Land & Local Government: Problem or Potential? (Part 2)

AFRA News No. 60 May 2006

Genuinely Integrating Integration - Lisa Del Grande

Many municipalities in KwaZulu-Natal have, through a situational analysis of the economic activities in their districts, identified agriculture and agro- or cultural tourism as key industries for economic development of the area. At the same time separate reference is made to needing to support the land reform and housing objectives as if these programmes have no relationship to issues of economic development. Only in the implementation stage of the IDPs, is integrated development considered, but it is most often reduced to a list of projects that are either agriculture or land reform or housing or LED. Very few meet across the funding cycle bureaucracies. This article attempts to analyse why this has happened and why it is a critical problem with the IDPs. It further suggests ways in which this might be addressed.

One piece of land – separate programmes for development

IDPs seem to suggest that the development of commercial agriculture in the various districts across the country, requires a choice between a programme of achieving equitable distribution of farm land amongst race groups, or a programme of securing the agricultural sector as an important food source. Why is this so? There must surely have been some consideration given to the impact of transformation agendas on the current commercial agricultural industry in South Africa?

The reality of the struggles of both the Land Reform Programme and the small to medium scale agricultural enterprises, have also lead to arguments suggesting that the continued Land Reform Programme is having a negative impact on the agriculture sector and on investor confidence. Recently, a World Bank economist went so far as to suggest that “It was to the benefit of the economy to clear restitution claims as soon as possible. Nothing is as bad for investment as uncertainty.” (Mail and Guardian – 10 February 2006). In response to these flailing programmes, many new government-driven programmes like the LRAD, CASP, GIJIMA (LED), the latest ASGISA and so on, have emerged to bolster the agriculture industry.

The reality that there are different interests in any given commercial farming area is not being disputed here. Rather what is disputed is the idea that these interests can successfully be addressed through separate programmes in the same area. To illustrate this better one must consider a 'live' example : In an area in KwaZulu-Natal, six labour tenant communities residing across six farms have lodged applications to acquire this land which they have lived on for generations. At the same time the respective land owners have sold this land to a land speculator who wished to establish a game farm. The speculator, having purchased 9000 hectares, has had a change of mind and decided to sell the land to the highest bidder as a “potential” game farm. Simultaneously, the municipality is being pressurised to find a way to supply services to the residents on the farms. Finally, some local business men see potential in this land for beef and plantation farming through the government's small-scale agricultural support programme (ILRAD). All of these interests are being played out over the same 9000 hectares – what and who drives the decisions here?

Examining the approach of development plans

There is, of course, a relationship between land reform and agriculture. The question is how to understand this relationship and how to analyse it. If the way in which IDPs are produced is examined, it becomes somewhat clearer why municipalities feel that they must make choices between supporting the commercial agriculture industry at the expense of land reform objectives, or vice versa. It further makes sense, when IDPs are seen as forward planning tools, and not simply a list of "backlogs".

Both land reform and agriculture are about the ways land can be used. Land reform is trying to rectify who has access to land to use it, and ensure that the people of South Africa have equitable access to this critical resource. Agriculture is focusing on what land is used for sustainably and productively. Equitable access to and control of productive agriculture land is a key part of real transformation in South Africa.

The boxed example below, shows how an IDP may be approached:

The first and obvious place to re-examine IDPs is in the Situational Analysis. Economic analysis tends to focus solely on employment and unemployment statistics. Perhaps if the economic analysis undertook a few of the following approaches, a municipality might begin to see a different picture of the potential within its area, and understand how to integrate the interests of different parties:

1. Define the geographical area covered by commercial agriculture and the various interest groups in the area.

• There are various stakeholder analysis techniques that are very effective in identifying the necessary groupings. These groups would probably include land owners, all residents on the farms and their rights, and any land claimants to these farms. It would need to take a historical, current and future scenario look at the interest groups. In this way areas are broken down into more manageable units of social cohesion for future planning scenarios.

• To do this properly would require meetings with the various identified interest groups. At this initial stage, these would be to examine their understanding of their history, current situation and expectations of future developments.

• It should be noted well, that this is an important part of the economic analysis. It should not be viewed merely as a public participation step. Public participation in fact should feed the IDP throughout with information from the start to its conclusion for citizens to truly support the final plan. (See the right hand column of the boxed example.)

2. Establish what economic activities are undertaken by all the identified interest groups.

• It is not sufficient to only know who is employed and who is not.

• To analyse the importance of the commercial agricultural industry in the area, it is critical to establish the following: the farm types; employment on the farms and trends in this; the relative importance and comparative advantages of the agricultural practices to the district's income and to the South African economy; and the trends and challenges these practices are facing.

• To analyse the poverty levels and dependencies of farm dwellers and/or the unemployed in the area it is critical to examine their livelihood strategies. How do they live and survive and on what do they depend to do this? Job creation programmes may not be the only panacea to poverty which was created through dispossession. Access to land is often critical to the survival strategies of poor citizens.

3. Establish the land use potentials of the area and the external trends in market demand for agricultural products.

• This should be an exercise that is done relatively objectively to show what the productive potential of the land is, and what challenges there are to achieving these potentials.

• This would allow a more detailed comparison of the current uses against other identified uses. It would also allow a concrete discussion on the contribution of current agriculture practices to the economy, and further ensure that the decision on which type of land use practice to support becomes a joint one between the municipality driving a development plan, and the owners of productive land (rather than just the individual owners).

4. Finally the analysis can then weigh up all this information (situational and needs analyses) against what programmes exist under the Land Reform, Agriculture and Economic Development sector departments.

Which brings the plan to the second place for review within the IDP process, being the consideration of the sector department plans in relation to the establishment of a district vision and strategies. What are the objectives of the Land Reform, Agriculture and Economic Development sector departments? Rather than considering the sector plans as one of the last steps to be done after the IDP process is virtually complete, sector visions, objectives and strategies should be examined when the district sets out its vision and strategies. (Furthermore, perhaps municipalities should lobby for sector plans not to be too rigid as well!) Failure to do this will leave municipalities trying to find ways to integrate their project lists with the sector project lists, with little to no coherence over what these projects could jointly achieve. It also results in too many drivers of development in one area.

Clearly, each of the sectors already has a broad national vision and strategies, and have gone as far as identifying programmes and products that they believe are required to achieve these broad visions. These programmes and products can and have often overtaken the IDPs, and comments are made on some of these product 'trends' elsewhere in this publication. Municipalities then find that they are driven by national programmes and products as opposed to land uses that they themselves have identified. This can render the IDP vision null and void.

Theoretically, if this integration happens during the development of joint visions and strategies for the area, then the process for the identification of projects should become a joint one.

This gives rise to the third place in the IDP process to consider. The strategies that emerge in such a visioning process should begin to speak about current land uses and proposed land uses. Essentially a Spatial Development Framework should emerge, and it should be possible to map this from the situational analysis and the current land uses and economic activities. The visioning process would then outline what is agreed as future land uses and economic activities, which become the future scenario SDF (mapped). Finally the strategies identified to achieve the vision can also be mapped at possibly three or five yearly intervals as future scenarios to work towards the vision.

Approaching an IDP in this way, should help to move municipalities away from having to choose between securing current commercial agriculture practices versus implementing transformational programmes of land reform. Rather than being driven by the activities for which the sector departments are requesting support, the district can instead determine which programmes and projects would meet its developmental requirements, and roll these out in an integrated and forward-planning way.