Cultivating an agrarian middle class? Land reform, poverty reduction and social stratification in Southern Africa

Abstract

In the past three decades, land reforms have dominated poverty and development policy debates in Southern Africa following the late attainment of independence of former settler colonies, and efforts to improve the efficiency of the agriculture sector in others. This article provides an analysis of land reforms in South Africa and Zimbabwe and proposed reforms under the new land laws in Lesotho. Based on these examples, it argues that prospects of poverty reduction through land reforms in this region are bleak. It argues that the reform process has been hamstrung by an agricultural development agenda focused on ‘farm productivity and economic returns’. Even in the cases where the poor received land, they are unlikely to benefit due to a lack of capacity both on their own part and on the part of the state. Given the evidence, the process appears to be skewed towards accumulation by an African agrarian capitalist class that will potentially result in a stratification process where the poor fail the transition to a class of modern farmers.