Institutional dynamics in Tugela ferry irrigation scheme

Institutional dynamics in Tugela
Ferry irrigation scheme
Ben Cousins
DST/NRF Chair
Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies
(PLAAS)
University of the Western Cape
Policy context
New Growth Path:
• Agriculture = a key sector for employment creation
• Create 300 000 ‘smallholder opportunities’ by 2020
• Increase their incomes by securing participation in higher
value commodity chains
• Address weaknesses in land reform programme
National Development Plan:
• Create 1 million new jobs in agriculture, especially from
smallholders, expanded irrigation, new labour-intensive crops
• Fix land reform through decentralised, district-based
negotiation and support
Smallholder farming and rural
livelihoods in SA
Small-scale agriculture:
• 200 000 smallholders &
medium-scale commercial
farmers
• 2 million semi-subsistence
farming households
(Aliber et al from Labour Force
Surveys)
Rural livelihoods:
• Most rural households
engage in agriculture on a
very small scale
• Sales of farm products are
main income source for only
3.7% of rural hh with access
to land (GHS 2006)
• Most depend on social
grants, wage employment,
remittances, and small
informal sector enterprises
Agrarian structure in SA: a ‘missing
middle’?
Small-scale market-oriented
farming
* Small numbers (200 000)
* Some marketed output
Large scale
commercial farming
* Small numbers (37 000)
* Large farms
* 90% marketed output
Very small scale
‘subsistence’ farming
* Large numbers (2 million)
* Small plots
* Little marketed output
Accumulation pathways: which should
policies direct resources to?
‘Accumulation from
above’?
‘Accumulation from
below’?
Emerging BEE
commercial farmers
Petty commodity producers
& small-scale capitalist farmers
Large scale
(white) commercial farmers
‘Subsistence farmers’
and enhanced food security
Tugela Ferry Irrigation Scheme
Msinga, KZN
Gravity-fed canal& furrow irrigation
Green mealies: the earliest in KZN
Crops grown
• Maize: 90% (of
farmers)
• Sweet potatoes: 73%
• Tomatoes: 64%
• Spinach: 50%
• Beans: 38%
• Cabbages: 34%
• Potatoes 28%
• Onions: 23%
Tugela Ferry Irrigation Scheme
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Constructed in early 20th century
Total area = 837ha, in 7 different blocks (one not used)
Area under cultivation = 540 ha
Supplied from weir on Tugela River by a canal 31 kms in
length
Gravity-fed ,but main canal leaking badly
Government currently investing R20+ million in repairs
Blocks 4 and 7 use pumps to extract water from river
Estimated 800 - 1000 producers
Mean “bed” size = 0.11 ha
Mean no. of beds/producer = 3.37 (0.4 ha, or 1 acre)
‘Socially embedded’ irrigation farming
• Gendered : minimum of one female member engaged
in farming in 92% of households (vs males = 24%)
• “Borrowing” or renting of beds: 42% borrow or rent
between 1 & 9 beds (mean = 2.1)
• “Ownership” of beds acquired through application to
traditional leaders, or inheritance
• No. of crop types grown: mean = 4.4
• Ownership of agricultural assets (hoes, etc):
– 60% own 1-5; 32% own 6 or >
• Ownership of knapsack sprayers: 37%
Productivity and profitability (106 crop record sheets)
Crop
Growers
making a
profit
Profit makers Positive gross Positive gross
as % of
margin (mean)
margin
growers
(median)
Range
Maize
30
91%
R1439
R1344
R208 – R2916
Tomatoes
12
46%
R3166
R3545
R17 – R7163
Sweet potato
16
73%
R1172
R1243
R240 – R2785
Cabbages
5
56%
R3840
R4450
R1394 – 5146
All four crops
64
71%
R1868
R1367
R17 – R7163
Crop
Growers
making a loss
Loss makers
as % of
growers
Negative
gross margin
(mean)
Negative
gross margin
(median)
Range
Maize
3
9%
R340
R106
R208 – R2916
Tomatoes
14
54%
R790
R782
R15 – R898
Sweet
potatoes
6
27%
R300
R355
R9 – R1790
Cabbages
4
44%
R300
R355
R410 – R997
All four crops
26
29%
R644
R577
R9 – R1790
Estimated annual incomes from
farming
• Assuming net gross margin of R783 per crop,
from four plots, growing an average of two crops
per annum, the mean annual gross margin per
farmer is R6 270, or R13 544 per ha.
• Larger and generally successful producers, who
are more likely to grow lucrative but risky crops,
have the potential to earn considerably more
• Assuming a positive gross margin of R1500 per
crop from six plots and two crops per annum,
such a famer could earn an annual gross amrgin
of R18 000, or R25 920 per ha
Income sources for irrigation farming
households (n = 171)
Households with members who:
Are employed in permanent jobs
% of
households
37 %
Are employed in temporary jobs
26 %
Are self-employed, employ others
5%
Are self-employed, do not employ others
7%
Receive an old age pension
48 %
Receive a child support grant
71 %
Receive remittances
15 %
Block committees
• Comprise 7 members, to be elected at regular intervals
(every 5 years)
• In practice: elections can be irregular; most
committees barely function
• Responsibilities: call meetings of farmers for extension
services; attend meetings with extension officers; pass
on information from extension officers to farmers;
assist in formation of co-operatives; help resolve
conflicts between farmers (e.g. over water, boundaries
of beds)
• Blocks 4 & 7: collect funds (R15/plot/month) to pay
ESKOM electricity bill for pumps
Problems faced by block committees
• Farmers disillusioned with committees & extension services:
“unfulfilled promises discourage people”; “one of our big
problems is poor communication from government officials”
• Accusations that funds collected from farmers have been
squandered
• Jealousy from farmers when committee members perceived
to be favoured by extension officials (e.g. distribution of free
seeds)
• Committee of Block 4 not been subject to re-election for a
long time; suspicions by some farmers that they receive
preferential treatment in re-allocation of unused plots
• Being a committee member is costly (transport, phone calls,
time away from plots)
Extension services in the past
(days of GG and ZG)
• Active in transferring information and skills &
often on farmer’s plots
• Helped identify crop diseases
• Organized demonstration plots (isobonele)
• Assisted in bulk purchase of inputs and joint
marketing
• Monitored plot use and recommended reallocation if unused
• Ensured that the area around the beds was kept
clean
Extension services today: farmer
perceptions
• No longer visit farmers on their plots (“in their offices all
the time”)
• Unable to help with disease outbreaks
• Rarely call meetings, but did so recently with new potato
variety
• Occasionally assist farmers to purchase and transport
seedlings from distant nurseries, or in acquiring other
inputs in bulk
• Assist in accessing tractor hire services (recently: free
tractors – but unreliable)
• Active recently in promoting co-ops, but many problems
• Not accountable to farmers for poor performance
Collective action: water allocation
• Each block allocated certain days when they can take water
from the canal
• In the past government used to pay water wardens
(‘police’, iphoyisa); only one now, in Block 4, others retired
• Iphoyisa organises a daily schedule (‘queue’) after farmers
indicate their needs; cleaning of canal and furrows; helps
resolve conflicts over water
• No new wardens appointed since 1994, when responsibility
for scheme was devolved to community/ farmers/ chief
• Blocks 1-3: ‘queuing’ for water now self-organized by
farmers; works well most of the time; conflicts fairly
common, but resolved among themselves
Collective action: repair and maintenance of
canal & fencing around the scheme
• In past, the responsibility of government - paid
for all materials
• Groups of farmers would be organized to work on
different sections of the canal
• Today, cleaning out of mud once a year by groups
of farmers (i.e. self-organized)
• Block 2 respondent: “if you can’t send someone,
you must pay R20 for food for the group”
• Some maintenance & repair beyond capacities of
farmers (fencing materials, cement, or where
canal goes underground)
Collective action: joint purchase of
inputs
• Most common with seedlings, often assisted by
extension officials
• Occasionally occurs with fertilizers and chemicals
(“if we approach extension officers for help;
usually in a small group e.g. of 5 farmers”)
• Chair of Block 2 committee: “I always tell people
to buy mealie seeds early because the price goes
up around planting time, but they do not
respond. It is very helpful to buy as a group
because you get more for your money, and one is
guaranteed to get the right cultivar”
Collective action: crop marketing
• Difficult for farmers to undertake; they try to cultivate
arrangements with individual crop buyers (but often
quite loose, can fall away)
• Negative experiences with the pack-house model: low
prices paid (“50% of prices paid by bakkie traders”) or
produce not sold & rotted
• Farmers paid R50 each which was wasted
• Recently, co-ops and contracts with hospitals were
strongly promoted
• No positive experiences as yet: inaccurate information,
high joining fee (R50 each), no contracts successfully
negotiated
Constraints on collective action: a
farmer’s view
• “How do people with different numbers of beds
per person plan their planting such that the
supply is adequate all year round. People mighty
not all agree to be part of the contract plans. Let
us say the co-op has 5 to 6 members with varying
number of plots per person. The hospital might
want to be supplied with a variety of crops that
the group cannot produce on their limited beds”
(Ms Khuzwayo)
• i.e. scale constraints + unequal land holdings
Explaining constraints on collective
action: theory
• Sociology/Anthropology: time-constrained,
‘improvised’ farming/livelihood system, operated
mainly by women responsibilities for social
reproduction, within a gendered division of
homestead labour
• Political economy of agrarian change:
‘fragmentation of classes of rural labour’ plus
inequality/differentiation
• Institutional economics: transaction costs too
high without effective local institutions
Conclusions
• A productive scheme that supports the livelihoods of
hundreds of the rural poor
• Explaining success: flexible, informal land rental
market facilitates intensity of use; labour in plentiful
supply; fertile soils; cheap access to farmgate market
• Constraints: poorly maintained infrastructure;
inefficient water supply; undifferentiated fresh produce
markets; socially embedded land rental market
constrains social differentiation & accumulation
• Accumulation from below? Needs additional land and
water – e.g. at Tugela Estates, 15 kms upstream, or on
redistributed land (i.e. agrarian reform)