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4

Consultants, business plans and

land reform practices

Francois Marais

I visited the Lethu-Sonke farmers in September 2007, accompanied by Willem, the agricultural specialist employed by the provincial agricultural ministry. He had been involved with the Lethu-Sonke beneficiaries since the inception of the project. ‘These beneficiaries do just what they want … and normally they plainly just do nothing,’ sighed Willem. ‘The conditions are right for planting, but you will not find anybody working the fields now … Just look at this place … they do not use that broiler house you see there … it was recommended by the consultant and constructed brand new for them … government spent a lot of money on it.’ Certain that the beneficiaries would not be busy elsewhere on the farm, he led me straight to the house. He was right. We found Mama Zukisa¹ and several other people there, not all of them land reform beneficiaries. I later found out that these ‘other’ individuals were tenants living and working on the farm. No one was planting crops or tending cattle. This pattern was repeated on subsequent visits to Lethu-Sonke, and was also regularly observed on the Good Hope farm. Beneficiaries were often to be found relaxing next to the fireplace, on the stoep or under a tree. They were clearly not following the experts’ recommendations as detailed in their respective business plans.

Beneficiaries are advised by experts who compile a detailed business plan for each project. Much of the advice contained in the business plans concerns agricultural production and the management of the farm as an (agri)business. The plans detail what should be produced and how an optimum return on investments can be made. These plans are compulsory and used to judge the viability of a project before it begins. They are typically compiled by consultants, who believe that projects will be viable, efficient and productive if their plans are followed. The business plans are scrutinised by agricultural officials and expert committees before they are approved. The Western Cape provincial government uses the economic viability of projects to measure the success of agricultural support programmes in land reform: recipients of land are expected to make productive use of their land or lose it (Ministerial Media Release 2009: 3).

Business plans play a key role in fostering efficient production (N. Vink, personal communication, November 2010). They have to meet minimum requirements and, along with the extensive application procedure, necessitate the use of consultants. These consultants typically receive the most substantial component of their remuneration when the business plans they have devised are approved by the officials. This encourages them to design project plans that will satisfy the wishes of those officials.

Business plans and their role in both shaping land reform projects and disciplining beneficiaries have been critiqued severely as being imposed without much consultation (Hall 2004; Lahiff 2007: 15). The main concern is that a plan should guarantee returns on (public) financial investments. The ‘commercial’ logic applies also to loans. If beneficiaries are unable to repay loans and other debts, they can lose their newly acquired land. This happens quite frequently (Hall 2004: 58).

The ‘land lost’ phenomenon has drawn attention to the question of whether beneficiary needs are accommodated in the business plans. Do beneficiaries agree with the expert recommendations and prescriptions? Is it not likely that the lack of beneficiary involvement in the construction of business plans contributes to their failure to follow the plans and, ultimately, to the land reform process itself being seen as a failure (Agri SA Media Release 2009; Lahiff 2008: 32)? Research confirms that land reform projects rarely succeed in developing an economic performance that matches expectations (Agri-Africa Consultants 2005: iv). Beneficiary interpretations of expert prescriptions could help to indicate what beneficiaries can realistically be expected to accomplish with their available resources, networks, experience and competencies.

Theoretical points of departure

I have employed an ethnographic study of the Lethu-Sonke and Good Hope projects in order to explore what land reform pratices are emerging, as well as how and whether beneficiaries of land reform relate to one another, to consultants and to government officials. This actor-oriented and constructivist approach has led me to see development-cum-land-reform as many-sided, complex and often contradictory in nature, encompassing multiple realities. The key is attributing agency – ‘the capacity to make a difference’ (Long 2001: 3) – to all those who are involved in land reform, including beneficiaries, experts, consultants, policymakers and extension agents. The idea of agency also expresses the capacity of social actors to change and adapt their situations and to create something new and unexpected from existing conditions (Long 2001: 15). Experts tend to ignore or dismiss people’s agency and their ability to shape social life (Arce and Long 2000: xv).

The experts who are involved in the land redistribution process are frequently referred to in policy documents as ‘key stakeholders’ with ‘key responsibilities’ (DLA 2008: 3, 11, 13). Together they constitute a system ‘of technical accomplishment or professional expertise that organises large areas of the material and social environments in which we live today’ (Giddens 1990: 27). Expert systems possess typical characteristics. They value those actions that contribute towards the goals they have set (Giddens 1990: 10). They create the rules by means of which participants in a project are selected, and authorise the continued involvement of these participants in a project’s activities. They allocate resources such as grants and possess the authority to sanction or prescribe different forms of activity and conduct. They have ‘the power to define behaviour as rational, and therefore as desirable, whereas alternatives will appear as less rational, if not irrational’ (Giddens 1990: 230). An expert system develops a clear picture of the solution to problems, as well as what the future looks like (Van der Ploeg 2003: 229).