The struggle for gender parity has been intensified over the past few decades, with the World Bank having made gender equality in the agriculture and food industry an explicit goal. As the South African land redistribution project begins to gain traction, despite the fact that 69% of farmers are women, women have continued to face a number of challenges in the sector in terms of participation in decision-making roles in agriculture and within the land reform programme.

Fifty-seven-year-old Maria Magagula is one of the women who reflect the status quo. Magagula is the Secretary of the Mswati Communal Property Association (CPA). The CPA was registered in 1998 and is one of the early redistribution projects implemented under what was referred to at the time as the Settlement and Land Acquisition Grant (SLAG) of the land reform programme.

The CPA has 130 family beneficiaries, mainly comprising households that were small-scale farmers who were historically farming on irrigation schemes established under the former Kangwane Government and were initially organised under the Mswati Farmers’ Association.

In the settlement, the families decided to combine their Settlement and Land Acquisition grants, and after registering the CPA, acquired ownership of their 1 418 ha farm located about 30 km from eManzana (Badplaas) and right on the eye of Elukwatini in Mpumalanga.

Magagula is the only woman in a nine-member CPA committee within the Mswati CPA. She has served on the CPA for 10 years now. Relating some of the challenges around gender issues, Magagula says, “Our CPA initially had four women and four men, and unfortunately three of the women have since passed away, and the CPA is seeking new members, especially young women, to fill these gaps.”

Reflecting on the role of skills and importance of training

Magagula is of the view that like her CPA, many CPAs have to learn on the go. The self-taught CPA secretary says she has had to learn everything about her role within the CPA on the go. The Vumelana Advisory Fund, a non-profit organisation that supports CPAs to make their land profitable, has provided some capacity building support to the CPA.

She says that there is a need for gender balance within the CPA structures for the voices of women to be heard and their concerns to be amplified, because more voices are better than one.

Magagula expresses hope that if more young women participate in agriculture and farming, more young women can get involved within the CPA structures. She recommends that it is important to also begin to look at areas such as, for example, children of deceased founding members of CPAs joining CPAs and identifying areas in which they can play more active roles.

“Young women, and the youth as a whole, have an important role to play as the next generation of beneficiaries of land reform. The older people will eventually not be able to perform some of the roles that we are performing now, and will need the youth to take charge. Before then, young people need to shadow the older people and actively participate as much as possible to learn more about the work required in the CPA structures,” says Magagula.

The right resources in farming can help any woman maximise economic opportunities and improve food security for their community.

Explaining the way in which the Mswati CPA works, Magagula said, “The different family households that are able to plough and work the land have farms allocated to each family across the 1 418 ha farm.”

In 2017, the Mswati CPA approached the Vumelana Advisory Fund to support them in soliciting a commercial private sector operator to partner with the community for the redevelopment of the Mswati farm. Today part of the property is being used for a 23-year-lease agreement with a local agriculture company as part of an intervention to make the land profitable for the community.

An estimated R30-million will be invested in cultivating crops and the rehabilitation of all farm infrastructure on the land under lease and the CPA will receive rental income from the agreement; with an estimated 75 permanent jobs to be created for the community.

The different community households also have established small-scale farms on the land and are able to supply local fruit and vegetable markets, general supermarkets and vendors around the area with seasonal vegetables. The farm also has an agreement with another private investor to grow tobacco under a different partnership agreement.

Challenges and land reform

Magagula explains that before approaching the Vumelana Advisory Fund, the CPA had a number of struggles relating to the overall upkeep of the farm and ways in which to generate more money from it. While families have done a great deal of work in working the land, the work has been very taxing, as everything is being done manually.

“When we got the land from government back in 1998, there was nothing on the land, and we had to start everything from the beginning. We had no irrigation systems, we didn’t even have the wire around the crops to prevent livestock from grazing on the crops. While some of these issues have been resolved through a number of interventions by the private sector and the community, a lot is still needed for the small-scale family farmers in the area. We still need tractors, for example, as we have to rely on hiring tractors when we have to plough, and that can be very costly. We need to extend our irrigation system as well, and these things are necessary to ensure that we are more efficient and produce on a greater scale.”

Magagula, who raised 10 children off the funds from the crops on her family’s portion of the land, some of whom are in university now and others who have grown to have their own families, expresses the value and benefit of the land, saying, “Land has been critical in enabling our families to survive, but it must go beyond that, we want to have greater reach and greater impact and play a more significant role towards ensuring food security for the country.”

A lot of money was invested by government in buying back this land from the previous owners. However, not much was invested in ensuring that the new owners were supported to enable them to continue to ensure that the land is able to produce on a commercial scale, and to provide the necessary equipment needed for the land to be profitable.

Currently the Mswati CPA produces fruits and vegetables including spinach, beans, cabbage, maize, paprika, which Magagula says she started farming in 2002, as well as tobacco.

Magagula is of the view that with more support, especially technical equipment, a lot more can be done to scale up what the community is doing now and produce for the national market and beyond.

She continues, “I believe that there is enough room to grow women’s participation in the agricultural sector. Women bring a different perspective to any role, and we need to make sure that we get that balance right, because the impact that women can make in communities is immeasurable. They can make a meaningful contribution to the growth of the agricultural sector and within the CPA structures of land reform to truly unlock the potential that these structures have; and it’s important that CPAs consider and look closely into their structures in order to accelerate the advancement of women and young people.”

Submitted by Toni Elephant Media