Commercial Agriculture inSouthAfrica since 1994: ‘Natural, Simply Capitalism’

Abstract

The paper provides a survey of commercial agriculture in South Africa since 1994. It emphasizes, first, how effectively ‘organized agriculture’ positioned itself for the new dispensation, with the help of the last apartheid government, and, second, the importance of the removal of limits on the international mobility of South African capital and commodities imposed on the apartheid regime. The lacunae and ambiguities of the African National Congress concerning land and agricultural policy during the political transition of 1990–4 and since then in government are also important here. The paper considers ‘transformation(s)’ with respect to farm labour, regulating agribusiness, and land reform, black farming, and Black Economic Empowerment (BEE, specifically AgriBEE). It concludes that the course of South African agriculture and agricultural policy since 1994 has done little, if anything, to ‘transform’ the circumstances of the dispossessed – rural and urban classes of labour – whose crises of social reproduction remain grounded in the inheritances of racialized inequality.

Resilient Labour: Workplace Regimes, Globalisation and Enclave Development in Swaziland

“…Similar findings are reported from many South African contemporary workplaces in different sectors of the economy (that is Barchiesi, 2011;Bernstein, 2013;Bezuidenhout, 2004;Connor, 584 V. Laterza 2013;Du Toit & Ewert, 2002;Du Toit, 2005;Ewert & Hamman, 1999;Hart, 2002;Von Holdt, 2003;Webster & Von Holdt, 2005). This is not surprising, given the strong influence of South African capital and the integration of Swaziland into the South African economy.…”

Agrarian reform and South Africa's agro-food system

“…The World Bank (2013) estimates that sub-Saharan African food markets are set to quadruple by 2030. However, these 'pull' factors may also be accompanied by 'push' factors, such as the squeeze on profitability of capitalist farming and agribusiness in South Africa (Bernstein 2013). Land reform and small-scale farmer support were developed in this larger context of global integration and corporate fusion.…”

Facing financialization: The divergent mutations of agricultural cooperatives in postapartheid South Africa

“…From the late 19th century, South Africa's agricultural sector was indoctrinated to respond to the country's rapid growth of mining activities. Black farming activities were constrained, enabling the provision of cheap labour to mines (Cochet, 2015), whereas governments progressively supported the emergence of a white commercial agricultural sector provisioning the mines and urban centres with cheap food (Bernstein, 2013).…”

“…This being said, almost 20 years later, the South African agro-food sector and its transformation are considered as being static, reproducing the same domination structures inherited from apartheid (Bernstein, 2013). In particular, the former cooperatives are denounced as constituting an obstacle for broader sectoral transformation and empowerment, as they have maintained their strategic positions in the agro-food value chains.…”