his paper explores aspects of the relationship between rural poverty and the
cash income (or consumption goods) that black rural households are able to derive,
after almost a decade of land reform, from farming their own land.1
In the South African context, as well as elsewhere in sub-Saharan Africa, there is
general agreement that small-plot agriculture “remains important for most rural
households, mostly for domestic consumption”, and it is claimed that “people
look to farming or natural resource harvesting as sources of livelihood”. Many
have echoed Michael Lipton’s old call for “abandoning negative stereotypes of
smallholder production, and embracing a positive view of the possibilities for
land-based rural livelihoods” (Cousins 2005a; International Food Policy Research
Institute (IFPRI) 2002; New Economic Partnership for African Development
(NEPAD) 2002; Commission for Africa 2005:44). Their policy conclusion
is that the central thrust of anti-poverty strategy should focus on these promising
possibilities for family farming by implementing a land reform that improves the
access of the poor to productive assets including not only land but also micro-credit,
access to inputs, marketing facilities, and extension advice. “Possibilities”
are not the theme of this paper, partly because the theoretical underpinnings
and flawed logic of these arguments for redistributive land reform and smallholder
support have been criticised in earlier work (Sender and Johnston 2004).