THE POTENTIAL OF AGRICULTURE AND LAND REFORM TO GENERATE NEW JOBS

This policy brief, prepared by the Institute for Economic Justice for the Jobs Summit Inclusive Growth working group, examines the potential for agriculture and land reform to generate employment in South Africa. It analyzes the current state of the agricultural sector, proposes policy interventions for commercial farming and land reform, and presents three employment scenarios based on different levels of state support and land redistribution.

• The agricultural sector, including forestry and fisheries, accounts for 2% of GDP and 5% of employment, with approximately 840,000 workers. While 30,000 to 50,000 medium- to large-scale commercial farmers provide the bulk of produce for formal markets, most black farmers are small-scale and operate informally, consisting of around 2 million subsistence-oriented and 200,000 market-oriented farmers.
• Commercial agriculture is experiencing a long-term trend of job shedding driven by mechanization, efficiency investments, and a shift toward temporary, casual, and seasonal labor. This is particularly evident in packhouses and harvesting, although some fruit and vegetable operations still require manual labor for sensitive tasks.
• Farmworkers face poor pay and job insecurity, with a statutory minimum wage of R3169 per month or R146 per day. There is widespread noncompliance with labor laws and frequent evictions of farm dwellers, as labor inspections are often infrequent or limited to farms near accessible roads.
• Land reform is constrained by different barriers depending on the scale of farming: large-scale black entrants face high capital requirements, managerial skill gaps, and environmental variability, while small-scale farmers lack state support for infrastructure, capital, irrigation water, and formal markets.
• The document proposes state interventions to improve the agricultural sector, including enhancing labor inspections, supporting innovation and marketing for commercial farmers (contingent on improved worker conditions), and targeting non-traditional markets such as China, Russia, Japan, and India.
• Three employment scenarios are modeled based on irrigation availability and land redistribution. Scenario A (intensification and slow reform) predicts a net creation of 220,000 jobs. Scenario B (NDP vision with 30% redistribution) estimates 351,000 net jobs. Scenario C (60% redistribution focusing on market-oriented smallholders) predicts the highest impact with 1,263,000 net jobs/livelihood opportunities.
• The potential for high-wage, secure jobs in agriculture is limited. Most new employment generated through land reform, particularly for market-oriented smallholders, would involve low incomes, precarity due to environmental risks, and temporary work.

APA

Cousins, B., Genis, A., & Clarke, J. (2018). THE POTENTIAL OF AGRICULTURE AND LAND REFORM TO GENERATE NEW JOBS. Institute for Economic Justice. https://iej.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Stream-2-Policy-Brief-1-The-potential-of-agriculture-and-land-reform-to-generate-new-jobs.pdf

Chicago

Cousins, Ben, Amelia Genis, and Jeanette Clarke. THE POTENTIAL OF AGRICULTURE AND LAND REFORM TO GENERATE NEW JOBS. Institute for Economic Justice, 2018. https://iej.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Stream-2-Policy-Brief-1-The-potential-of-agriculture-and-land-reform-to-generate-new-jobs.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Cousins |first1=Ben |last2=Genis |first2=Amelia |last3=Clarke |first3=Jeanette |title=THE POTENTIAL OF AGRICULTURE AND LAND REFORM TO GENERATE NEW JOBS |publisher=Institute for Economic Justice |date=August 2018 |url=https://iej.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Stream-2-Policy-Brief-1-The-potential-of-agriculture-and-land-reform-to-generate-new-jobs.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{cousins2018potential, author = {Cousins, Ben and Genis, Amelia and Clarke, Jeanette}, title = {{THE POTENTIAL OF AGRICULTURE AND LAND REFORM TO GENERATE NEW JOBS}}, institution = {Institute for Economic Justice}, year = {2018}, month = aug, url = {https://iej.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Stream-2-Policy-Brief-1-The-potential-of-agriculture-and-land-reform-to-generate-new-jobs.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }