Paper long abstract:

Post-apartheid agrarian reform in South Africa has long focused on combating rural poverty and transformation of the historically-skewed and racialized agricultural sector.. It initially targeted a broad range of rural poor and had an interventionist focus, with a key role for government in redistributing land and other productive resources. Recently, a new style business-focused agrarian reform is emerging that sees a key role for the private sector. This approach to transformation seeks incorporation of 'black' smallholders in high-value commodity markets, increasingly differentiates between 'entrepreneurial' and 'subsistence' farmers and aims to make farmers independent of state support. The new vehicle for delivery is the smallholder-public-private partnerships and the various value chain collaborations that fall under it. Drawing on fieldwork and action research from 2015 to 2019, this paper unpacks these recent, smallholder-focused partnerships and collaborations around the production and marketing of the high-value macadamia and avocado crops in Vhembe District, Limpopo Province, South Africa. Political economic relations and historical continuities are evident in the growing gap between the new entrants and the established commercial growers and processors. Historical privilege is also evident in implementation and agenda-setting of the new transformation agenda. This includes private sector-friendly governance instruments for achieving Black Economic Empowerment, and discrediting of more radical alternatives such as land reform. .Notwithstanding such outcomes, we find that the practices and processes underpinning emergent partnerships show other aspects of accumulation and consolidation. Key to stabilising this new transformation agenda is a collection of value chain actors, hired consultants, local and national officials and a new class of farmer representatives. These so-called brokers work in tandem to stabilise a new commodity-oriented discourse of inclusiveness focused on maintaining the status quo in the commercial farming sector and instilling new entrants with business attitudes. Together they construct a transition model focused on rescaling of the large-scale farming model to smallholders and adoption of 'best farming practices'. Brokerage theory is applied in order to understand new identities and mentorship roles that shape the novel transformation approach. By analysing brokers' differential agency, repertoires, positionalities and moral ambiguity, we see how this field is unwieldy - a negotiated space of intermediation that requires brokers' constant reworking. These findings nuance current political economic thinking in agrarian reform debates. It is suggested that we focus on brokering and knowledge-based trusteeship as key aspects explaining South Africa's historical continuities and dual agrarian structure.