South Africa’s land reform debate is too often reduced to statistics, with public discourse heavily focused on the number of hectares transferred, the pace of redistribution, and whether the programme has succeeded or failed against numerical targets.
By Peter Setou, Chief Executive of the Vumelana Advisory Fund
These statistics are important. They help the country understand the current state of land ownership and provide a basis for measuring progress. However, relying solely on hectares transferred as the litmus test for success does not tell the full story. Land reform cannot be measured only by the administrative movement of land from one set of hands to another. Its true measure lies in whether that land is restored with dignity, activated productively and used to unlock meaningful social and economic transformation.
The rationale for South Africa’s land reform programme is rooted in the need to redress the historical injustice of colonial dispossession and apartheid-era forced removals, where indigenous communities were forcibly removed from ancestral land that was central to their livelihoods, identity, culture and dignity.
Land reform is therefore not only a political imperative, but also a constitutional, developmental and economic imperative. It must correct the wrongs of the past while ensuring that restituted and redistributed land becomes a functional asset that improves the lives of beneficiaries and contributes to inclusive economic growth.
The success of land reform must be assessed through outcome-based metrics. These include its ability to create jobs, support viable and sustainable land use, strengthen rural economies, expand agricultural productivity, contribute meaningfully to food security and drive eco-tourism.
Also read: Has South Africa focused too heavily on restitution at the expense of broader land redistribution?
South Africa does not have to reinvent the wheel. There are important lessons to draw from countries across Africa and Asia that have implemented land reform programmes with varying degrees of success.
Tanzania’s Ujamaa villagisation programme remains one of the strongest cautionary examples of the risks associated with poorly designed communal land ownership models. The Tanzanian government abolished freehold title and vested land ownership in the state, with the aim of pooling land, labour and production tools. However, the programme failed to build sufficient productive momentum as many farmers resisted surrendering ancestral land to work on communal farms.
Instead of driving productivity, the forced relocation of millions of people into densely populated hubs placed severe pressure on land, strained ecological systems, weakened agricultural output and contributed to chronic food shortages.
Also read: Restituted land, real opportunities: Young South Africans making land reform work
By contrast, there are examples where land reform has been used more productively to strengthen community rights, secure tenure and broaden economic participation. In Sierra Leone, the enactment of the Customary Land Rights Act and the National Land Commission Act in 2022 created new benchmarks for protecting community and women’s land rights. In Ethiopia, a large-scale land certification programme supported the registration of individual community land rights across millions of land parcels.
These examples demonstrate that land reform can advance social justice and economic participation when it is supported by secure rights, effective institutions, governance systems and a deliberate focus on productive land use.
Zimbabwe, however, remains a cautionary tale for countries considering poorly planned and politically driven land reform interventions. The country’s fast-track land reform programme, often invoked in debates about expropriation without compensation, severely disrupted agricultural production and contributed to deep food security challenges.
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The real issue is not simply whether land changes hands. The real issue is whether beneficiaries are supported with the finance, technical capacity, infrastructure, governance systems and market access required to turn that land into a productive economic asset.
This is the challenge the Motlanthe Panel also recognised when it identified political cronyism, inadequate post-settlement support, weak infrastructure and the absence of technical expertise as some of the constraints that have limited the impact of land reform. These challenges have left vast stretches of restituted and redistributed land underutilised, undermining the programme’s ability to deliver on its intended outcomes and to drive inclusive economic growth.
South Africa must move beyond narrow measures of progress.
Land reform cannot be judged only by the number of hectares transferred. The real test is whether that land is being used productively, whether it is creating jobs, whether communities are earning income from it and whether it is contributing to food security and rural economic development.
Also read: Stronger CPA governance will unlock the promise of land reform – Peter Setou
In addition, a successful land reform programme should revitalise rural economies by diversifying agricultural production, expanding agro-processing, supporting agricultural manufacturing, improving access to technology and developing the skills required to operate across the entire agriculture value chain and eco-tourism economy.
Furthermore, land reform must create meaningful access to value chains, ensure that its beneficiaries are connected to reliable markets, agricultural processors, retailers and export value chains among others.
To achieve this, South Africa needs to drive a long-term deliberate shift from land transfer to land activation. Beneficiary communities must not be left to navigate complex commercial markets alone, especially where they have limited capital, weak governance structures, limited access to finance and inadequate technical support.
Backed by political will, institutional discipline and stronger collaboration between government, communities, private investors and civil society, South Africa can build on the current pockets of success such as progress achieved by Vumelana Advisory Fund over the last 15 years, and scale them to ensure that land reform delivers stronger, more tangible and more sustainable outcomes. The programme can become a powerful catalyst for transforming lives, driving rural economic development, enterprise development, job creation and inclusive economic growth.
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of African Farming.
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