Article
Compendium of essays on land reform in South Africa
Published: 26/02/2019
Land reform is necessary in South Africa, but that is about the only issue regarding land reform on which there is consensus. When we start unpacking why land reform is necessary, some people say it is because the majority of South Africans were disenfranchised and disempowered through years of colonial conquest, segregation and apartheid, while others will argue that it is to contribute to economic growth or to alleviate poverty and achieve greater income equality. Some even think it is to put agriculture on a more sustainable growth path. - Wandile Sihlobo and Prof Johann Kirsten
Land reform is necessary in South Africa, but that is about the only issue regarding land reform on which there is consensus. When we start unpacking why land reform is necessary, some people say it is because the majority of South Africans were disenfranchised and disempowered through years of colonial conquest, segregation and apartheid, while others will argue that it is to contribute to economic growth or to alleviate poverty and achieve greater income equality. Some even think it is to put agriculture on a more sustainable growth path.
Wandile Sihlobo, agricultural economist and head of Agribusiness Research at Agbiz, and Prof Johann Kirsten of the Department of Agricultural Economics and director of the Bureau for Economic Research (BER) at Stellenbosch University, with the help of Business Day editor Lukanyo Mnyanda and his editorial team, have compiled a document with a collection of the essays that were published in Business Day during the course of 2018, with the intention of shedding some light on these contested land reform issues in South Africa.