Water redistribution alone has not delivered the agricultural transformation South Africa’s land reform policies promised, according to research examining 34 joint ventures in the Great Fish and Lower Sundays River area of the Eastern Cape.
The region is no marginal test case. It hosts large-scale citrus operations that export globally and runs on advanced irrigation infrastructure fed by canal systems, pumps, and nearby dams. If joint ventures between emerging Black farmers and established commercial operators were going to work anywhere, this was the place. They have not worked as intended.
Additional reference context is available at https://theconversation.com/why-water-rights-arent-enough-to-fix-south-africas-deeply-unequal-farming-sector-286293.
The operational reality is stark. Emerging farmers gained access to irrigation infrastructure for the first time through these partnerships, but the infrastructure was engineered for commercial operations with decades of capital accumulation behind them. Water bills arrived immediately upon first use, often totaling as much as R750,000 (US$46,300) before a single harvest. Citrus takes seven or more years to yield its first crop. Many emerging farmers lost control of their allocated water rights simply because they could not pay.
The bottleneck ran deeper than water pricing. Emerging farmers lacked the irrigation machinery, tractors, and spraying equipment needed to put water to productive use. They rented these tools from commercial partners, incurring additional costs and deepening dependency. Commercial partners retained control over financial decisions, production planning, marketing, and investment. Emerging farmers became participants in enterprises rather than independent operators building their own businesses.
Meanwhile, commercial farmers described their own operations as highly sophisticated, requiring constant attention to regulatory compliance, labor costs, diesel price fluctuations, international commodity prices, and technological advancement. They said they lacked the time and resources to invest in building emerging farmer independence while keeping their own operations current and profitable.
The structural problem is not new. Black South Africans constitute more than 80 percent of the population, yet a small number of white farmers control the majority of productive commercial farmland. This disparity traces directly to apartheid-era policies that barred Black farmers from owning land, accessing irrigation water, and participating in agricultural markets. Many Black communities were confined to Bantustans, overcrowded areas with minimal infrastructure and virtually no pathway to viable farming enterprises. Since 1994, the government has attempted to address this inequality through land and water redistribution, with joint ventures as a primary delivery mechanism. The premise was straightforward: Black farmers contribute land and water rights, commercial partners supply capital, technical expertise, equipment, and market access, and both parties gain something of value.
What the research shows is that the premise has not translated into practice. Emerging farmers remained reliant on commercial partners for finance, technical expertise, and market access long after partnerships began. Climate variability, rising electricity costs, fertilizer expenses, and farm input inflation reduced profitability. Without collateral or cash flow, emerging farmers could not access commercial credit independently. They had no choice but to depend on partners to carry costs, making it nearly impossible to invest in their own infrastructure or expand production.
The government has introduced a new water pricing strategy that allows emerging farmers more time to pay water bills. That is progress. But as the research, published at theconversation.com/why-water-rights-arent-enough-to-fix-south-africas-deeply-unequal-farming-sector-286293, makes clear, water redistribution addresses only one component of what commercial success requires.
Government already provides emerging farmers with grants, infrastructure support, and extension officers. The farmers interviewed reported this assistance as inconsistent and unevenly distributed. Better coordination is essential. Water pricing must account for the reality that new farmers earn little for seven years while remaining economically sustainable for operators. Joint venture contracts should explicitly outline how emerging farmers will gain skills and experience to assume greater management responsibility over time.
Transformation requires simultaneous access to finance, infrastructure, technical knowledge, markets, and decision-making authority. Joint ventures can create opportunities, but they can also reproduce existing inequalities when power remains concentrated with one partner. The open question is whether the government’s coordination mechanisms will ever be consistent enough to close the gap between holding water rights and achieving the commercial independence those rights were meant to make possible.