Brent McCusker

Land Use and Cover Change as an Indicator of Transformation on Recently Redistributed Farms in Limpopo Province, South Africa

This paper assesses the impact of South Africas land reform program on land use change in rural areas of Limpopo Province. Land use change was examined on five Communal Property Associations using remotely sensed images and quantitative and qualitative survey techniques. Land was abandoned or used less productively after redistribution. The primary reason for the lack of land use change to more productive states was that the land redistribution policy was not sufficiently sensitive to the diversity of rural livelihoods. Other reasons include farm-level general disorganization, lack of capital and labor, gender inequities, and age distribution. Regional political diseconomies also hindered change, namely poor tenure relations and a persistent urban bias.

The impact of membership in communal property associations on livelihoods in the Northern Province, South Africa

This paper investigates the impacts of Communal Property Associations on rural livelihoods in the Northern Province, South Africa. After a brief review of livelihoods and a short background to land reform in South Africa the paper details findings regarding the impact of land reform in the province. Quantitative and qualitative interviews were conducted from July 1999 until May 2000 and in January 2001 to identify and explain any change in livelihoods resulting from land transfer. Change in livelihoods as a result of land reform was found to be minimal largely due to general disorganization, farm size problems, lack of capital, lack of skills and labor, gender bias, and skewed age distribution.

Local Knowledge Doesn’t Grow on Trees: Community-Integrated Geographic Information Systems and Rural Community Self-Definition

The Appalachian-Southern Africa Research and Development Collaboratory (ASARD) seeks to explore the integration of community decision-making with GIS across cultures. Combining geospatial data with local knowledge and the active participation of the community creates a Community-Integrated Geographic Information System (CIGIS) representing and valuing themes related to community and economic development. The intent is to integrate traditional GIS with the decision-making regime of local people and authorities to assist them in making informed choices and to increase local participation in land use planning, especially within economically disadvantaged communities.

Climate Change and Agriculture in Africa: Impact Assessment and Adaptation Strategies

As climate change has emerged as a significant threat, there is much concern about how vulnerable agricultural communities will adapt, particularly as global population continues to rise. Much of the current lack of productivity and economic marginalization of African agriculture arises from global trade regimes that give a competitive advantage to Western farmers, from low use of agricultural inputs, and from a dearth of infrastructure and services for the agriculture sector. For centuries, African farmers have used a wide variety of risk-reducing livelihood strategies, including diversifying income sources, switching crops, and investing in marketing. However, improving their productivity to “modern” levels has remained a distant dream, resulting in a continual reduction in investment in the sector over the past five decades.

Practical, critical and constructive engagement

Engagement and exchange between academic and development institutions, both in theory and practice, have been extensively discussed elsewhere. This essay sets aside such normative debates and reflects on practical, critical interaction, but has nested in it a few beliefs and assumptions. First, practical engagement is possible, but requires flexibility and concerted effort. There are significant obstacles on both sides, including the academic tenure system and the rapid pace of decision making among development donors. Second, any engagement is generally with policy implementers rather than policy makers. Physical and other forms of direct access to actual policy makers (US Congress, UK Parliament, German Bundestag) are generally highly restricted. Access to policy implementers, who have a great deal of flexibility in how they implement, is less restrictive. Third, it is fully possible to criticise development donors constructively. Over-generalising critique that is not grounded in the realities of the donor is, however, often dismissed (see Cook and Elwell above). Engagement with development donors from the academic side is no easy undertaking. In the first place, just accessing donors is difficult and time consuming. USAID, for instance, exists behind rigid security procedures. Individual USAID staff are not readily identified on the agency’s public website and recent travel budget reductions have decreased already low participation of staff in large external conferences. If interested donor staff are identified, academic reward structures (at least in the USA) often penalise faculty and students for participating in work with development donors unless research grants arise from such engagement. Faculty promotion and tenure committees rarely give academic credit for authorship of policy documents, which can often represent as much work as a peer-reviewed research article. The structure of rewards in academia encourages publication in obscure outlets that donor staff rarely see. Publishing prohibitions and clearance requirements from the donor side dissuade faculty who are sensitive or vulnerable to the ‘publish-or-perish’ mentality of academia. Often writing is done collectively and anonymously, with no credit to individual authors. Such documents must endure a long and often tedious clearance process, where prose must conform to institutional perspectives and policies, regardless of the author’s position or findings. Where funding is

MODELING LAND REDISTRIBUTION POTENTIAL IN LIMPOPO, SOUTH AFRICA

ABSTRACT South Africa is one of just a handful of countries where land reform remains high on the list of national priorities. Policy makers have generally had laudable intentions in crafting the various policy mechanisms through which they have attempted to redistribute land to the (still) largely landless majority, but the results have been mixed at best. In South Africa, one key issue that often stymies well- meaning reform minded institutions and bureaucrats, activists and land owners is a lack of information on land itself. In this paper, we recommend the use of geo-spatial technologies (GSTs) in the identification of suitable land for redistribution projects. We present the outcome of four modeling exercises and make recommendations for the inclusion of GSTs in policy making and planning.