Going for Broke: The Fate of Farm Workers in Arid South Africa

by Doreen Atkinson

Overview

An analysis of a forgotten section of society—the farm workers who live on remote farms. The author argues that the question of farm workers is part of a broader spectrum of economic and social questions. A valuable study explicitly aimed at promoting new approaches, synergies, and partnerships amongst stakeholders like government, cooperatives, municipalities, training agencies, and farm-worker trade unions. Atkinson offers suggestions that transcend the South Africa rural experience serving as a case study for students and practitioners of rural transformation in the developing world.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780796921765
Publisher:	Human Sciences Research Council
Publication date:	04/01/2007
Pages:	312
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 8.00(h) x 0.69(d)

About the Author

Doreen Atkinson is the Director of the Heartland and Karoo Insitute, Phippolos, Free State Province, South Africa, and a visiting professor at the Insititute of Social and Economic Research at Rhodes University, South Africa.

Table of Contents

List of tables     viii
Acknowledgements     x
Acronyms     xii
Map of South Africa's arid areas     xiv
The unseen plight of farm workers in South Africa     1
The aims of the book     1
Farmers, government, farm workers and the unresolved policy void     3
The argument     8
A note on concepts and statistics     11
The genesis of this study     13
The rise of an unfree labour system before 1970     15
Multiple perspectives of a complex history     15
Race, land and labour in South Africa in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries     23
The origins of the master-servant relationship after 1850     27
Entrenching farm labour servility after 1913: farms as total institutions?     34
The leaven in the dough: paternalism and social bonds on commercial farms     42
Why are there no white farm workers?     48
Conclusion     52
The forces of modernisation after 1970     53
The changing basis of white commercial agriculture     53
The decline of the unfree labour system after 1970     58
Urbanisation dynamics after 1994     65
Government policy dilemmas after 1994     69
The evolution of rural development strategies     69
Ambiguity, indecision and confused loyalties     72
The Extension of Security of Tenure Act     79
Life on the farm     91
Paternalism as social capital     91
The decline of paternalism?     96
The right to a grave?     99
The development gap     100
The vexed question of access to farms     108
Conclusion     109
Leaving the farm     111
To move or not to move     111
Wage levels and the propensity to migrate     118
Employment, retrenchments and migration     126
Education and the propensity to migrate     130
Unresolved policy questions     131
Civil society and farm life     133
The golden age of service delivery: the Rural Foundation, 1982-1998     133
Filling the gap: civil society organisations and service delivery     142
Possible new alternatives in the NGO sector     147
Conclusion     149
Municipal political representation of farm dwellers     150
The honeymoon period: 1995-2000     150
Amalgamated municipalities and urban bias     158
Service delivery and the micro-welfare system     164
Farming communities as micro-welfare systems     165
Farm workers on provincial government agendas     168
The contradictory approaches of government departments     174
The triangular service delivery relationship     179
Municipal service delivery after 2000: a patchwork of district and local functions     182
The role of municipalities in the rural areas     189
The beginnings of a municipal response     191
Conclusion     202
Tough choices for service delivery     203
What rural services?     203
Linking finance to functions     210
The 'where' of development     215
Mobility and transport     223
Beyond infrastructure: towards enabling local government?     225
The professionalisation of farm work     228
The legacy of poor schooling     229
Towards the professionalisation of farm work?     235
Informal training and professional advancement     242
Training providers     246
Conclusion     249
A journey to somewhere?     250
Grazing and cropping rights     251
The ideal of farm ownership     254
The private sector's role in land reform     256
The fate of unemployed farm workers     260
Commonage, peri-urban livelihoods and land reform     264
Institutional support     270
Policy questions     274
Conclusion: an outlook for the future     279
Notes     282
References     286
Index     297