Equity in natural resource use : farm land resource utilization and land value trends in the Free State under LRAD

[摘要] English: The demand for land as an economic asset represents a source of identityand a symbol of citizenship in South Africa. This symbol has become animportant factor, guiding policy development. South Africa's currentownership and use of agricultural land is the inevitable outcome of decades ofpolicies favouring white commercial farmers. The need for land reform wasclearly identified in the new South African Constitution (Act 108 of 1996,Section 25).In the process of redistribution of land to previously disadvantagedcommunities in primary agriculture in South Africa, it is vitally important thatissues such as the productivity of the land and infrastructure on farms areconsidered since not only do it affect the income potential of the land, but alsothe value of the land, which is in turn important to, for example, gain access tocredit.The primary objective of this study was to provide a clear picture of equity inagricultural resource use in the Free State Province (FSP).This study shows that there are currently no proper systems in place tomonitor the ongoing process of land reform in the FSP. There are noapparent correlation between land prices and the potential of the resources inthe FSP when investigated on an aggregate level. There is also a poorcorrelation between different sources that provide information on land prices.This situation renders it very difficult to make specific conclusions on theequity in natural resource use. It was furthermore shown that records beingkept by Land Affairs Offices are in general incomplete to the extent that suchrecords could potentially provide a skew picture of the current progress beingmade by the land reform programme.These problems and shortcomings of the data available to measure theprogress made in redistribution of land and resources led to the developmentof a hedonic pricing model that attempts to isolate the transactioncharacteristics that have the most significant impact on the price paid for landunder LRAD in the FSP. The hedonic model shows that Rent, Size, Locationof the land and the Type of enterprise significantly affected the price paid forland. The analysis also reveals that the current aggregate information onLand Capability is not optimally suited to link farm prices to the potentialincome the farm can generate. Rental values of land will serve this purposemuch better.Finally, the results obtained from this study provided no evidence that landtransferred were only in areas of low quality resources nor that such land wasoverpriced.

[发布机构] University of the Free State