Towards an appropriate model for skills transfer to land reform beneficiaries in South Africa

Abstract

Land reform is important as it serves as a means to redress the imbalances created by apartheid. Evidence revealed that the land reform programme in South Africa has not been fully effective. This is partly because of lack of focus on the post-settlement support by Government or other interested stakeholders such as the private sectors, Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) as well as government entities. Lack of skills amongst land reform beneficiaries is one of the critical elements identified to be problematic in South Africa and leads to failure of these emerging farmers. The South African government has introduced programmes, such as the Recapitalization and Development Programme (RECAP), the Comprehensive Agricultural Support Programme (CASP), and the Comprehensive Rural Development Programme (CRDP), to address the issues of post-settlement support. Skills transfer to land reform beneficiaries was one of the issues that RECAP tried to address. The Department of Agriculture introduced extension services to the land reform beneficiaries as a means to transfer skills to land reform beneficiaries. The Department of Rural Development and Land Reform also played its part through RECAP by introducing strategic interventions (strategic partners and mentors) to ensure that necessary skills are transferred to farmers. Other than government departments, NGOs, commodity organisations, and private sectors have been participating in ensuring that the skills of the land reform beneficiaries are developed. Despite this, evidence shows that the efforts made by both government and other involved stakeholders are not really effective in all the provinces across South Africa. The main objective of this study was to identify an appropriate skills transfer model for land reform beneficiaries in South Africa. Successful models that exist in Brazil, Kenya and China, were studied to identify and propose a skills transfer model that could best suit South Africa. In addition, the study used data and information from secondary sources such as government, NGOs, private sector, and reviewed existing literature on issues around skills transfer to emerging farmers and land reform beneficiaries. A comparative analysis was done on the existing skills transfer models from the three countries and South Africa. The analysis revealed certain common characteristics in the skills transfer models that exist in China, Kenya and Brazil, and also revealed how these models differ from the existing models in South Africa, thereafter distinguishing the success of these models from the failures. Over and above the most-used and successful model in the three countries, is the pluralistic type of model that involves working together of government, non-governmental organisations, and the private sector. What is much more appealing with this latter model is the fact that it takes into account the participatory, bottom–up approach, where farmers are engaged in whatever skills needs that have to be transferred to them. Literature revealed that the differences between the models that exist in South Africa relate to the involvement of research in skills transfer, unclear policies on skills transfer. The policies are not clear in explaining the institutional arrangements, roles and responsibilities of the different parties that have the ability to assist farmers or transfer skill and the monitoring and evaluation framework of skills transfer. The pluralistic approach, if well designed and taking into all aspects mentioned above, could be very effective for South African land reform beneficiaries.