From on-farm to own farm?
Abstract
Atkinson, D, Pienaar, D and Zingel, J (2004), From on-farm to own farm? The role of farm worker unions in land reform in South Africa, Human Sciences Research Council, Pretoria, for the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO). Unpublished report.
Introduction
This report forms the South African Country Study of a comparative regional study being undertaken by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) into ‘strengthening the role of agricultural workers unions in West and Southern Africa’. The focus is on the role of agricultural workers unions in land reform.
This emphasis has been developed within a broader FAO mandate aimed at establishing an improved set of support arrangements and actions for farm workers and unions – as a relatively neglected set of agents- and seen as capable of making, and participating in, a deeper and more sustainable agriculture and wider rural development. This is inherently desirable, both in the context of large scale structural changes in African rural and agricultural economies, (where farm workers are increasingly subject to evictions and engage in the occupation of farm lands), and in a history of neglect with regard to appropriate support relative to that provided to other, dissimilar interests in African Agriculture.