What is Land Redistribution?

Land reform encompasses three distinct components, namely the restitution, tenure reform, and the redistribution programmes.  The redistribution programme, in turn, has different components, or 'sub-programmes':

• Agricultural Development - to make land available to people for agricultural purposes
• Settlement - to provide people land for settlement purposes, and
• Non-agricultural enterprises - to provide people land for non-agricultural enterprises, for example eco-tourism projects.

The collective aim of land reform is to ensure the transfer of 30% of all agricultural land over a period of 15 years

The Land Redistribution for Agricultural Development sub-programme (LRAD)

LRAD is de­signed to provide grants to black South African citizens to access land specifically for agricultural purposes. The strategic objectives of the sub-programme include: contributing to the redistribution of 30% of the country's agricultural land over 15 years; improving nutrition and incomes of the rural poor who want to farm on any scale; de-congesting over-crowded former homeland areas; and expanding opportunities for women and young people who stay in rural areas.  These objectives will be made possible by the sub-programme's key underlying principles, which are as follows:

• LRAD is unified and basic, it is flexible and beneficiaries can use it in ways according to their objectives and resources
• All beneficiaries make a contribution (in kind or cash), according to their abilities
• LRAD is demand directed, meaning that beneficiaries define the project type and size
• Implementation is decentralised
• District-level staff assist applicants, but do not approve the application
• Ex-post audits and monitoring will substitute a lengthy ex ante approval process.

The mode of implementation is adopted in the interest of maximum participation of beneficiaries, speed of approval and quality of outcomes.

LRAD encourages participants to design what works best for them. To do this, beneficiaries can access a range of grants (R20 000 to R100 000) depending on the amount of their own contribution in kind, labour and/or cash. The approval of the grants is based on the viability of the proposed project, which takes into account total project costs and projected profitability.