating the family home in the village. However, when asked if he would therefore consider moving back to eMjikweni with his wife and children, Odwa emphatically disagrees. The reason he gives is that eMjikweni has nothing to offer young people. He calls it a “ghost town” good enough only to establish your identity as a citizen of Xhosa descent in a small corner of South Africa called eMjikweni. Odwa laments that government has not considered its youthful population and therefore sought strategies to stimulate the rural economy so that they stay in the village. He also laments how, because there is nothing to do, many youth in the village resort to alcohol, while dreaming about also moving to the city too one day. Odwa is happy to make investments in his home village, whether in improving the family residence, its access to water, or even in farming outputs for the family garden. However, to consider eMjikweni as a career option in agriculture is not anywhere in his mind. He casually dismisses farming as an option because of the village’s infertile soil.

A negative spin-off to this backdrop is that already unutilised tracts of land will continue to remain fallow. Agnes Kalibata, President of Alliance for Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) and former Minister of Agriculture in Rwanda, sums it up very concisely when she argues that “…no child of an African subsistence farmer wants to be a farmer. For the most part, they remember farming as a trade that kept them poor …” (Mail & Guardian www.mg.co.za 15 February, 2019, and the East African www.theeastafrican.co.ke ,20 February, 2019). Yet, not all hope is lost, as this study found that there are youth who see a future in agriculture.

The case study of Zwelethu, a young farmer in the eMjikweni Village is a refreshing self-told account of how some youth understand the historical and political context to land and its ability to produce food in Eastern Cape. Zwelethu, a 31 year old married man, recognises that while the struggle is currently for land, in the village of eMjikweni it is a different struggle: one to eliminate the barriers that have caused land to go uncultivated for decades. Unlike Odwa, Zwelethu, in his own words, is cognisant of

190 the role that subsistence farming and food production can play in addressing hunger, unemployment and poverty. Though he is mindful of the shortcomings of government interventions, the story of Zwelethu narrated verbatim, in his own words brings hope that if more of his kind can be identified, supported and collaborated with, the journey out of rural poverty can begin:

Case Study 6.9: The Perspective of Zwelethu Dlomo (A 31-year-old Farmer) (YOUTH: THE HOPE OF SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURAL DEVELOPMENT) “Without agriculture our country cannot survive. Even at the household level, people cannot sustain themselves without agriculture; there is no life; people are depending or should depend on agriculture for their survival, if we can all optimise the use of land everybody can be able to survive because it can create employment and limit migration to seek jobs in other provinces. Land-based strategies alone can provide employment for those community members even who do not have ploughing land. In the old days we are told that the struggle was about the land that was taken from the Black man by the Europeans. Today, yes the struggle is still about the return of the land to the rightful owners but for us in the former homelands, especially the former Transkei region, the struggle is about returning to a culture of cultivation on the available but uncultivated fallow land. It is a different struggle for us. Communities have been knocking on government’s doors to request assistance to go back to the basics and revitalise subsistence agriculture in the villages of the former Transkei. We must go back to using the land to grow food and not depend on finding jobs and there are lots of shops that can benefit from the vegetables that are produced in our village. Even schools can benefit because there is the school feeding scheme project in schools. But to produce more, the community may require a bigger area of land and capital to sustain the different crops and vegetables that can be planted all the year round. People do not have enough understanding of the importance of land based strategies and need to be educated at least a one-day training session for communities to be educated about the importance of growing food as an economic lifestyle. But the problem is that our people are lazy. Laziness of the people can also be the reason for the lack of cultivation. It is less work to get a social grant. We also desperately need fencing for the fields to protect the fields from livestock damage. An irrigation system is even more of a priority for us. I believe these projects if introduced in the village should best target youth. The elderly in our village do not have the management or technical know-how. Government can play a big role in promoting awareness on food production in the village. We do have CWP workers but their focus is only on their own Siyazondla garden project which is not enough – we must expand our food production efforts.”

191 Unless the land debate of South Africa seriously explores how to inspire a youth agricultural entrepreneurship initiative as part of a demographic dividend, prospects of agricultural production as the bedrock of the South African economy and a vehicle out of poverty are still far out of reach.

6.2.7 The impact of water resources on food production

The lack of dams for our livestock in this village is a problem especially during the drought season. We can’t plant because of fencing and because there is no water. Even our livestock also relies on river water for drinking which is the only available source of water during the drought seasons (Respondent interviewed, 04 May 2017).

Water scarcity and access to clean drinkable water is a global crisis. The challenge of lack of clean, safe drinking water is widespread in developing countries on the African continent. One of the responsibilities of the government of South Africa through its local municipalities is to provide key basic services to rural and urban households, including the provision of water for domestic, commercial and agricultural use. In agriculture, water is central to agricultural and livestock production, national food security, as well as household food security.

South Africa’s National Development Plan, The NDP (2010), recognises that South Africa is a water-scarce country. This challenge is addressed in part through regional cooperation with neighbouring countries such as Lesotho, which is a country endowed with water resource. In fact, Stats SA (2016) recognises access to safe drinking water as a key poverty indicator, yet many local municipalities in the country are still struggling to deliver on the mandate of water as a basic service to the people of South Africa. According to Stats SA (2016), the two district municipalities still unable to provide water at required capacity are the OR Tambo District Municipality and Alfred Nzo. The Mhlontlo local municipality, under which the eMjikweni Village falls, is part of the greater OR Tambo District Municipality. With 62.3% of its population living in poverty (Mhlontlo Local Municipality, 2019) at least 58% of the Mhlontlo population still have no access to water. Water scarcity is further aggravated by the persistent droughts, which continue to affect the agricultural sector in South Africa, aggravated more by the geographic location of Mhlontlo Local Municipality situated in the dry inland of South Africa.

192 The 2014/5 droughts which hit some parts of South Africa had a devastating effect on the household food security status of the rural communities. The recent drought of 2017 affected Western Cape and some parts of the Eastern Cape Provinces, compelling them to impose water restrictions as their feeder dams’ water levels were at the lowest. In the Eastern Cape, the farming community were severely affected by the drought resulting in a high mortality of livestock. Without government support in relation to provision of basic inputs (fertilisers, seeds, chemicals, water) as well as training of rural communities on the modern agricultural technologies, land in rural areas will continue to remain fallow for a longer period.

The Mhlontlo Local Municipality continues to experience serious challenges in the provision of water to its constituencies, a fact that has serious repercussions for an already ailing subsistence agriculture sector. The village of eMjikweni and its surrounds depend on good, reliable summer rains for crop production, which have since changed drastically. The erratic weather conditions, coupled with climate change dynamics (droughts and floods) in most cases, have continued to affect delays in crop production and even contribute to lean or failed harvest for rural subsistence farmers. The unpredictable weather conditions have often led to summer rains arriving very late, way past the planting season, which has caused even lower yields or failed harvests. eMjikweni Village is still faced with serious challenges of water as the local municipality grapples with water provision backlogs in areas such as the eMjikweni community, opening up dubious opportunities for some local residents to sell unclean water to households in need:

We have been reporting to the ward councillor about lack of water in this village and we were promised that the local municipality is attending to the problem. We are forced to fetch unclean water from unprotected springs. It means we share water with our livestock. The lack of water has opened up business opportunities for local people who own bakkies (vans). Communities are hiring these bakkies to fetch water from the river at a cost of R50.00 per 150 litre drum of water. We are cooking and drinking dirty water and perform all household chores with it (Respondent interviewed, 11 May 2017).

Without a reliable water supply in an already precarious situation, more households in the village are producing less and less in their gardens. With the increasingly unreliable summer rainfall, many respondents indicated a reluctance to revisit crop production in the abandoned fields because the risks are too high:

193 We have been struggling to get clean water from the municipality for the past five years …I went the local municipality offices myself and I was told that water provision is the responsibility of the district office (OR Tambo District Municipality). The response I received from district office was that the municipality is extending the feeder dam that is why there is lack of water. Five years later, the community is still waiting to date. With all this running around the municipality is doing, we cannot plough our fields even if we want to. We would be wasting money on seed, fertiliser, tractors and all. (Respondent interviewed, 11 May 2017).

This confirms the findings of the survey results, which revealed that rural communities were forced by the water scarcity to buy water, which is not suitable for household consumption. The water is fetched from the nearby river whose water is not fit for human consumption. Despite the promises of the RDP (1994) that all citizens would have access to clean drinkable water within a two-metre radius from the household stands, and the promise of the CRDP to provide water tanks, dams and training on water harvesting, none of these promises have been realised in the village of eMjikweni. For one too many farmers in the village, this has translated into yet another causal factor into the abandonment of the fallow tracts of land that make up the landscape of the rural Eastern Cape:

Do you see any dam in this village? Do you see any borehole or water tank? Not even the most basic irrigation system. There is nothing. Even if they put us in cooperatives, or give us seed or fertiliser for free, without water there is nothing we can do. It would have been different if these things were there but we as people in the village were not using them or were not trained to use them. But the government hasn’t even tried to give us alternative solutions of dams or tanks. Even the garden closer to the homestead is suffering. I don’t blame the youth for abandoning this rural lifestyle (Respondent interviewed, 12 May, 2017)

Amongst the requests made by the community to Mhlontlo Local Municipality was a request for the construction of a small dam to service the livestock at least since the Tsitsa River is close by and the communal fields of the village are situated on the Tsitsa river banks. To this day, the wait continues. Land without water will serve little purpose in the commitment for a vibrant rural economy that is expected to contribute to food security in South Africa.

6.3 THE ROLE OF GOVERNMENT SUPPORT IN THE AGRICULTURAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE EMJIKWENI VILLAGE

This chapter, through section 6.2, has sought to tease out underlying factors raised by the community of eMjikweni Village that shed light on why 25 years into the democratic

194 new dawn, at a time when calls for land expropriation (with or without compensation) are ringing loud. In fact, for the most part the electoral mandate of several political parties including the African National Congress (ANC), the Economic Freedom Party (EFF), the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) and the Freedom Front Plus (FF Plus) promoted land issues as core to economic growth, rural development and poverty alleviation in the run up to South Africa’s 6th democratic national election of 8 May 2019. The fieldwork for this study was conducted two years prior to the Elections 2019 when many of the resounding political party priorities were beginning to emerge as rallying points for debate. For the ruling party, the ANC, having been in power uninterrupted since 1994, it was also an opportunity to evaluate and benchmark its progress and failures over the quarter decade of democracy.

For the purposes of this study it therefore became compelling to review some of the efforts of government in addressing the glaring unutilised land issue characteristic of the Eastern Cape. The view of government and the view of subsistence farmers in eMjikweni Village were sought on the extent to which government support programmes have revitalised or are revitalising a sustainable subsistence economy in light of already highlighted and well-documented challenges.

6.3.1 Government programme support: A view from above

In the 2016 Budget Speech of the Eastern Cape’s Provincial Department of Rural Development and Agrarian Reform (PDRDAR) it was clearly stated that the provincial government is providing inputs and garden tools to vulnerable households in rural areas of the province in the fight against poverty, hunger and starvation in rural communities. Through its Comprehensive Agricultural Support Programme the provincial government would also continue to focus on the mass production of food in the communal land areas, which exclude the homestead gardens. It is on this basis that in this study questions were posed to a government official, Mr Thula Mbhele3, of the district PDRDAR, on its progress in stimulating food production in view of land availability that remains unused as an outcome of land degradation, lack of infrastructure, water and farming inputs. In Mr Mbhele’s view:

3 Not his real name. Pseudonym used to protect his identity

195 It is difficult for us (as government) to improve the status of food security in rural areas because of the backlog of infrastructural development required. We are aware that the delays in providing fencing in the communal agricultural areas are affecting not only household food security, but prospects of employment opportunities and aspects of local economic growth. The figures are there of how many people leave for the big cities in search of job opportunities. But we will curb that flow through sustainable subsistence agriculture that will limit the out- migration of youth to cities. My department has full support for subsistence farmers growing food … (PDRDAR Interview 18 May, 2017).

Accounts from study respondents have been unwavering in their conviction that as rural subsistence farmers, they want to revisit their abandoned communal fields subject to state assistance in basic fencing infrastructure, irrigation water and seed and fertiliser starter packs. Identified as vulnerable households, the PDRDAR in its 2016 budget speech, committed to poverty reduction through support to these vulnerable subsistence farmers. When probed on how the PDRDAR would implement support to subsistence farmers, Mr Mbhele indicated that the mandate of PDRDAR does not include the provision of any financial support towards maize food production in the homestead gardens but only to new projects in the communal fields. In other words, it is committed to supporting the revitalisation of subsistence agriculture in the abandoned fields:

The government is providing tremendous support to subsistence farmers through various poverty alleviation programmes. Government provides financial, technical and infrastructural support with the aim of fostering agrarian transformation and improved food security (PDRDAR Interview, 18 May 2017).

When probed on why there is limited progress in this regard, Mr Mbhele indicated that the PDRDAR only focuses its support on subsistence farmers involved in mass-scale production of maize and not on small-scale food producers, notwithstanding the department’s acknowledgement of the impact subsistence farming has on household food security of the rural poor communities:

We encourage rural communities to grow food in clinics, schools, community and backyard or homestead gardens. The department is playing a leading role in creating sustainable, equitable rural communities and food security for all by supporting the farming sector. It is the role of our department to further encourage subsistence farmers to pursue sustainable intensification of production through the use of improved inputs to market their (surplus) output (PDRDAR Interview, 18 May 2017).

196 Mr Mbhele on behalf of PDRDAR is also emphatic in his department’s belief that rural households are able to achieve food security because of lower labour costs involved in food production:

Subsistence farming is a readily available source of food to the family as well as that of employment. This will ultimately, limit the phenomenon of out-migration of youth to major cities in search of employment opportunities. Ultimately, rural development will be an enabler for emerging farmers to increase their production (PDRDAR Interview, 18 May 2017).

Mr Mbhele further highlighted and clarified the different roles and processes to be performed for providing support to rural communities for the advancement of household food security in rural areas. The PDRDAR, he noted, encourages rural communities to cultivate backyard, school and church gardens to produce food to feed families. Secondly, the PDRDAR has made available a facility to support the revitalisation of subsistence farming on communal fields, which have been lying fallow for more than thirty years. However, one precondition is that rural communities are required to follow departmental processes to access government grants to support crop production on communal fields. Besides being defensive there are several major flaws to the argument of the PDRDAR official, Mr Mbhele, on government’s tangible support to subsistence farmers in view of visible progress on the ground and the lived experience of subsistence farmers in the eMjikweni Village:

a) While he argues that government support is focused only on mass maize production on communal land to the exclusion of homestead gardens, this position presents a contradiction in that government is fully aware of the socio- economic plight of rural farmers and the factors that prevent them from mass scale crop production on communal land. Which farmers then do they support, as these farmers do not effectively exist?

b) The PDRDAR understands its role of supporting subsistence farmers and advancing rural development. It acknowledges the challenges of food security, unemployment and rural-urban dynamics, as well as the economic status of the people living in rural areas. However, the PDRDAR is quiet on why there is no progress on the ground after 25 years of democracy and after 10 years of its Comprehensive Rural Development Programme;

197 c) In its strategic framework (DRDLR, 2001) the DRDLR pledged to “strengthen the voice of the rural people, empower the poor communities and advance agrarian change and land reform. The aim of the framework is to provide support to self-organisation of rural people, working together with progressive movements, organisations, building forums and structures through which rural people can articulate their demands and needs”. At his own concession, Mr Mbhele acknowledges that his department has never made efforts to meet with the community of eMjikweni as a whole despite selected few villagers meeting them on numerous occasions for agricultural-related information or an extension officer relays information through the Chiefs meeting. Farmers are part of the problem at hand; they must be made part of the solution too; d) That rural communities must follow due process in accessing crop production assistance grants is a bureaucratic smokescreen to justify the non-delivery of PDRDAR in assisting in revitalising crop production on the large tracts of unutilised land 25 years later; e) The PDRDAR has a very limited understanding of the harsh reality of subsistence household farming needs and challenges, the dynamics influencing decisions they take and gender issues in subsistence farming. As a basis for programme intervention, the absence of this understanding calls into question the efforts and expected outcomes of PDRDAR on revitalising rural subsistence farming; f) The current model of intervention proposed by PDRDAR in focusing on mass maize production is indicative of a top-down developmental approach more likely to enforce state dependence than create rural self-sufficiency by addressing the needs, gaps and challenges identified by eMjikweni farmers in the pursuit of food security and sustainable subsistence agriculture; g) Overreliance by PDRDAR on quantitative indicators clouds the lived reality of subsistence farmers and rural households in sustaining a livelihood through food production; and,

198 h) The focus on maize production, instead of a more diversified crop regime, is not the solution to food security in eMjikweni. It will not only create single-crop reliance but it places farmers at risk of crop failure; a fact that PDRDAR has not considered enough to develop mitigation measures.

6.3.2 Government programme support: A view from below

Leahy (2011) and the FANRPAN (2008) affirm the concerns about the lack of infrastructure development as a vital agricultural resource to improve livelihoods of the rural communities. Yet, government and the private sector have not yet made any significant strides in making any necessary investment in developing rural infrastructure and access to markets that would foster economic growth through revitalising subsistence agricultural sector. In response to the evaluation of PDRDAR of its own support to the eMjikweni community and rural Eastern Cape at large, study respondents were requested to evaluate how government support has inhibited their goals to revitalise crop production on communal lands. In their evaluation of government effort to change the status quo and revitalise communal land cropping, study respondents that contradicted or nullified PDRDAR’s assertions of the inroads it has purportedly made raised four issues.

First, respondents in this study were mindful of the role of government to develop an agricultural value chain, which would also provide access to markets and reduce transaction costs. Instead, respondents raised concerns that during good harvests, they sell their produce at lower prices because the government had failed to build an environment conducive for rural communities to access the market, as well as provide training in a process flow for their products to reach the market with profitable returns on their investments. The rural community felt overlooked and side-lined by government in empowering them through linkages to markets. The few respondents able to produce surplus have had to sell at a loss because they do not have necessary information to assist them to make informed market-related decisions about the right time to sell the produce, where to sell and the pricing structure.

Second, these concerns raised on market access point to a lack of extension support services as one of the government’s commitments in CRDP. The majority of

199 respondents were eager to start cultivating the communal fields, as it would lessen the burden of depending wholly on purchased food:

Subsistence agriculture is our traditional way of life and maize is our staple food. Subsistence agriculture eradicates hunger; it feeds family members as well as our livestock. If subsistence agriculture can be revitalised, it could assist in curbing spending money on purchased foodstuff. We would be able to sell surplus maize to the markets and eat fresh produce. The problem is that it is difficult for us to negotiate prices with big markets because of our educational background and lack of training on how to effectively sell our produce (Respondent Interviewed, 11 May 2017).

A holistic approach to extension services in subsistence agriculture by the rural community would increase food production and improve household food security, thus reducing hunger and poverty.

Third, study respondents highlighted their interest in ploughing communal fields again that have lain unused for over thirty years. Their sole request to government repeatedly so, is for the provision of fencing and inputs in order to return to basics of food crop production:

The major things that the government can assist us with, is the fencing of the communal fields, safe drinking water for the people, as well as for irrigation purposes, the subsidised tractors inputs ... As a community of this village, we are requesting government to provide us with farming inputs such as fertilisers, insecticides, and tractors at a reasonable fee. We do not have money to hire tractors; sometimes we skip years to plough even homestead gardens due to shortage of money (Respondent interviewed, 28 April 2017).

Even though they faced limited financial resources, respondents were careful to point out that they would pay a reasonable fee if government were willing to assist them with the resources required to return to the communal fields and produce much-needed food.

Fourth, during the group discussions it transpired that the community proactively sought to open dialogue with government by approaching government officials to request for support in the fencing of the fields. It came out strongly from the responses that several attempts were made for requests for fencing from the Eastern Cape Department of Rural Development and Agrarian Reform (PDRDAR) and the provincial Department of Agriculture but there was no positive response from both departments.

200 One respondent narrated the road that has been travelled by the community in trying to get assistance from government with the provision of fencing in the communal fields and said:

The first attempt was made in 2010 by an elderly person in the village, who has since passed away. The late old man started requesting for fence from the Department of Agriculture nine years back. He was told by government officials that, for the request to be given consideration, he must form a community cooperative. Community members were sceptical about joining a cooperative because there were many projects in the village that had failed due to the in- fighting between members. Ultimately, he managed to get members who were willing to cultivate the fields. Department of Agriculture promised that the “Tsitsa Basin” fencing project was among the lists of approved projects in the Integrated Development Plans (IDPs) for 2010/11 financial year. The old man, unfortunately, passed away in April this year, 2017. He had been waiting for the government to provide the service he requested but in vain (Respondent interviewed, 08 May 2017).

It is unfortunate that the approach of government to date in the eMjikweni Village has been nothing short of dictatorial and prescriptive, rather than engaging in dialogue with rural communities on how to collaborate towards achieving to goal of food security. It is the same position of Rwanda to force farmers into cooperative formation, creating a top-down governance structure instead of seeking solutions from farmers, that Leegwater et.al. (2017) argue that Rwanda’s agricultural revolution is not the success story it hails itself to be. The second attempt was made by community members again in 2016, only to be met by bureaucracy and prescriptive advice, contrary to the stated objectives of PDRDAR:

The community selected a few people to approach the Department of Rural Development, and Agrarian Reform once again in 2016. We were advised by government officials to write a request for the fence to be addressed to PDRDAR and the Department of Agriculture. The department advised us to form a group of people who are willing to cultivate the fields whilst waiting for the approval of the fence. Each member of the group is paying money toward the hiring of a tractor whilst the government provide inputs. We have not received any response from both departments (Respondent interviewed, 08 May 2017).

The community members acknowledge their lack of record keeping and management. As such, there were no copies of letters stored in the headman’s office for referrals. With all these steps taken by rural community, lack of fencing in the communal fields is still a challenge, which is left unresolved by the Department of Rural Development and Agrarian Reform, as well as the provincial Department of Agriculture in the village.

201 Yet during interviews with the official from PDRDAR, he was resolute that if the rural communities had made written requests for the fence to the Department, their request would have been considered. It is regrettable that there are no copies which are kept for record keeping by the community as a proof of application for infrastructure development to serve as the reference point. The community believe that the provision of fencing in the fields can assist the community in revitalising subsistence agriculture in the communal fields to produce food for their families rather than depending entirely on the market for their next meal.

Finally, respondents were very despondent at how government withholds information that would be beneficial to them as a farming community. The lack of communication from government officials with regard to the fencing of communal fields caused the delays in the revitalisation of subsistence agriculture in this rural village. The delays in the provision of this resource are testimony to the lack of political will to assist rural communities to eradicate poverty in the rural areas.

The prevailing socio-economic conditions experienced by the rural communities has not only affected the non-cultivation of communal fields but also contributed to a dramatic decline in the number of homestead gardens being cultivated. The majority of respondents indicated that most households were not cultivating their vegetable and homestead gardens due to the lack of proper fencing:

Fewer gardens are cultivated due to lack of financial resources, and people are depending on grant money to cultivate the gardens. Most of the gardens are lying fallow; their old poles have fallen and fences are down as a result (Respondent interviewed, 04 May 2017).

The despondency they feel as farmers is palpable as they begin to witness rapid lifestyle changes in response to failed subsistence agriculture in the village:

There are lesser households who are still engaged in agricultural activities. Fields are not cultivated at all besides the ones that are used by the project, which started in (2016). Even less gardens are cultivated due to lack of financial resource, because most of people depend on grant. There is general lack of interest among other households due to change of times. People are no longer depending on subsistence farming to feed their families as it was the case before. We are living in the modern times now; agriculture has ceased to be the main source of livelihoods in the rural areas; as a result the level of agricultural activity has declined drastically because government talks but doesn’t act (Respondent interviewed, 02 May 2017).

202 6.4 CASE STUDY OF SIYAZONDLA HOMESTEAD FOOD PRODUCTION PROGRAMME: AN INITIATIVE OF EASTERN CAPE PROVINCIAL GOVERNMENT

Source: Field Study, 2017 Figure 6.5: A Siyazondla vegetable garden in the eMjikweni Village

For the most part of this chapter, attention was focused on factors influencing the persistent under-production of food in the Eastern Cape. One of these factors is the top-down approach of government to single-crop production of maize under stringent conditions that the community of eMjikweni are unable to meet. For this reason, 100% of the respondents in this study have resorted to focusing on the homestead gardens, which are closer to their dwelling units, smaller to manage and receive some form of support from government. This section looks at the Siyazondla Homestead Food Production Programme or SHFPP.

There are a number of government initiatives and different role players whose mission is to alleviate poverty and create jobs for local economic development in the rural landscape of the South Africa. The Agricultural Research Council, (ARC) (2010), for example, is one of such role players whose mandate is to fight against hunger because of food security at household level. In South Africa, the Siyazondla Homestead Food Production Programme (SHFPP) was identified as a flagship programme of the Eastern Cape Province to promote the fight against hunger at household level. Siyazondla is a Nguni and/or isiXhosa word which means “we feed ourselves.” The

203 United Nations World Food Summit in 2006 reaffirmed the right of everyone to have access to safe and nutritious food. On the back of the World Food Summit was the SHFPP born with the sole objective of encouraging both rural and urban households to use their homestead gardens to produce food for their families. The significance of the programme rests in its objective to eradicate hunger at the unit level (the household) while on the other hand improving food security of rural households. The successful implementation of this programme in each household of the Eastern Cape would yield economic benefits for the rural poor as non-farm food expenditure would decline, and disposable income increase.

Driven by the provincial Department of Social Development, the SHFPP is linked to the Massive Food Production Programme (MFPP) that is being implemented by the Department of Agriculture also at a provincial level. Adapted from a similar project in neighbouring Lesotho, the SHFPP was designed to assist communities in building and planting vegetable gardens for food production with the aid of community development workers. The rural communities of the Eastern Cape embraced the programme as an initiative that would ensure their household food security needs were met. Describing the programme one respondent noted:

The government introduced circular-shaped vegetable gardens in the village to plant a variety of crops. This programme is one of the poverty relief projects implemented by the Department of Social Development. There are a few community development workers employed to build and cultivate the crops in these gardens for the household members who have well fenced homestead gardens. These small round–shaped vegetable gardens “izitiya” are built within the household garden. The community development workers are trained in organic vegetable production. They use only organic manure as well as charcoal, aloe leaves for water retention. They are hired to plant every vegetable garden in the village (Respondent interviewed, 30 May 2017).

The working model of the SHFPP is that the Department of Social Development community workers are responsible for building vegetable gardens. These gardens are built in the described circular-shape (see Figure 6.5) for every household in the village, irrespective of age and gender. There are two requirements for the programme. First, the garden must be properly fenced and must be a circular-shaped vegetable garden. Second, community members must be willing to accept the extension services from the community development workers. At the inception of the SHFPP, government was providing seeds to the communities but later withdrew the

204 support. The study found that the withdrawal of support limited the number of households participating because many households cannot afford to buy the seeds required. Examining the extent to which the SHFPP as a provincial flagship programme had an impact on the living standard of the rural poor, the study respondents highlighted some key elements of the programme as follows:

(a) The SHFPP, introduced in the eMjikweni Village in 2006 to help alleviate hunger for rural households through community work development, has had minimal impact on household food security in the village. This, respondents attributed to the fact that many of them had to discontinue the SHFPP gardens because of the stringent conditions that required financial resources they did not have. The programme was supposed to train them in horticulture. The training never happened except for the training made available only to the community workers as ad hoc extension officers while neglecting to train village household members in growing food and being self-sufficient. For this reason, households reverted to their own homestead gardens that they had always cultivated as and when they were able to;

(b) Although the community of farmers in the eMjikweni Village collectively hold a deep wealth of indigenous knowledge, they were keen to learn new farming methods to produce higher yields. They expected to translate the principles of the horticulture training and its related water and soil management training elements to other agricultural activities they undertake. But the community workers responsible for training and supporting them were sometimes inadequately trained or not knowledgeable at all;

(c) Ideally, the SHFPP is supposed to work with every household willing to participate in the programme. The study, however, found that not all households in the eMjikweni Village were participants of SHFPP. One of the study respondents, concerned, observed that: Farming should be a collective responsibility for the whole community and not being exercised by few individual households. I say this because it looks like not all of us are part of the SHFPP. This is a serious concern to me because we will not develop together. Some households will have food, while others will not (Respondent interviewed, 30 April 2017).

205 The concern highlighted by this respondent raises serious concerns about the implementation of government programmes, the monitoring and evaluation of these programmes, impact on beneficiaries and assessment of outcomes in view of the investment made in the programme;

(d) The SHFPP garden model was adapted from a similar programme in Lesotho wherein their gardens for growing vegetable crops had far less capacity to cultivate a variety of vegetable crops to feed the entire family as depicted by Figure 6.5. Pointing this out to the community workers, that the circular garden size should be enlarged to a radius of 1 or 2 metres at least for greater capacity, the community’s suggestion was ignored;

(e) On commencement of the SHFPP, government donated seeds to communities to plant vegetables but the donation has since been withdrawn. This with training only the community development workers, creates persistent dependency on government who without building in a programme of exit strategies, will continue to see many of its rural programmes fail for unsustainability;

(f) Households who are able to extend their circular gardens and diversify crops tended to plant a variety of vegetables including spinach, cabbage, carrots, onions, potatoes, beetroot, tomatoes, green peppers, peas, turnips, chillies and sweet potatoes. One respondent commented as follows:

It is usually challenging to gain maximum yield in the vegetable gardens due to shortage of water which limits households’ ability to cultivate vegetable gardens all the year round (Respondent interviewed, 02 May 2017).

However, the shortage of water was a big constraint to the SHFPP:

It is difficult to plant vegetables in the gardens because of the water shortage for irrigation and for household consumption in the village. The communal taps have been running dry for five years. We use harvested rain water during summer seasons. In winter, water for household consumption is fetched from unprotected springs and the nearby river (Respondent interviewed, 09 May 2017).

206 I am experiencing shortage of water to plant crops which require a lot of water for growth and survival. The availability of water would assist the whole community in cultivating vegetables throughout the year. Generally, water in this community is a major challenge (Respondent interviewed, 09 May 2017).

While the community has welcomed the introduction of the SHFPP through hired community development workers, study respondents were concerned about the prescriptive size of the gardens, which cannot produce enough food for the family for the entire season. The challenge of water shortages also affects the progress of the SHFPP. Generally, though, respondents felt that unless their recommendations are considered by the SHFPP, the project will continue to make insignificant difference in the food security at a household level despite its noble objectives;

(g) Community subsistence farmers in the eMjikweni Village expressed frustration at government repeatedly introducing its own programmes instead of consulting with them as a community to identify, design, plan and implement programmes that would yield productivity and lift households out of their vulnerable state of food insecurity. For them, a priority programme as an example would be in crop and livestock production training. Another priority project would be on soil assessment to establish suitable crops for different types of soil in order to obtain higher productivity:

I have rocky soil; I would like to know the suitable crops for this type of soil. If the extension officers could be visible in the rural communities to offer training, I would be pleased as it would be an added advantage for me to know exactly the suitable crops to be cultivated in this type of soil (Respondent interviewed, 04 May 2017).

Another respondent expanded on this point to say:

Our request as this community is to be given training on the new methods of farming like soil testing, water harvesting … not these fancy gardens for decorating (Respondent interviewed, 02 May 2017).

While another responded reiterated the lack of government support and commented as follows:

207 We have not received any support from government on the issues we raise. We always proactively approach the department but the government officials are not visiting their wards to assess the situation on the ground or provide training in stock production or new methods of production. Instead we see new projects being introduced that are not a priority for food production at the scale it is needed (Respondent interviewed, 07 May 2017).

6.5 CHAPTER SUMMARY

This chapter has looked beyond the factors that contributed to the collapse of subsistence farming in the rural communities of the former homeland of the Transkei with special reference to the research site, eMjikweni Village. Notwithstanding the historical factors in play, the chapter considered why decades later, households in the rural villages of the Eastern Cape still continue to take up the cause of pliable, profitable and sustainable food production. The reasons identified point to persistent environmental, social, economic, infrastructural and policy-related factors that must be considered if the food security agenda for South Africa is to be realised.

Even after 30 years, the farming community of eMjikweni continues to face the challenge of sitting with unused communal land as the mandate of government to revitalise rural economies through investment in public goods is breached. Land degradation requires urgent attention in the rural Eastern Cape. Water and road infrastructure construction must be fast tracked. As fallow, unutilised land is gradually being degraded by environmentally and human induced factors including erosion and overgrazing, land use patterns are seen as a shift that is detrimental to long-term preservation of the land for crop farming. Owing to shortages of grazing pastures in the rural areas, taken up mainly by residential plots, livestock are grazing on crop fields, creating a vicious cycle of rural degradation and economic decline.

This chapter highlighted the constraints that farmers face, notwithstanding their willingness to revitalise crop production and food gardens on long abandoned fields. But, the challenges are overwhelming. They include high input costs as the cost of hiring tractors and purchasing fertilisers and seeds remain unaffordable for rural communities who are dependent on a government social security system for their livelihoods. Labour shortages at household level serve to aggravate an already highly pressured conundrum of food production in a rural area with available land lying unutilised and known as a former bread basket of the province.

208 Knowledge and training is a public good, which should be provided by government to all the rural communities for the advancement of rural development. Yet, this study has identified glaring implementation, even attitudinal gaps of government bureaucracy that escalate an already volatile food insecurity challenge. As long as government is not supporting rural communities in providing necessary resources including inputs, subsidised tractors, training and chemicals to revitalise subsistence farming in rural areas, sustainable rural development will remain a pipe dream.

In conclusion, land alone cannot solve the scourge of poverty, hunger and starvation in the rural areas. It requires a heightened political will by government and through dialogue, to work with the community in identifying, planning and implementing a practical, achievable food security strategy, household by household, province by province, towards the sustainable development of subsistence agriculture in the rural areas of South Africa, before commercialising rural agriculture can be considered.

209 CHAPTER SEVEN

CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

7.1 A RECAP ON THE STUDY BACKGROUND

As land reform occupies even more debates and discussions in South Africa, focus on land, ownership and the redress of historical injustices surface towards a common solution. The intended consequence of this robust debate is equity, agricultural and rural development, and sustainable livelihoods to address the triple plight of poverty, unemployment and inequality. However, a number of considerations continue to elude the full scope of the South African land question. Key amongst these considerations is the utilisation of land. Sufficient evidence exists to suggest that in many pockets of rural South Africa, namely the former homelands of South Africa, are rural communities with access to considerable tracts of communal land. Access and ownership take secondary place as they seek to restore a once vibrant sustainable subsistence agricultural sector. Confronted with a myriad of insurmountable challenges, the land lies uncultivated with little option for food production. The scale of the challenges varies depending on whether this arose as a legacy of historically separate development or as a result of government intervention gone wrong.

This study focuses on a rural village of eMjikweni in the Mhlontlo Local Municipality of the Eastern Cape. Using it as a case study, this thesis examines why available land remains uncultivated land notwithstanding rural development programmes and policies in favour of subsistence farming. The study demonstrates the value of more participatory approaches by government to address subsistence farming as a catalyst of food security. Employing qualitative research methods, the findings of the study point to the complexities of rural poverty in which reliance on state grants, a lack of government incentive and environmental conditions continue to have a debilitating impact on subsistence farming. Unless these issues find their way into the current land debate, the land reform process of South Africa will have failed to address poverty, unemployment and inequality in South Africa.

210 7.2 ABOUT THE STUDY

This study has sought to investigate a critical anomaly in the land debate that has preoccupied South Africa since 1994. From the late 1980s South Africa’s rural landscape, especially in the Eastern Cape, has been characterised by land neglect as a result of abandoned agricultural activities. The desertion of farm land is widespread in rural areas, more especially in the former Transkei region of the Eastern Cape Province. In the midst of ferocious policy, partisan and public debates and sentiment for more aggressive land reform policies and implementation in South Africa, especially leading up to the 6th democratic elections of South Africa in May 2019, the challenge of decaying subsistence farming, abandoned fields, failed policy interventions and the complex household dynamics, formations and their livelihoods continues to be a grave threat to improving food security and alleviating poverty in rural poor communities.

While the pivotal argument of the land debate remains one of access, availability and ownership, various researchers such as Gwala (2013); Khapayi and Celliers (2016) and Porter and Phillips-Howard (1993) demonstrate that the state of neglect of communal land in the Eastern Cape is compounded by rising levels of poverty in the rural areas of the province. This reality presents an unanswered anomaly to the land reform policy debates from a different evidence-based perspective of subsistence farming as one of the keys to food security, rural development and better lives for all. A massive knowledge gap exists on the phenomenon of unproductive use of agricultural communal land has contributed to a shift from self-sufficiency and self- reliance to dependency (Mlonyeni, 2010). This knowledge gap has not found its way into the search for solutions to South Africa’s land reform process. The communal fields that were meant for crop production but today lie fallow in rich fertile lands such as eMjikweni in the Mhlontlo Local Municipality of the Eastern Cape, resulting in the escalation of food insecure households, poverty, malnutrition and poor health for already burdened households, continue to present a gap in the current land debate, its policies, interventions and strategies that rage in South Africa in contemporary times.

It is this knowledge gap that this study seeks to fill. Unless causes for persistently low levels of contemporary subsistence agriculture are identified, the policy framework and

211 land debates in South Africa remain incomplete. There is a question not being asked. There is an answer not found as to why even when land is available, it lies fallow, its people cannot farm it and therefore continue to contribute to high unemployment statistics and rely on social grants for basic survival. Herein lies the basis of this research study. The context in seeking an answer to unanswered questions in this research work was the national policy framework of the Government of South Africa. This includes a review of its interventions in providing rural subsistence farmers with access to production inputs, finance and markets, the level of participation of women and youth, as well as documented success factors and approaches employed to combat the weaknesses and threats to viable subsistence farming in rural Eastern Cape.

Whilst most countries have made significant progress in fighting poverty, South Africa continues to face the triple challenge of poverty, unemployment and inequalities. The prevailing condition exists despite the poverty alleviation programmes adopted by the South African government to eradicate poverty at household level. The agricultural sector has been experiencing fluctuating and declining agricultural production in both commercial, smallholder and subsistence sectors. The decline in agricultural produce has had a direct effect on the percentage contribution to the GDP, as well as the prices of the staple food, which impacted negatively on the consumer and contributed to a decline in agricultural food production. This challenge is severe in the former homeland of Transkei where large tracts of communal land remain uncultivated for longer period. The decline of agricultural food production in rural areas has caused food insecurity at alarming levels, giving rise to a renewed reliance on non-farming livelihood strategies and government social grant. The decline of agriculture food production is a global concern and the occurrence is widespread in rural areas of the developing countries.

The purpose of this study, therefore, was to investigate the underlying challenges that led to the collapse of subsistence agriculture in rural communities of the former homeland of the Transkei. The research site is eMjikweni Village in Qumbu, which falls under the Mhlontlo Local Municipality, Eastern Cape Province.

212 7.3 SUMMARY OF THE RESEARCH

The demographic profile of the Mhlontlo Local Municipality in which the research site is located revealed that the majority (54%) of the population is economically active coupled with a high rate of youth unemployment estimated at 79%. Generally, the population of eMjikweni Village had low levels of education with only 3% of population having attained matric level. The results revealed that about 20% of the population were illiterate. The municipality was experiencing serious service delivery challenges to its constituencies except for the provision of electricity. The local municipality was lagging behind in the provision of water and health care services in the community. The demographic profiles of the village and the Mhlontlo Local Municipality show similar trends except for the village youth unemployment, estimated at 74%.

A socio- economic analysis of the Mhlontlo Local Municipality demonstrated potential benefit by the municipality from its natural and human resources given its endowment of arable land along the river banks that can be used for crop production. The research study site is in close proximity to the Tsitsa River which also presents an added advantage for establishment of an irrigation system and does not solely depend on summer rains for crop production. That the research site still has high unemployment rate, raises sufficient enquiry on how best the local authorities can take advantage of its currently able-bodied labour for the advancement of local economic and development, rural development, poverty eradication and sustainable household food security.

This study followed a qualitative research approach, based on the model of phenomenology. This model implies a focus on the lived experiences of the respondents forming part of the sample. The headman’s list of 250 households actively engaged in subsistence agriculture in the community represented a sampling frame for the field work. Eighty three (83) respondents were selected using purposive sampling method. Generally, purposive sampling is used based on knowledge of the population and the purpose of the study. The aim of this sampling method was to select the widest variety of the participants from the study population in order to test the broad applicability of the research questions. Interviews were conducted with the aid of an interview guide that covered the major topics of the research questions. Other data collection methods were employed including in-depth interviews, focus group

213 discussions and recording of oral history. A content analysis was conducted with the help of a systematic coding procedure based on the interview transcripts. The quality was ensured through data triangulation and through the application of systematic pattern and content analysis. The next sections will present the results of the research investigation.

7.4 SUBSISTENCE FARMING IN THE EASTERN CAPE: AGRARIAN DECAY AND ITS IMPACT ON FOOD SECURITY AND RURAL LIVELIHOODS

Through the careful analysis and corroborating application of qualitative data drawn from the study of subsistence farmers in the village of eMjikweni in the local municipality of Mhlontlo, Eastern Cape Province, this study sought to explore and shed light on two research questions pursued in this research study. First, it reviewed the state of subsistence farming in the eMjikweni Village, as an attempt to provide a snapshot of what is currently on the ground if, at one level, the narrative of food security is still to hold, and at another level, if the narrative on land reform rages on, legitimately taking into account the intricacies that have led to and continue to uphold the current state of subsistence farming. The study allows the reader to revisit the combined factors that led to agrarian decay in the Eastern Cape, and to isolate those factors whose legacy continues to adversely affect food production. The study findings also lay the ground for further exploration on why agricultural development through subsistence farming in the Eastern Cape, once South Africa’s bread basket, continues to falter.

The advantage of having employed a qualitative data collection approach has highlighted the potential value of a bottom-up development approach to rural development. As beneficiaries of state-run programmes, subsistence farmers cannot be excluded from policy dialogue. Their witness of how a once sustainable rural economy has collapsed and intermittently struggles to revive as a critical driver of food security and household livelihoods in the Eastern Cape is very significant in policy dialogue. The findings of the study revealed how the costs of producing food for households in communal land are a combined cocktail of factors which include lack of resources, lack of capital to purchase inputs and high input costs. Lack of infrastructure and more significantly, poor extension services, these with drought,

214 livestock disease and stock theft, have left rural communities with limited recourse in the face of mechanised solutions to cultivating their land to continue farming.

In summary, this study has demonstrated a combination of factors through the literature and lived experiences of subsistence farmers, of how a once sustainable rural economy has collapsed and intermittently struggles to revitalise itself as a critical driver of food security and household livelihoods in the Eastern Cape. Drought, livestock disease and stock theft have left rural communities with limited resources and ended up relying on hiring tractors to cultivate their land. It has also demonstrated how livestock ownership was an important resource and factor of food production in subsistence farming. Declining livestock, therefore, meant changes in the food production process that became a costly exercise for vulnerable rural households to cultivate the fields, as they were expected to hire tractors, buy fertilisers and hire labour.

While the findings of the research revealed that lack of infrastructure, especially fencing in of communal fields, was highlighted as one of the key contributing factor to the abandonment of communal fields in the former homeland areas. Secondary to the infrastructure challenges were the lack of resources including capital to purchase inputs, and poor extension services were major constraints in the development of subsistence agriculture in the rural communities.

7.5 REVITALISING SUSTAINABLE SUBSISTENCE FARMING THROUGH AN INTERGRATED APPROACH TO LAND, AGRICULTURE AND POLICY

Based on the lived experience of subsistence farmers in the eMjikweni Village to examine the current realities and challenge that give rise to rolling acres of visibly unutilised land in the Eastern Cape, this study is timely insofar as it is concluded in the history of South Africa when the call for land expropriation without compensation is resounding loudly across government, the legislature, the judiciary, civil society, the private sector, media and the public in general. The humble contribution of this study is in its cautious approach to full scale land expropriation without consideration of the ongoing effects of past land policies; challenges through local realities that have led to current abandonment of subsistence farming land in the Eastern Cape; and, a review of the policy framework in South Africa that sets out to promote subsistence

215 agriculture as a livelihood. The study therefore brings to the fore some of the key elements that act against government interventions in achieving their objectives.

7.6 STUDY LIMITATIONS

This study was not without its limitations which provide direction for future work. First, from a methodological perspective, notwithstanding the merits of the purposive sampling method, as sample selection criteria, it has its own disadvantages. There is no formal procedure for selecting the sample from the population and the researcher cannot therefore determine the sampling error. Nonetheless, disadvantages can be reduced by working with a heterogeneous population and increasing the sample size. The advantage of using this method is that it saves time and costs. In most cases, qualitative researchers rely on a small number of participants for the major part of their data. When the participants are purposively selected and the data are seen as valid, there is no guarantee that the selected participants’ views are typical.

Second, also from a methodological perspective, the explanatory variables on the collapse of subsistence farming in the rural Eastern Cape and the controls against the agrarian decay in the past five to six decades were difficult to measure against current agrarian decline. The line between historical cause and contemporary failed programmes was difficult to draw. However, the strength of this study lay in its ability to tease out the human factor as a variable influencing the state of agrarian transformation today as households are spoilt for choice between staying behind and engaging in subsistence farming, or migrating to the cities or succumbing to dependence on social welfare.

Third, this investigation was unable to control for whether a household engages in subsistence agricultural operations as another viable income-generating activity or not. The study lacked this particular measure. Fourth, the findings are based on data from only one part of the Mhlontlo Local Municipality, and a very small part of it and therefore may not be generalisable to other rural areas. Fifth, a number of challenges also arose with disclosure of information. As the researcher is a resident of the village and is known to villagers, some households may not have disclosed accurate income data for fear of “disclosing too much”. Finally and perhaps more relevant, is that the findings regarding how state-assisted programmes can be up-scaled as an

216 appropriate foundation for country-wide policies must not be made without due consideration to the socio-economic factors that have influenced current skills levels, perceptions and attitudes towards subsistence farming in rural areas. This becomes a very critical ingredient to the current land reform debate churning in South Africa.

The findings of this study have demonstrated through the literature and lived experiences of subsistence farmers in a once sustainable rural economy, how a combination of factors have colluded to collapse and intermittently erode food security and household livelihoods in the Eastern Cape. Drought, livestock disease and stock theft have left rural communities with limited resources having to rely on hired tractors to cultivate their land. The study also demonstrated how cattle are an important resource and factor of food production in subsistence farming. Declining livestock meant changes for the food production process which became a costly exercise to cultivate the fields, as households were expected to hire tractors, buy fertilisers and acquire labour. The findings, therefore, reveal that with high costs of producing food on communal land, other contributing factors to the abandonment of fields by many households include lack of resources, lack of capital to purchase inputs and high input costs, lack of infrastructure and more significantly, poor extension services. Poor infrastructure development, including fencing, has been cited as the primary cause for the collapse of subsistence agriculture in rural communities. Uncultivated fallow land is gradually being degraded due to environmentally and human induced factors including erosion and overgrazing which exacerbate land degradation and soil erosion with the formation of dongas in the communal fields.

Knowledge and training is the public good which should be provided by government to all the rural communities for the advancement of rural development. Nonetheless, the overwhelming majority of respondents revealed a total lack of this support function to the communities. Generally, it has been highlighted that government is not supporting rural communities in providing necessary resources including inputs, subsidised tractors, training and chemicals to start subsistence farming in rural areas. In conclusion, land alone cannot solve the scourges of poverty, hunger and starvation in the rural areas. More is required in the form of political will on the side of government to provide inputs and necessary support for the development of subsistence agriculture in the rural areas of South Africa.

217 7.7 DISCUSSION

This study has provided a glimpse beyond the factors that contributed to the collapse of subsistence farming in the rural communities of the former homeland of the Transkei with special reference to the research site, eMjikweni Village. Notwithstanding the historical factors in play, it has considered why decade’s later households in the rural villages of the Eastern Cape still continue to take up the cause of pliable, profitable and sustainable food production. The reasons identified point to persistent environmental, social, economic, infrastructural and policy related factors that must be considered if the food security agenda for South Africa is to be realised.

Even after 30 years, the farming community of eMjikweni continues to face the challenge of sitting with unused communal land as the mandate of government to revitalise rural economies through investment in public goods is breached. Land degradation requires urgent attention in the rural Eastern Cape. Water and road infrastructure construction must be fast tracked. As fallow, unutilised land is gradually being degraded by environmentally and human induced factors including erosion and overgrazing, land use patterns are seen as a shift that is detrimental to long-term preservation of the land for crop farming. Owing to shortages of grazing pastures in the rural areas, taken up mainly by residential plots, livestock graze on crop fields, thus creating a vicious cycle of rural degradation and economic decline. Knowledge and training is a public good, which should be provided by government to all the rural communities for the advancement of rural development. Yet, this study identified glaring implementation, even attitudinal gaps of government bureaucracy that escalate an already volatile food insecurity challenge. As long as government is not supporting rural communities in providing necessary resources including inputs, subsidised tractors, training and chemicals to revitalise subsistence farming in rural areas, sustainable rural development will remain a pipe dream.

In conclusion, land alone cannot solve the scourge of poverty, hunger and starvation in the rural areas. It requires a heightened political will by government and through dialogue, to work with the community in identifying, planning and implementing a practical achievable food security strategy household by household, province by province, towards the sustainable development of subsistence agriculture in the rural areas of South Africa, before commercialising rural agriculture can be considered.

218 While highlighting the constraints that farmers face, notwithstanding their willingness to revitalise crop production and food gardens on long abandoned fields, the challenges confronted lead to a purposeful consideration of several issues that are discussed in this chapter but that also form direction for future research.

7.7.1 Promoting subsistence farming for household security

There have been debates among scholars on the reasons for the neglect of the communal land in the former homelands areas. There were perceptions that rural people are lazy and are suffering from social grant dependency which contributes to the collapse of subsistence agriculture. Other scholars such as Levin and Weiner (1993); Potter and Phillips-Howard (1997); Tanga and Gutura (2016); Aliber and Hall (2009); Baiphethi and Jacobs (2009); O’Laughlin (2013) and Borras (2009) apportioned the blame on migration and urbanisation, as the able bodied men and women are leaving the rural traditional lifestyle and seeking job opportunities in major cities in urban areas.

A characteristic of rural areas of the former homelands of Transkei including areas under the Mhlontlo Local Municipality, is the large tracts of communal fields that have been lying fallow for over thirty years without any agricultural activities taking place. This study revealed that the community has access to large areas of land lying fallow that are no longer cultivated by communities due to several reasons (Bank & Minkley, 2013:2). The respondents cited a number of factors, including lack of infrastructure and financial resources, which limit the productive use of communal land by rural communities. With the growing population in the rural areas, traditional authorities have been compelled to allocate residential sites in the land designated for pastures for livestock. Population growth created a demand for space for residential purposes and food production which has contributed significantly to land degradation. This confirms Boserup, Tan and Toulmin (2007) assertion that there are linkages between population growth, food prices and land degradation which have negative implications on the rural livelihoods.

Poor households in South Africa have generally accessed their food from the market, subsistence production and transfers from public programmes or other households. Chapter Two demonstrated how, in the past, rural households in the Eastern Cape

219 produced most of their own food. Yet, over time, with the erosion of the rural subsistence economy, increased dependence on market purchases has become rife. The food expenditure can account for as much as 60 to 80% of total household income for low-income households in some parts of sub-Saharan Africa (Baiphethi & Jacobs, 2009).

To what extent then can subsistence/smallholder agriculture play an important role in reducing the vulnerability of rural food-insecure households, improve livelihoods, reduce the dependency on the markets and help to mitigate poverty and increased outflow to the cities? This section of the chapter examines how in the EMjikweni community, a significant increase in the productivity of subsistence agriculture can ensure long-term food security for rural households.

Odhiambo (2015); Bernstein (1992); Khapayi and Celliers (2016) and the Rockefeller Foundation (2006) observe that South Africa’s subsistence agriculture sector is characterised by several constraints including low uptake of modern farm inputs, high transport costs, weak farmer organisation, poor quality control and lack of information on markets and prices to sell surplus produce. This study in eMjikweni Village argues to the contrary. The foundation argues that lack of access to land in the rural villages of Eastern Cape is not the problem. The study also differs with the assertion that access to increased land would allow subsistence farmers to participate in agricultural activities. Rather, the fundamental basis for this study is that it is the lack of agricultural activities on the land, which has been lying fallow for more than thirty years. This had caused the decrease in food production and household food insecurity. The communal land in eMjikweni Village is readily available to be used productively yet rural communities are unable to use it due to factors beyond their control.

The study found that respondents were willing to work the land and produce food to mitigate the risk of food insecurity and dependence on market purchases and state grant programmes if a phased approach was implemented to assist in the provision of provision of subsidised tractors and start-up capital to diversify to other farming activities such as a piggery, poultry farming and livestock production. As much as respondents were requesting the provision of fencing infrastructure, they required, rather, technical support and inputs to work the land to revitalise current production

220 and, through traditional labour support structures (ilima), improve food production in the area.

7.7.2 Government policy, agricultural development and food security

South Africa today still has a dual agricultural system: the commercial and the smallholder and subsistence agricultural sectors. The commercial sector is a highly mechanised, well established and capital intensive, while smallholder and subsistence agriculture are under-developed, labour intensive, traditional and primitive. These two sectors co-existed and were characteristic of the South Africa agricultural economy in the past. With the advent of democracy, the agricultural sector witnessed the creation of emerging black commercial farmers who were supported financially and technically to enhance their growth to enter the commercial sector. The 1999 agricultural policy was envisaged by the government to help such farmers to compete with the commercial farmers.

The 1999 the agricultural policy shift thus focused more on the development of the black emerging farmers by providing financial, technical and infrastructural support in order to create a conducive environment for them to enter the commercial sector. The primary role of government is to provide advice (technical) and support (financial and infrastructural development) to all farmers irrespective of the size, from small subsistence and smallholder farmers to emerging and commercial farmers in order to reach their full potential. All these three elements are equally crucial for the development of the rural subsistence agriculture in the country. The technical and financial support is of great importance as the country is faced with a high unemployment rate resulting in households lacking financial resources.

The democratic government is failing to provide support to the small-scale and subsistence farmers in rural communities despite the adoption and implementation of the agreed outcomes. The Government agreed on twelve outcomes with measurable outputs and targets between 2011 and 2014. The Eastern Cape’s Department of Rural Development and Agrarian Reform was mandated to deliver on Outcome 7, which aimed at developing vibrant, equitable and sustainable rural communities and ensuring food security for all. This was expected to be the vehicle to fast track service delivery in rural areas. One of the targets was to ensure that rural people's quality of

221 life, their access to quality services, livelihood and incomes are improved. Amongst the targets, it had to develop 50 000 new smallholder farmers producing for profit by 2014, as well as 100 000 new commercial farmers. There were four major outputs expected to be delivered by the provincial governments: firstly, to maintain sustainable agrarian reform with thriving farming sector. Secondly, the Department should create an environment for improved access to affordable and diverse markets. Thirdly, the Department has to guarantee the existence of improved rural services to support livelihoods. The fourth output is to facilitate and coordinate the creation of rural jobs and promote economic livelihoods.

This mandate of the provincial government is to encourage subsistence farmers to focus on growing enough food to feed themselves and their families, thus fostering a culture of self-sufficiency among them. It is worth mentioning that there are other departments responsible for implementing poverty alleviation programmes in order to improve the lives of the ordinary people living in rural areas. There are a number of sectoral departments including Rural Development and Land Reform; Water and Environmental Affairs; Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries; Social Development; and Public Works, as well as municipalities and development partners which are mandated to implement poverty alleviation programmes aimed at reducing hunger and poverty in rural areas. The mandate of all these sector departments is to play significant roles in improving lives of the ordinary rural people in South Africa. The Department of Social Department is responsible for providing poverty relief projects to rural communities as an additional livelihood strategy. However, the DRDLAR and National Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (DAFF) are specifically entrusted with the responsibility of giving agricultural support to the rural communities to advance subsistence and smallholder farming in rural areas. In spite of all these government efforts, rural subsistence agriculture has collapsed in many parts of the homeland areas (DRDAR, 2011).

The collapse of subsistence and small holder agriculture is due to multidimensional factors. Sahel (2014) argues that agricultural inputs, irrigation technical knowledge and agricultural machinery and implements are the bedrock of any agricultural activity and foundation for any agricultural revolution. The agricultural inputs the respondents know of include improved seeds, fertilisers, crop protection chemicals, machinery, irrigation

222 and knowledge. Seeds and fertilisers are critical for successful crop production, farming productivity and profitability of any farming enterprise. While fertiliser supplies nutrients to the soil to enhance soil fertility for essential crop growth, it also enhances higher productivity when used with improved seeds.

The subsistence farmers of eMjikweni Village as a collective, conceded that pesticides and fertilisers are their most expensive agricultural inputs, and were appealing to the government to provide these important inputs. The expectation levels of the role of the state in providing basic resources in the rural Eastern Cape are still very high, an expectation not easily found in neighbouring states in the SADC region. The majority of respondents in this study were social grant recipients who said they were unable to purchase agricultural inputs. The government social grant is spent predominantly on buying food for the households. At the present moment, the social grant is the only safety net for rural communities to curb poverty in rural areas. Study respondents confirmed how using their social grant money on food meant very little was left to purchase inputs, as well to hire machinery and labour for growing food. Bryceson (1996), however, maintains that subsistence agriculture in rural communities is the only viable livelihood option to survive.

7.7.3 Gender Disparity and Land Allocation

The findings confirmed that there are still gender disparities in the traditional areas in relation to land allocation for both residential and productive usage. Though land is still available, as outlined in Chapter Five, the results showed very few (12%) of the young people who participated in the survey and women heads of household are still not able to gain access to land due to cultural inhibitions. It became clear that the traditional values hinder women and young people’s ability to own land in rural areas of the former homeland of the Transkei. In the case of the few young married respondents not owning hectares in the communal fields, this is due to non-availability of land for further allocation:

It is difficult to get a piece of land in the fields because there is no space for further allocation. This put us on the disadvantage especially if our father is not a first born child in the family (Respondent interviewed, 30 April 2017).

223 The respondents in the study confirmed that, previously, according to the culture and traditional value system of the Xhosa people, unmarried men and women were not entitled to access to land for residential and communal land. This tradition was relaxed by traditional authorities for single women, while single men are still in a disadvantaged position. Traditionally, access to communal fields is given to the firstborn male child of the household and this tradition continues from one generation to the next. Thus the rights of unmarried females and men to own land in some parts of traditional areas of the former homeland of Transkei are still trampled upon. These findings support Walker (2002), who maintains that gender disparities are widespread in the rural social system. Even married women do not have the right to land; they only have permission to use the land to produce food for the entire family. This patriarchal tradition system discourages and weakens women’s position in the society by denying them access to land for production and residential purposes.

Before the adoption of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, black women were relegated to the status of being minors in their customary married life. This view has ceased to exist on paper, but is still evident in the rural areas. This also corresponds with Walker’s (2002) findings that the customary position of women as minors to their spouses compromised the development of girls and women in society. In other parts of the country, patriarchal cultures take this view further to disallow women to inherit the property of their spouses, including fixed and movable assets. In a number of African traditional cultures, including that of South Africa, widows are not allowed to inherit the estate of the late husband. It is only men of the households who have the right to take over the control and management of assets of the deceased (Jordaan, Sowetanlive, 24 October, 2018).

According to traditional culture, men are regarded as the permanent members of the household or family, while adult women have no say in the affairs of their households. The man’s traditional superior status (as household head) in inheritance takes precedence over a woman regardless of the woman’s age and seniority in the family. The traditional view that “women’s future is in marriage,” still dominates the traditional value system which does not cater for single women in land inheritance. This concurs with Walker (2002), who found that women in the rural areas are discriminated against and denied land and inheritance of their spouses’ ‘assets under the disguise of

224 traditional norms. In extreme cases, widows’ rights to the inheritance are taken way and often they are chased from the household by in-laws. In a case in KwaZulu-Natal, a widow who was chased from her marital home by the husband’s son and in-laws, through the legal route, managed to get the marital property back (Jordaan, Sowetanlive, 24 October, 2018).

Land ownership in South Africa‘s rural areas remained a contentious issue as gender inequality still prevails in the traditional rural system. It transpired during the interviews that the majority (99%) of respondents revealed that the ownership of arable land was gained through the male primogeniture principle, where land is passed from one generation to the next through the male blood line. The accounts made by respondents of the male primogeniture principle which is applied in the traditional social system coincide with the findings of Manona (2005) who highlights the existence of this phenomenon in the tribal areas. The ramifications of this principle violate the rights of females to ever own communal fields in their lifetime. In fact, Walker (2002) argues that women’s plight as far as the land reform process is concerned, was not properly addressed by legislative reforms. It has for many years been side-lined, by policy implementers as well as the traditional authority land allocation system. The debate which ensured in 2018 about whether South Arica’s parliament is going to amend Section 25 of the Constitution to allow for land expropriation without compensation by government may well be a futile exercise if the rights of rural women are not addressed properly at constitutional level.

7.7.4 Empowering women in subsistence agricultural development

Chapter Six placed emphasis on some of the gender disparities that affect food production at household level, despite women’s significant contribution to the subsistence agricultural sector in the rural areas. Their active engagement in agricultural activities confirms Boserup (1970); Manona (2005) and Shackleton and Hamer’s (2010) assertion that, because women are the backbone of food production systems and processes, empowering women with land as the crucial factor of subsistence farming would help address the social ills of poverty, hunger and inequality.

225 The role of women in subsistence farming in eMjikweni Village can be traced back to the labour migration systems, with women left behind to fend for their families, producing food and maintaining the self-sufficiency status. Boserup et.al (2007) maintains that women, on average, make up the larger proportion of the agricultural labour force in developing countries. Rural women, generally, work as subsistence farmers as paid or unpaid workers on family farms or as entrepreneurs running on or off farm enterprises. In some parts of the Sub-Saharan African continent, rural women, despite their significant contribution to the agricultural sector, often find themselves in disadvantaged positions. They are often restricted access to productive resources and assets, financial services and social protection. The gender-biased social norms and customs, laws, and practices limit their full involvement and participation in social organisations.

The results of this study highlight how, despite women’s challenges in accessing necessary agricultural resources, they remained steadfast in their endeavour to be an unwavering force behind food production in the rural areas. The assertion by Shackleton and Hamer (2010) that “women matter” in enhancing the food production process is the fundamental starting point for rural development. This study, therefore, is supporting South African government in implementing rural development interventions that take cognisance of the role of women in subsistence farming, and food production strategies that are responsive to gender issues and foster and promote rural women’s empowerment.

7.7.5 A role for youth in South African agriculture

The minimal and impartial attitude of youth towards agriculture in this study, notwithstanding an ageing subsistence farming sector, prompts the need for more discussion on the role of youth in South Africa’s food production systems. There are a number of case studies to showcase their hard earned contribution to fight or lure youth to join the agricultural sector in the African continent. Even in South Africa there are young persons who are beginning to enter the agricultural sector as a viable profession and were actively involved in agricultural work as a career. The challenges experienced by the young people entering the commercial agricultural sector confirm the findings of the study.

226 Testimony of such young people in South Africa include the stories of three young South African men, who have graduated from university and consciously taken the decision to pursue farming as a vocation. The stories of Tshilidzi Matshidzula (Admin, 2018), Lonwabo Jwili (Ngubane, 2018) and Simo Sigwela4 (interviewed by researcher on 5 November 2018) draw attention to the plight of young agricultural professionals in South Africa who experience challenges in getting much needed support from government to start their farming enterprises. Their stories confirm the results of the study which revealed that there is lack of financial support, inputs, access to market and machinery to effectively operate their day to day businesses. Their stories highlight the challenges and barriers to access credit within the financial institutions by young professionals who seek to pursue the agricultural entrepreneur route. One of the most challenging hurdles is the total lack of government support to create a conducive environment for the young people who have no collateral to access credit with ease, as well as access to markets. Nonetheless, only one professional for whom at the end, government has provided support is enjoying benefits of being part of the youth graduate programme in Eastern Cape Province. These challenges are happening in the midst of high unemployment rate among the youth in South Africa and Eastern Cape Province and in the arena where government is advocating for youth to venture into entrepreneurship.

Lonwabo Jwili’s story (Ngubane, 2018) concludes that young black people trying to enter the commercial sector face a dearth of information about critical aspects, including the difficulty to find readily available information about planting practices, and even recommends that the government should reconsider focusing on rural communities as they need assistance with rural development. In the story of Tshilidzi Mashidzula, Admin (2018) reiterates the government’s mission of developing black commercial farmers and commented that, “while there is a government’s national drive to create a new generation of black commercial farmers, one would think that the barriers of young people to source funding from government are minimal or non- existent”. Simo Sigwela, also a trailblazer, recounts challenges of bottlenecks in

4 Researcher interviewed Mr Simo Sigwela on the 5th November 2018. He was referred to the researcher by a colleague who knew him to be a young professional recently graduated from university, and has opted to start his own farming business. Sigwela’s story presents a classic case of the challenges young entrepreneurs face in accessing finance, overcoming the red tape of business and breaking into established agricultural markets. Yet still unlike many youth, he has opted to pursue agriculture as a career.

227 sourcing financial support from financial institutions as well as challenges of drought and water shortages for maximum food production (interview with Simo Sigwela on 5 November 2018). Tshilidzi Mashidzula, Admin (2018) reiterates in his story, puts forward a suggestion with regard to the current financing model, requesting that a relaxation of the collateral requirements and that a seasonal payment model be instituted.

The attitude displayed by youth cannot be entirely attributed to stigma alone but also to the subsistence farming intergeneration gap. The young people were born after the collapse of the subsistence agriculture in rural areas of the former homeland of Transkei. Therefore, they are not used to the traditional way of life but the modern one. Therefore, subsistence agriculture is not embedded in their value system. The lack of interest by youth has attracted the attention of the rural communities who request government intervention to assist in providing training to the youth on agriculture as the one of the livelihood strategies in the rural areas. With the current demographics profile, many young people live in rural areas, being unproductive and unemployed. To train young people for agricultural activities would require skills, tenacity and detailed programme of action. Brown (2012) cautions adults in rural areas to be specific in describing agricultural activities youth must carry out. There must be supporting intervention and facilitation to make youth make a meaningful contribution in the agriculture and rural development.

It is believed that the reluctance of youth can be aggravated by low economic activity and returns and perceived difficulty accessing factors of production, land, labour and capital inputs, as demonstrated by the trail blazers in the previous section. Brown (2012) like many scholars, made a stark revelation that young people who stay in villages are only indulging in liquor from local taverns and young girls spend the whole day in local towns on the day of social grant pay-outs (Brown, 2012:3).

The South African government needs to increase young people’s interest in agriculture by involving them in early childhood and this can be done in conjunction with the aggressive marketing by profiling young role models to follow their footsteps. It is therefore, the duty of government to create a conducive environment to support youth participation in agricultural activities in all spheres of government. Besides agricultural inputs and modern machinery, the building of capable infrastructure such as road

228 networks, transport system, dams, and an irrigation system is the prerequisite of a sound, healthy and productive environment for agricultural growth.

7.8 RECOMMENDATIONS

The development of a rural subsistence agricultural system can be realised through the implementation of an agricultural policy shift, focusing on small-scale and subsistence farming through the provision of adequate government support. The required support includes visible extension support services, farmer support and effective full implementation of government programmes earmarked for poverty eradication and community development in rural communities. This study puts forward eleven (11) key recommendations for due consideration as a context for recommendations in addressing the land issue insofar as uncultivated land goes. They draw from the study findings and the experience and insight provided by study respondents, while also benchmarking against available literature. The recommendations are listed below with supporting narratives:

7.8.1 Accommodating competing lifestyles

In the olden days, rural households did not incur any costs for food production; family members were used as the production unit. The traditional social system has since changed in rural areas. Nowadays, cultivation had become a very expensive exercise which discouraged many rural households from engaging in agricultural activities. As stated in Chapter Six, social grants are split to cater for every household financial need leaving them with less money to buy food for the family. The rural communities are solely depending on the local markets for food supplies. Study findings demonstrated how buying food in the rural areas is a costly exercise and process. People spend lot of time travelling to local towns to buy food and incur additional costs of transporting groceries home.

The implication for this phenomenon is the depressed living standard for the rural households. The rural communities will continue to experience shortage of food, which impacts on the household food security, unless drastic steps are taken by the South African government to change the mind set of many rural people who are “conditioned” by social circumstances to regard agriculture as a backward form of living. With the

229 current stigma attached to agriculture, then the country will continue to be ravaged by high levels of food shortages and poverty.

The respondents in this study were concerned about balancing the fine line between traditional subsistence farming and unavoidable ways of life that all compete for their limited financial resources. Most community members have challenges in hiring tractors. Their financial position has forced them to curtail agricultural activities. It was even difficult to perform household duties with the limited social grant money. These conditions have caused a reduced number of gardens being cultivated.

The social grant received monthly has to cater for every household financial need, leaving households with less money to buy food for the family. The rural communities are solely dependent on the local markets for food supplies. According to study observations, to buy food in the rural areas is a costly process. It involves spending lot of time travelling to town, incurring costs in the transport and paying for groceries to get home. This has resulted in a depressed living standard for the rural households. The rural communities will continue to experience shortage of food, which impacts on the household food security unless drastic steps are taken by the government to change the mind set of many rural people. Rural communities are “conditioned” by social circumstances to regard agriculture as a backward form of living; failing this, the country will continue to be ravaged by high levels of food shortages, poverty, hunger and starvation.

7.8.2 Reducing market dependency

Market dependency for food supplies is a prevalent issue in the rural villages of the former homeland of Transkei. Many people have become comfortable in consuming goods not produced by themselves instead of producing and consuming their own. This phenomenon is what Patrick Lumumba (2018) is concerned about when he commented that “Africa is consuming goods that it has not produced and producing goods that it is not consuming” (OR Tambo Memorial Lecture, 17 July 2018). According to my observation, the current state of affairs in the rural areas can be seen as being overwhelmed by the “poverty of the mind and the poverty of the soul”. Globally agriculture is regarded as the main source of food to feed the nations; without agricultural production, people will die from hunger and starvation. People living in

230 rural areas lack deeper understanding and insight of what constitutes a healthy living lifestyle, as well as the impact agricultural production has on the livelihood of mankind.

That only a few community members have formed a community project in 2016 to revive agricultural activities in the communal fields, with the majority (82%) of community members having not yet joined the cooperative due to high costs of joining the project, it transpired during the investigation that about 90% of respondents are depending on social grants for their livelihoods. Therefore, with their financial position, rural households found it difficult to cultivate even their small homestead gardens. It would therefore be unlikely to participate in the cultivation of a bigger piece of land. The findings of this study revealed that the major cost drivers in the subsistence agriculture were input costs including fertilisers and the hiring of tractors. Notwithstanding, the current challenge of uncultivated communal fields is the due to total lack of infrastructure (fence) to revitalise subsistence farming to improve food security of the rural households. Leahy’s (2011) findings attest to the fact that high input costs, are contributing to a low level of agricultural activities in rural communities. In most instances, it is not only the cost of cultivation but the poor conditions of the garden fencing that would expose crops to livestock destroy.

7.8.3 Training in productive farming methods

Farmer empowerment is very important if sustainability of agriculture is to be achieved. One of the ways of empowering farmers is to offer them skills through training programmes. Stats SA’s (2016) Poverty Report has identified formal education as one of the key drivers to combat poverty. It is believed that the lower the standard of education, the higher the chances that household may be vulnerable to poverty, hunger and starvation. Despite government’s intervention to improve illiteracy levels among the adult population who were previously disadvantaged by introducing Adult Basic Education and Training programmes in the 1990s (ABET) yet, the illiteracy levels are still high in the rural areas. The programme was meant to offer an informal adult education to rural people, which aimed at making an improvement in the quality of life of ordinary people living in rural areas.

The educational background or condition or status of the people living in rural areas was highlighted by the study findings of this research which revealed that 10% of the

231 respondents had no formal education, and are thus basically illiterate. A reported 74% had completed their primary education. Despite these concerted efforts by government, the challenge of illiteracy among rural communities still persists today. In most cases, the illiteracy level serves as a deterrent to welcome new farming skills. The results of the study confirms the views held by de Villiers (2018) that education levels of the rural people determine the level of productivity and the ease at which they would embrace changes in the farming system. The respondents acknowledged that their reluctance to welcome new farming methods had delayed development in their village. At the same time, the extension support had failed the rural communities by not communicating with and educating them about the new methods of farming and receiving government grants. The community members rejected the idea of forming cooperatives even though it is the government approach to rural development. The communities are sceptical of joining cooperatives as they witnessed a high failure rate of cooperatives which were marred by in-fighting. This view was confirmed by a number of researchers including de Villiers (2018); Hebinck, Fay and Kondlo (2011); Taeb and Zakri (2008); Banchirigah (2010) and Marias (2011) that illiterate people tend to resist change and education levels would enable rural communities to embrace change and make informed decisions about any farming activities.

Besides the high input costs, the study also highlighted that rural communities were not proficient with the modern farming techniques and they showed interest to get training and be empowered with knowledge that would enhance sustained growth in subsistence agriculture sector. The subsistence farmers had been practising agriculture using their indigenous knowledge passed from one generation to the next. Therefore, technical knowledge in general, is the perceived gap that exists in the subsistence agriculture sector in rural areas. Accordingly, during group discussions, an overwhelming majority are eager to learn new farming methods to obtain higher productivity. Besides crop production, other community members want to diversify to other farming activities such as piggery and poultry farming but got discouraged by the high cost of running these farming activities. The introduction of machinery (tractors) as a new form of farming enhances human labour effectiveness and increases farm productivity. It is envisaged that knowledge and training are the major inputs that would improve the farmers’ productivity.

232 In addition to the lack of training provided to subsistence farmers, there is the challenge of storage facilities to store surplus produce in the rural communities. With the prevailing challenge, rural people (who are part of the project) are forced to sell their produce during low season due to lack of proper storage facilities. One of the respondents commented that they often sell their surplus at a loss. They are not properly trained on market dynamics including pricing, and the right time to sell their surplus produce:

I am part of the group of the project which cultivates maize in the communal fields but we are not trained on the market dynamics. We ended up selling our maize at a lower price. This issue is aggravated by the fact that we do not have a storage facility for the amount of maize we are producing per season in the project (Respondent interviewed, 04 May 2017).

The provision of training to rural communities is therefore of paramount importance in the endeavour to advance, transform and develop subsistence and small-scale farmers into commercial farming sector. Yet, the government’s programmes are focusing on training and transforming only small scale farmers and emerging black famers into commercial farming while neglecting the subsistence which is the engine for providing food security of the rural poor. What came out strongly during group discussions and in-depth interviews was the interest displayed by the community in receiving training in crop and livestock production and soil assessment to establish suitable crops for different types of soil in order to obtain higher productivity. Nevertheless, it can be construed from these responses that government is lagging behind in capacitating rural community due to lack of training and support.

Respondents indicated how they would welcome expert advice on assessing soil types and suitable crops for that particular soil such as “rocky soil”. During the discussions, it was highlighted that in the communal land, as well as that within the village, there are different soil types ranging from sandy, rocky, muddy and loam soil; therefore, training on which crops to cultivate is welcomed by the rural communities.

A series of requests were made by different respondents in the community. One of the respondents took it further and requested training on the new farming methods and said:

233 Our request, as a community is to be given training on the new methods of farming (Respondent interviewed, 02 May 2017).

The community is requesting farming implements, irrigation system, building of dams for the livestock as well as training on livestock and crop production (Respondent interviewed, 10 May 2017).

We will be glad if government can support us with tractors, irrigation system and train us on farming skills. As community, we are requesting government to provide us with farming inputs such as, fertilisers, insecticides, fencing and tractors (Respondent interviewed, 30 April 2017).

In all these excerpts, the respondents would like to get training on the modern techniques of agriculture. They had witnessed the new farming methods from the small agricultural projects operating in the village which produced large quantities of maize per season. The requested training on livestock and crop production is essential for revitalisation of subsistence agriculture in rural communities. The training should also be accompanied by the provision of key inputs for the development of the subsistence agricultural sector in rural communities. During the discussions, the respondents highlighted the need to start livestock production, but lacked capacity, training and support from government to start livestock production and said:

We need workshops to be trained on farming to get necessary skills on cultivating different kinds of crops and livestock production (Respondent interviewed, 30 April 2017).

7.8.4 Improved government support

The study found that with the majority (99%) of respondents maintaining that government has not provided support to the community for agricultural advancement, interventions of government need to be more tangible. Respondents highlighted lack of training on crop and livestock production as one area that needs support of government. The majority (85%) of respondents displayed interest in livestock production but decried the total lack of extension support on animal husbandry services in the community. The few stock owners proactively approached the ward extension officer requesting services but were advised to form a farmers’ association in order to access government veterinary services. It took the community a longer time to buy into the idea. It is such delays that contributed to the delays in provision of veterinary services to the community of eMjikweni. The persistence and resilience of

234 the community paid off as renovation of the dipping tank and livestock vaccination were ultimately provided.

Conversely, lack of government support in the household food production in the rural areas has contributed to the decline of subsistence agriculture in the former homeland areas. The identified areas that need support include the inputs, fence, subsidised tractors, training and access to knowledge about farming practices. Therefore, government is mandated to make provision for public goods such as fencing, roads, building of dams and training and development. Yet, the government lacks the political will to support the subsistence farmers living in rural areas with necessary resources for the advancement of subsistence agriculture.

Recently, the government has recognised the revitalisation of subsistence farming as the vehicle for creating job opportunities and improve living conditions of the rural people. Nevertheless, the government is facing a huge challenge of lack of implementation of its poverty alleviation programmes in the rural communities. Nonetheless, Aliber (2003) has divergent views in relation to poverty alleviation programmes in South Africa. He argues that the government’s efforts to fight poverty are hampered by service delivery capacity or financial resources, as well as policy- makers’ understanding of the nature of poverty they are trying to address and the appropriate measures to be exercised. Until government sets aside “blanket approach strategies” for poverty alleviation without profiling the area and understands the type of poverty and the measure to apply to address that particular type of poverty (Aliber, 2003:473), the fight against food insecurity will never be won. Monitoring and evaluation of government programmes is also essential to enhancing subsistence food production. This, with agriculture training provided to rural communities on crop production to enhance massive maize production to improve household food security and training in marketing skills to sell surplus produce, will resolve substantively, the crisis of subsistence farming.

There is an extension officer who is responsible to service our ward but he hardly visits us to share information about new ways of farming. This community did not receive any support or training from the government experts for few women who are employed as community workers to build and cultivate vegetable gardens in the village. We are still using the indigenous farming knowledge we have learnt from elders and in turn, we pass that knowledge to our children. We would like to

235 get proper training on how to use land productively to gain higher yields (Respondent Interviewed, 11 May 2017).

7.8.5 Promoting indigenous knowledge in farming

The accounts of the respondents of this study revealed how they are facing difficulties in passing down the indigenous knowledge of farming to the present generation due to lack of interest among youth in the agriculture sector. The adult respondents are specifically more concerned about young men who show lack of interest and commented as follows:

These young boys are not interested in agricultural activities; instead they spend their time in the local taverns (Respondents interviewed, 04 May 2017).

This comment shows that elderly men regard agricultural activities as men’s jobs and were more concerned about lack of interest of male children in agricultural activities, and disregarded the female child. This is an indication that patriarchal value systems are still deeply entrenched in rural communities. It would be best if both male and female children should be trained and afforded equal exposure with regard to transfer of important knowledge, skills and processes of food production in the traditional areas. The elderly still hold the view of equipping and skilling only young men with agricultural knowledge. The elderly men’s efforts to side-line girls in training agricultural activities would be an “opportunity lost” in the development of subsistence agricultural in the rural areas. In the African farming context, men play a minimal role in the food production process while women are actively engaged in agricultural activities. This is in line with many research studies which share the same views that women serve as the solid foundation for food production for household consumption in the rural areas. This contradicts the contents of Sections 1 (a) and (b) of the founding provision of the Constitution which uphold values of human dignity, the achievement of equality, the advancement of human rights and freedoms and the principles of non-racialism and non-sexism. Again, this view contradicts many researchers’ findings, including the one undertaken by Boserup, Tan and Toulmin (2007) that argues that subsistence agricultural labour force is dominated by women who took a more active part in agricultural activities than men. The introduction of the mechanisation of agriculture further lessened the role of men in agricultural activities which put more burden on rural women who always play a dual responsibility in the

236 rural areas, that of reproducing and production of food for consumption. It is not uncommon in rural areas to observe women to training young girls in agricultural work at an early age.

7.8.6 Promoting rural farming cooperatives: A bottom-up approach

One of the main vehicles that the post 1994 democratic government has used to develop rural areas has been through rural farming cooperatives. Yet, still to this day communities such as that of eMjikweni Village are still not aware that government strategy in developing rural areas is through forming cooperatives. They lacked such critical information which caused delays in embracing new farming methods in the pursuit of rural development. The community attributed this to their lack of education for initially rejecting the formation of cooperatives.

The respondents highlighted that there were several projects that were operating in the community but all have failed due to in-fighting and mismanagement. One of the respondents, who have first-hand experience on the challenges of managing projects, commented as follows:

There was a community poultry project in this village of which I was a member. The project was doing well, as a result, as the project leader; I was then nominated for Community Builders of the year in 2004 in Johannesburg. The project failed due of lack of training on project management. It ended up being a traditional court case. One of the project members sold the stock and brought down the physical structures of the project (houses) and started to sell all the zinc sheets. We were not properly trained on the management of the project as well on group dynamics. Therefore, training on business and project management would assist the community in running successful projects in the near future (Respondent interviewed, 04 May 2017).

One respondent admitted that:

…community members took a longer time to understand the culture of cooperatives and farmer's’ association. Lack of knowledge about the benefits of forming cooperatives had delayed development of subsistence agriculture in this community (Respondent interviewed, 04 May 2017).

This excerpt clearly demonstrates the lack of necessary knowledge that would assist rural communities in making informed decisions.

237 Bank and Minkley (2013) make a stark observation about projects that were introduced by South African government in rural communities. They observe that government has intended to impose projects using a top-down approach, with little or no consultation with the community and no proper training for project beneficiaries. There was no monitoring and evaluation of the programmes that were currently running to assist with on-going technical expertise when projects derailed for the sustainability of the projects. This has contributed to the high failure rate of the projects in the rural communities. Bank and Minkley (2013) observe how the countryside has become a “dumping ground “ for quite a number of new poverty relief small projects including women’s projects of baking, piggery, poultry, sewing and crafts, and community halls, shearing sheds, farmers’ centres and upgraded school structures.

Of great concern is what the impact of these projects has been on the lives of the ordinary rural people. Besides provision of training on community projects, there is total lack of training on land management and land use (veld control) due to unavailability of infrastructure (fencing) in the rural areas. The lack of infrastructure is used as the scapegoat for the government’s failure to provide training on the effective management of land use for both pastures and communal land for crop production. Training and provision of knowledge and services to rural communities on any agricultural related activities are the responsibility of government, yet the extension support services are invisible in the rural communities. As a result the individual stock owners approached the extension officer about livestock services but were advised to form a farmers’ association to access veterinary services. It took the community a longer time to buy into the idea. One respondent commented that:

We took a longer time to understand the phenomenon of cooperatives. We are illiterate; we usually take time to buy into any development initiatives. It is such delays that contributed to the delays in the provision of veterinary services to the community of eMjikweni. Persistence of the community members paid off as renovation of the dipping tank and livestock vaccination and other veterinary services were ultimately provided by the government (Respondent interviewed, 04 May 2017).

The community was concerned about lack of farming skills to enhance the productivity levels. The respondents highlighted challenges that hinder their revitalisation of agriculture in their village including lack of inputs, irrigation systems and building of infrastructure (dams, fencing). It was highlighted that many projects fail in the rural

238 areas due to lack of training on how to successfully run the farming projects. The lack of understanding of the importance of cooperatives engagement delayed the progress as they took a longer time to understand the culture of cooperatives because of their illiterate position. The extension support by definition is expected to keep rural communities abreast of any agricultural related development.

7.8.7 Improved agricultural extension services

The Agricultural Research Council (ARC) (2016) defines extension education and agricultural extension, which are often used interchangeably, to refer to communication of agricultural knowledge and practices to farmers and rural people to empower them to formulate independent decisions to improve production and quality of life. Agricultural extension can be defined as a service or system which assists people through education and communication in improving their farming methods and increasing production efficiency and income, as well standard of living. The results of a successful extension education will manifest into improved living standards of rural communities and general welfare of the subsistence farmers. There are however, several important elements in the definition of extension service: firstly, the education takes place away from a formal higher education institution. Secondly, it is meant for ordinary people, as it eliminates formal admission requirements. Thirdly, it is based on the needs of people and therefore has to be adaptable, responsive and flexible to their needs. Finally, it focuses on many subject areas beyond agriculture. The latter attribute is what characterises extension education today where extension officers are still expected to deal with a range of issues in communities they serve. Shackleton and Hamer (2010) affirm the last element, and advise the extension officers to look beyond just giving advice and education to subsistence farmers on the correct methods of storing foods and preserving produce for the longer shelf life.

It is therefore, the duty of government to support subsistence farmers through an extension officer. There are government officials whose placements are strategically positioned to be close to rural communities to attend to their agricultural needs. The extension support services are attached to the Department of Rural Development and Agrarian Reform in each and every local municipality in the country. It is the duty of the extension officers to give support and advice to all farmers irrespective of their background and geographical location. According to Christoplos (2010), extension

239 support is all the different activities that provide the information and advisory services that are needed and demanded by the farmers and other actors in the agro-food system and rural development. An agricultural extension officer works directly with farmers and acts as the government ambassador to provide necessary support to small-scale and subsistence farmers, emerging, as well as established commercial farmers.

The extension officer is constantly armed with modern techniques and information related to agriculture and is expected to relay this information to all farmers. In addition to the interrelatedness with farmers, agricultural extension officers provide a consultative role with farmers in the form of actual talks, demonstrations, and presentations on the latest agricultural technologies. They also attend seminars and work with the experts in agriculture to learn more or even develop new methods that could advance agricultural production. Recognising the subsistence farmers’ educational background, extension education should provide agricultural-related education to the subsistence farmers using demonstrations, as well as on the job training, to equip rural people with farming skills that will ultimately improve their living standards. This confirms the argument by the Agriculture Research Council (ARC) (2016) that the extension definition eliminates the formal admission requirements in the extension education.

Like farming cooperatives, the rural communities generally are not aware of the government services that they are entitled to; they usually hear of the services from neighbouring villages before they can approach government officials. From the above excerpts, it became clear that extension officers are not providing training on modern farming technologies to rural communities. The extension support is lacking and most of the time non-existent in the rural areas. The only support they provide to the rural areas is the provision of chemicals for dipping tanks, as well the maize production project that is currently running in the village. Yet, their role is to educate and equip rural communities on the new methods of agriculture and cultivating a variety of crops. Strong extension support services are an imperative requiring immediate attention.

240 7.8.8 To shift or not to shift to commercial agriculture

In the year 1999, South Africa witnessed an agriculture policy shift which focused its attention on the development of black emerging farmers to enter the commercial agricultural sector. At the same time, the government’s focus was directed towards formation of cooperatives as the vehicle for rural development. Nevertheless, the training to prepare for this transition to commercial sector was not enough nor was the one provided for community projects adequate. It transpired during the field study discussions that all the projects that were established in the village failed due to lack of training on how the rural communities could effectively manage them. However, with changing climatic conditions and the persistent droughts which have drastically affected the agricultural sector in general, the study respondents did not foresee an easy transition to commercial agriculture. The commercial sector is in a better condition to mitigate climate change effects as they have well established functioning infrastructure on the ground to alleviate the effects of drought in grain production.

On the other hand, subsistence farming which is more adaptable to dry land with reliable rainfall, during periods of severe drought subsistence agriculture is affected as no food is grown during such periods. Government’s current position is to discourage intercropping. Instead it is advocating for mono-cropping but the challenge is the government’s failure to demonstrate to rural communities the disadvantages of intercropping and the advantages of mono-cropping. Mono-cropping requires more time and manpower to individually plant different crops in different sections of the household gardens or communal fields. With no storage facilities to store surplus produce in the rural communities, rural communities are not able to make a transition into commercial farming. One of the respondents commented that they often sell their surplus at a loss. Rural communities were not properly trained on market dynamics including pricing, and the right time to sell their surplus produce:

I am part of the group of the project who cultivate maize in the communal fields but we are not trained in the market dynamics. We ended up selling our maize at a lower price. This issue is aggravated by the fact that we do not have storage facilities for the amount of maize we are producing per season in the project (Respondent interviewed, 04 May 2017).

Yet government’s programmes focus on training and transforming only small scale farmers and emerging black famers into commercial farmers while neglecting the

241 subsistence farming which is the engine for providing food security of the rural poor. However, Mbindwane (2015) provides a more pragmatic view on the transition to commercial farming by noting that it is a very long process to develop small holder farming into commercial farming. It is time that subsistence farmers do not have as the demand for food grows at a pace that outstrips the supply of factors of production needed to grow food. Nevertheless, Bryceson (1996) still affirms that as much as government is on a mission of transforming black emerging farmers into commercial sector; it must not neglect the subsistence farming sector in the process. Bryceson (1996) maintains that government must put much emphasis on the development of subsistence agriculture in rural communities which is the only viable livelihood option as it is all that the subsistence farmers have as they solely depend on subsistence agriculture to survive.

7.8.9 Youth in rural agriculture: An obstacle or opportunity?

For the purposes of this study, farming capacity is confined to labour or people available to work the land with specific reference to the role youth are playing and can play in rural agricultural development. Historically, in the household farming system, every member of the household played different roles in the food production process. The division of labour was clearly defined by sex and age. Young girls and boys had their specific roles to play: that of guarding the cultivated crops in the fields; while adult men and women interchangeably shared responsibilities of cultivation, weeding and harvesting. It is important to acknowledge that subsistence farming is labour intensive in nature, hence requires a lot of manpower to produce the food.

During the field study discussions, it transpired that in the rural areas there is a dire shortage of manpower. People who are actively engaged in agricultural activities are too old to work the land alone. The respondents highlighted that the challenge of manpower is aggravated by the lack of interest displayed by youth to perform agricultural activities. The majority of respondents commented as follows:

Youth are lazy and lack interest in agricultural activities. Children of today do not regard subsistence farming as a livelihood strategy; they think agriculture-related activities should be done by us, older people (Respondent interviewed, 04/05/2017).

242 Another respondent also confirmed that:

Youth do not believe that one can make living out of subsistence farming. Parents and extension officers should educate youth and the community about the importance of agriculture. Youth are not convinced that job creation can be realised through working the land. They regard agricultural activities as for old people. As a result, youth spend most of the time in local taverns (Respondent interviewed, 04 May 2017).

This focus group discussant acknowledged that agricultural activities require a lot of manpower and recognise that they are too old to work the land, yet are discouraged by lack of interest displayed youth in agricultural activities. One respondent shared the same sentiments as above, and has lost hope that today’s youth will ever take an active part in agricultural activities and commented as follows:

There is no hope that they will ever regard subsistence farming as an important agricultural activity that has a potential of providing sustainable jobs. They regard agriculture as a backward activity that should be done by elderly people (Respondent interviewed, 04 May 2017).

Another elderly respondent painted a gloomy picture on the perceived lack of interest by youth in agricultural activities and said:

Persistent droughts and stock theft have contributed to the loss of many cattle in this community, with subsequent negative implications in the lives of rural people. The rural communities had previously depended on cattle to cultivate the land. Nevertheless, I am among the few people in this village who still own a large herd of cattle. Nonetheless, my children are not even interested to learn how to plough using cattle; in fact they are not interested in any agricultural activities. In our culture, it was a norm that during the planting season, everybody, both young and old, men and women, were involved in agricultural activities. Now, I am forced to use a tractor to cultivate my garden due to lack of labour. To hire a tractor is very expensive (Respondent interviewed, 04 May 2017).

Globally, lack of interest by youth in agricultural activities is perceived to be associated with the stigma attached to agricultural work. Chapter Six discussed how young people in both developed and developing countries often associate agricultural work with hard manual labour, lower income and fewer prospects of personal growth and achievements. In this study, it was found that the attitude displayed by youth cannot be entirely attributed to stigma alone but also to the subsistence farming intergeneration gap. Young people were born after the collapse of subsistence

243 agriculture in rural areas of the former homeland of Transkei. Therefore, they are not used to a subsistence farming way of life nor do they view it as an employment option:

Government should intervene and educate young people about the importance of subsistence agriculture and to demonstrate that they can make living out of subsistence farming and there would no need for youth having to look for work in the cities as the agricultural sector has a potential of creating employment in rural communities (Respondent interviewed, 02 May 2017).

Government should intervene and educate young people to demonstrate that they can make a living out of subsistence farming and there would no need for every young person to look for work in the cities; they can start small agricultural-related projects and eventually venture into agribusiness enterprises (Respondent interviewed, 09 May 2017).

These views of study respondents reflect the very ethos of South Africa’s Young Professionals for Agricultural Development, (YPARD) (2018) whose aim is to attract young persons and professionals back to the agricultural sector by demonstrating young pioneers who have made a significant contribution to the agricultural sector and to their personal growth careers. This can be achieved by breaking the barriers of stigma associated with agriculture by young people. In the midst of a stubborn challenge of high unemployment among the youth in South Africa and Eastern Cape Province and in the arena where government is advocating for youth to venture into entrepreneurship, support to YARD and youth-driven agricultural initiatives is long overdue. With a youthful population, South Africa can realise a yield on its demographic dividend through structured youth-driven programmes in agricultural development, entrepreneurship, value chain development in agriculture, climate change mitigation and adaptation programmes by youth and R&D in agriculture by youth.

7.8.10 Improved rural infrastructure

Access to agricultural markets and related improvements in rural infrastructure and marketing institutions are essential for the adoption of new technology and sustainability of subsistence agriculture. Inadequate road infrastructure imposes significant burdens as farmers are faced with high farm-to-market access costs, unfenced land and water shortages. Since infrastructural services play a very vital role

244 in agricultural development, the challenge is to achieve high accessibility rates for infrastructural services among the rural population of the Eastern Cape.

In this study, respondents lamented the dearth of rural infrastructure, namely fencing, water reservoirs and access roads. The lack of fencing in the communal fields hinders effective crop production, thus perpetuating the poverty levels in rural communities. Without fencing in the communal fields, no sustainable agriculture can be achieved, leaving rural households susceptible to hunger and poverty.

Infrastructure development, like bulk fencing, irrigation systems, water reservoir construction and storage facilities, are a promising vehicle for rural development in the Eastern Cape. It would offer the community an opportunity for increased crop production, help reduce poverty and improve food security in rural households. Chakwizira et al. (2010) emphasises how irrigation development can make a meaningful contribution towards productive utilisation of land, with a startling reminder that the Mhlontlo Local Municipality does indeed have a business plan for the development of irrigation in the Tsitsa River Basin. To date it has never been implemented. Thus, the problem of underutilisation of land by the communities in the municipality (and the Eastern Cape Province at large) persists, yet can partly be addressed by investing in irrigation infrastructure. This is particularly so, Chakwizira et al. (2010) further argue, given the fact that two perennial rivers, namely, Thina and Tsitsa Rivers, traverse the municipality and there are large parcels of community land that are suitable for irrigation.

7.8.11 Data on small-scale subsistence farming for evidence-based planning

One of the limitations to an understanding of subsistence agricultural development and how it can be correctly positioned in the land debate of South Africa is the issues of paucity of empirical data on the subsistence agriculture economy, its farmer and the linkages that sustain the sector. To date Stats SA has focused primarily on agricultural statistics of the commercial sector. Any other data is gleaned from uncoordinated and fragmented pieces of research undertaken by interested stakeholders. Even the 2019 Presidential Advisory Panel Report on Land Reform is indicative of a glaring data gap in its findings. The argument for an investment in agricultural R&D in South Africa has already been made in this study. Emphasis must, however, be placed on investment

245 and a budget allocation for period national scale surveys of subsistence agriculture and smallholder farming in South Africa as part also of a food security data baseline initiative.

7.8 CONCLUSION

Smallholder subsistence agriculture has an important role to play in most households’ food security in the Eastern Cape. However, the sector still remains underdeveloped insofar as it can assist rural households in achieving food security at household level in the country’s poor rural areas. Subsistence farming if well developed, offers three comparative advantages for rural economies. First, as a sector it would provide food for household consumption through an increased household food supply which would otherwise be unaffordable to many households and by saving and utilising income generated from their farming activity to supplement other household needs including food (Mashamaite, 2014). Second, it could help relieve food poverty and hunger conditions for most households through farm produce channelled to markets. Third, the sector would provide farm employment to some of the individuals in rural areas which would provide incomes for their households, consequently enhancing their purchasing power to access food from external sources (Mashamaite, 2014). A review of the fundamental challenges that hinder revitalisation of subsistence farming in the eMjikweni Village of the Eastern Cape demonstrate that what was implemented prior to homeland formation may have provided some solutions to the fundamental problems which have not been yet provided in the democratic dawn. The battery of policies and land reform legislation has been defective in many ways and probably financially unsustainable.

This study agrees with Chirwa, Kydd and Dorward (2006:14) that if broad-based subsistence farming in the context of land reform is to occur in South Africa it will require policies and institutions which respond with intelligence and insight to the fundamental challenges and learn from the historical experience of the pre- and post -colonial and homeland development eras. This calls for greater participation of South African subsistence farmers, rural communities, citizens, civil society, farmer associations and the private sector in the policy debates using various mechanisms. Second, since the subsistence farmers over centuries have held some form of monopoly over the production of maize and other subsistence crops, local institutions

246 and subsistence farmer representations could be used to articulate the interests of subsistence farmers in the land debate to ensure that its single focus is broadened to understand quite contrary positions of farmers in villages like eMjikweni.

Political local representatives could use the parliament to debate on policy choices so that the most efficient and effective policy trade-offs are made to promote sustainable development. Donors could strengthen these institutions by building up their capacities of understanding issues so that they can ably participate in national and local agricultural development processes.

The role of the state, as argued repeatedly, would be to provide a conducive environment for sustainable agricultural development by playing a coordination role. This is so because much as it acknowledged that policy-making is participatory and consultative to a significant degree, it has also been noted that the budgeting process is very much isolated from the policy-making process. With the developmental state playing a coordination role among the stakeholders, a lot could be achieved in promoting sustainability of subsistence agricultural development in South Africa through a focus on the efforts of many forgotten villages like eMjikweni.

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265 APPENDIX A: DOCTORAL RESEARCH FIELD INSTRUMENT

DOCTORAL RESEARCHER: Ms. Yoliswa Mngqinya

CHALLENGES OF SUBSISTENCE FARMING IN SOUTH AFRICA: A CASE STUDY OF EMJIKWENI VILLAGE IN THE PROVINCE OF EASTERN CAPE

HOUSEHOLD INTERVIEW SCHEDULE

QUESTIONNAIRE No

NAME OF INTERVIEW RESPONDENT

NAME OF INTERVIEWER

NAME OF HOUSEHOLD HEAD

DATE OF INTERVIEW

PLACE OF INTERVIEW

266 Section A: Biographical Data of Respondent

Place an “x” in the appropriate box for your answer

Sex of Household Head: Male Female

1. What is the gender that best describes you?

Male

Female

Other, specify ………………………………………………………………………………………

2. In what age group are you?

18-25 26-34

35-44 45-54

55-64 65+

3. What is your marital status?

Single/never married Married Divorced Widowed

4. What is your highest level of qualification you have achieved? No education Primary Education Secondary Education Matric Diploma Degree ABET Other specify ……………………………………………………………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………………

267 5. How long have been living in this village? ......

Section B: Employment Status and Economic Activity

6. Are you formally employed Yes No If yes what do you do?

……………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………………

If no, how do you sustain/ earn your living?

……………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………

Section C: Agricultural Activities

7. Does this household engage in any subsistence farming activities? Yes No If yes, for how long? ………… What are the primary activities of this household? Crop production Livestock production Mixed farming Non-farm activities (self-employment) Domestic Activities Other explain

268 ……………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………………

8. Does this household have homestead garden for food production Yes No If yes, what do you usually cultivate during the plantation season? List the crops ……………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………...

9. Does this household have fields “intsimi” for food production Yes No

If yes, how many hectares and what do you usually cultivate during the planting season? List the crops ……………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………… If no, explain why………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………………

10. How many times in a year do you plough the garden? ……………………………………………………………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………………

269 11. How many times in a year do you plough the field? ……………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………..

12. Who usually spend most of the time doing agricultural activities Adult male Adult female Male child Female child

13. Is the food produced enough to sustain household livelihood? Yes No

If no, what are other livelihood strategies do you employ for the shortfall?

14. What do you think can assist to increase food production? ……………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………… 15. What does subsistence agriculture mean to the household? ……………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………………

270 16. Do you think the community can depend on subsistence agriculture to sustain their living? Please explain ……………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………… 17. How important it is for this community to plough the fields? ……………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………..

18. What kind of skills and knowledge do you have to become a successful subsistence farmer? ……………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………... 19. Are there any challenges facing the community in efficiently using fields for food production? ……………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………………

271 ……………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………… 20. Do you think you have enough land to produce food? Yes No If yes, state the reason to support your answer ……………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………… If no, please explain what can be done to redress the situation? ……………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………… 21. What kind of support do you get from government? ……………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………………

272 22. What do you suggest government should do to improve subsistence farming in this community? ……………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………… 23. If the household were to be given an opportunity to choose between the use of indigenous and modern/technology farming practices, which one would you choose and why? Please specify ……………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………… 24. Describe the farming practices of this community in the past 20 years? ……………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………… 25. Have you observed any changes in the subsistence agricultural practices in the past 20 years? ……………………………………………………………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………………

273 ……………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………………

Section D: Household Welfare

26. How many times does this household consume basic food in a day?

Once a day

Twice a day

Thrice a day

---END OF INTERVIEW SCHEDULE---

274 APPENDIX B: ETHICS CLEARANCE

275 APPENDIX C: CITATION

276 APPENDIX D: LETTER FROM THE LANGUAGE PRACTITIONER

277