The study focused primarily on the socio-economic benefit(s) of land reform beneficiaries
with regard to food security. The study further investigated the socio-economic impact of
selected land reform projects in the Limpopo Province which is also very critical for many
parts of South Africa. Apart from the traditional output based evaluation of land reform
projects, the study managed to identify key significant variables that could be the focus in
reforming land reform projects in the future. The study also highlights variables that could
contribute positively or negatively to the attainment of socio-economic deliverables of the
objectives of land reform. The conclusive data for the study was obtained from 170
beneficiaries of the land reform programme. Beneficiaries have benefited from Land
Redistribution and Agricultural Development (LRAD) and Settlement Land Acquisition
Grant (SLAG) sub-programmes of land reform in the area of Elias Motsoaledi Local
Municipality within the Greater Sekhukhune District Local Municipality.
The Multinomial Logic Model (MLM) was regarded as the best model for data analysis and
was used to analyse the degree of contribution of socio-economic factors to food security
among beneficiaries of LRAD and SLAG. Three categories were selected to determine the
level of beneficiaries satisfaction with food security, namely; 1) None; 2) Moderate and 3)
High. Dependent variables selected were 1) Number of beneficiaries, 2) Gender, 3) Farm
size/ha, 4) Enterprise, 5) Land reform sub programme, 6) Proximity to the project, 7)
Decision, 8) Knowledge, 9) Skills, 10) Training, 11) participation in Development
organisation, 12) Sustaining production, and 13) Sustaining financial obligation.
The study indicated that the participation of beneficiaries in decision making could
contribute positively to the attainment of food security. A positive relationship with food
security was determined and confirmed the study hypothesis. Knowledge was also found
to have a significant relationship with the attainment of household food security.
Knowledge was again found linked to training of beneficiaries which in general was
inadequate. The study further revealed that almost all beneficiaries were failing to maintain
production and financial obligations. Contrary to the hypothesis, enterprise was not found
to be significant to the attainment of beneficiaries’ household food security.