Abstract:
This study examines the political and economic challenges that confront agrarian change by looking into
how the Agriparks, set up under the Comprehensive Rural Development Programme, support emerging
black farmers’ practices to achieve equity. To do this, I examine the global agrarian context, discourses
on farmer practices, the global expansion of neoliberal capitalism by means of public-private
partnerships, and the commodification and commercialisation of agriculture production, especially in the
context of justice and equality. Through studying existing literature and case studies in Agriparks in
Gauteng, Limpopo and Northern Cape, I explore issues of emerging black farmer practices, the state and
private sector’s role, and justice and equality in the agrarian sector. Within the case studies I used
qualitative research and ethnographic methods, such as go-along interviews and semi-structured
interviews with emerging black farmers and key informants.
Agriparks, and their particular racial form in South Africa, emerge within a context of, on the one hand,
global neoliberal agro-industrialisation and commercialisation and, on the other hand, historical land
dispossession, growing inequality, environmental stresses, and counter-movements such as food
sovereignty. Agriparks are a local manifestation of the agro-cluster model that is embedded in a particular
corporate and industrialised model of agricultural development. This approach to farming puts
responsibility for dealing with farming, production and distribution challenges increasingly in the hands
of private interests as part of the promotion of a particular neoliberal approach to agricultural
development. This model simply does not work for the majority of small-scale and marginalised farmers
in the context of failed land reforms and a still highly divided society and agricultural sector. The analysis
suggests that the state needs to better align interventions to further emerging black farmer achievements
and to bolster sustainability and the realisation of justice and equality. It also demonstrates the
importance of building capacity for change and focusing on successful farmer practices, actions and
changes that are efficient and effective. Pre-existing institutional racism in the sector impacts the
implementation of the Agriparks programme and needs to be addressed in reshaping it for the future. I
advocate a Critical Race Theory of Agrarian Reform to configure post-apartheid agrarian reforms and
tools to analyse and inform changes in the agrarian sector.
