Paper short abstract:

This paper looks into partnerships and mentorship programmes of South African land reform projects, that are documented to have a high failure rate and highlights some of the practical and theoretical challenges that these projects face.

Paper long abstract:

South African agriculture is distinct to many other African countries since it is dominated by medium-scale to large-scale farms. The majority of these farms are owned, due to the countries political past, by a minority of farmers in the country. Since the political change in 1994, the government implements a land reform programme in order to redistribute agricultural land to South Africans that where dispossessed of their land. The land reform projects take various forms among which prior farm owners are mentoring new owners over a period until they have the knowledge to take over the farm management. In addition, partnerships between communities with newly acquired land and commercial firms are common. Lately there are also supermarket chains supporting land reform projects in order to guarantee their supply of agricultural produce and to gather points for the Black Economic Empowerment scorecard. The government is facilitating the process with training, financial and material support. Popular voices proclaim however, that a vast majority of these land reform projects fail. This is documented by a decline in employment and productivity.

This paper will look into the theoretical and practical challenges that these partnerships and mentoring programmes face.