This is a summary of the second of five cross-cutting themes outlined in the book Contested Karoo: Interdisciplinary perspectives on change and continuity in South Africa’s drylands, edited by Sherryl Walker and M. Timm Hoffman. For an introductory post summarising all five themes, click here. Posts on the remaining four themes will follow soon.
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In a concluding chapter, Walker and Hoffman write that, after many years during which the Karoo was regarded as an ‘empty space’, suited only to sheep farming, profound shifts in land use are under way which raises important questions about its future.
Notwithstanding recent developments, livestock farming will remain the dominant land use in the Karoo for the foreseeable future. However, this is also changing as a result of a combination of internal as well as external forces. Understanding these dynamics is important for any efforts to utilise the rangelands in a more equitable and more sustainable way.
A semi-arid region
Appreciating the semi-arid nature of the Karoo is fundamental to understanding the history of farming in the region. While dams, windmills and pumps have made irrigated crop production possible at selected sites (notably along the Gariep River), the region has always had very little water, which has dictated livelihood and settlement patterns. Extensive livestock farming on natural rangeland has thus long been the predominant form of farming.
Before the colonial period, hunter-gatherer and pastoralist societies utilised the Karoo in very low numbers, and their highly mobile grazing and hunting practices left little discernible impacts on the landscape. Byontrast, the more intensive grazing introduced on market-oriented farms from the late 19th century impacted significantly not only on the environmental health of the rangeland, but also on social relationships, as land was privatised along racial lines.
White land ownership
Since the mid-19th century, commercial farms have been almost exclusively white-owned, although black pastoralists with colonial land rights are also present in the Upper Karoo. At the same time, white landowners’ hegemony over the land has undergone some changes.
The number of commercial farmers in the Karoo reached a peak in the mid-20th century and has contracted significantly over the last 30 years. As a result, farms first became smaller, to accommodate the growth in the number of farmers and their progeny, but have more recently become bigger, as fewer, better-resourced producers have consolidated their farming operations into larger and larger farming units.
Communal farmers
In this context, the communal areas that have survived in the Namaqualand region of the Succulent Karoo can be considered as outliers, with some valuable lessons to impart. Some communal farmers possess relatively large herds of sheep and goats and are commercially oriented, but most have small herds of 50 animals or less.
These farmers practise livestock farming as part of a mixed livelihoods strategy that relies on several income streams, including government grants, remittances, and part-time employment.Their farming practices also reflect an amalgam of indigenous and scientific knowledge systems.
In fact, researchers argue that herding offers more environmentally friendly and climate-adaptive ways of managing livestock than the fenced camp systems currently prevailing on commercial farms, a position that a small number of commercial farmers and some ecologists endorse.
Other generally neglected categories of black part-time farmers in the Karoo are townspeople who keep small numbers of livestock on the side – backyard farmers – as well as the small-scale farmers who, since 1994, have gained formal or informal rights to the large commonages historically attached to most Karoo towns.
Livestock farming
Agricultural census records for the Karoo reflect a significant decline in the number of sheep, goats, cattle, and equines (horses, mules, donkeys) from 1911 to 2007. Data suggests that animal numbers peaked in the 1930s, when more than 11 million sheep were recorded across both biomes. By 2007 this number had declined by more than 60%, to just over four million animals.
Wheat and lucerne
The data from agricultural censuses also show a marked decline in the area under wheat and lucerne cultivation in both the Nama and Succulent Karoo biomes, from a peak in the mid-1970s when state subsidies supported the ploughing of marginal lands.
Springbok on a game farm outside De Aar. Image: Stephanie Borchardt.
Wildlife or game farming
Accurate figures are lacking of the number of Karoo farmers who have switched from livestock to wildlife or game farming, including meat production, ecotourism and hunting. Game farming appears to be more commonly practised in the Nama Karoo biome, but figures are difficult to come by. Some game farmers could more accurately be described as mixed farmers, as they farm with both game and sheep.
Many game farmers are concerned about the environmental health of their land. Furthermore, there are potential synergies between game farming and the tourism and hospitality sectors in small towns that could give the latter a boost.
While the shift to game farming has led to some farm workers losing their jobs and homes, it has also created some new job opportunities, which have tended to benefit women.
Racialised social hierarchies
There is a far lesser concern in the commercial farming sector about the social justice dimensions of sustainable agriculture, and deeply racialised social hierarchies persist on many farms.
Nationally, the reduction in the number of commercial famers and the dismantling of apartheid since 1994 has seen a decline in the political power of private white landowners.
The debate on expropriation without compensation, which dominated the political-policy debate on land reform between 2017 and 2022 has unsettled commercial farmers, including in the Karoo where many farming families regard themselves as having deep roots in the land.
Impacts of land reform
However, while tensions around land reform policies are evident, the impact of the governmemnt’s land reform progamme on actual farming appears limited. The relative economic power of local landowners has not been substantially diminished, and there are also signs of adaptation among some commercial farmers which may boost their resilience in the face of change.
At the same time, the number of white farming families on the land continues to decline. As the racial composition of commercial agriculture slowly becomes more representative of the wider population, this can be expected to introduce new dynamics into the debate on land reform and the contribution of commercial farming to the regional economy.
Land redistribution
As of 2018, about 2.2 million hectares had been redistributed from white landowners to black beneficiaries in the Northern Cape, a third of this through the state’s municipal commonage programme. Commonage lands around small towns in the Karoo have been made available to both small-scale and emerging farmers, although the take-up has generally been low and the livelihood benefits uneven. The purchase of white-owned farms adjacent to some of Namaqualand’s communal areas has also transferred thousands of hectares into state ownership, for use by small-scale farmers in the region’s former ‘coloured’ reserves.
While this has benefited the farmers concerned, and offered some redress for past injustices, its redistributive reach has been more limited. The Karoo Regional Spatial Development Framework has expressed concern that the redistribution of semi-arid rangeland, far from markets and urban service centres, to black farmers who lack capital and strong extension support is unlikely to benefit the recipients or enhance the regional economy. There are also environmental limits to the number of farmers who can make a sustainable living off farming in the Karoo.
Security of tenure
The Extension of Security of Tenure Act (Act 62 of 1997), which forms part of the government’s land reform initiatives, was meant to protect the rights of all farm dwellers and prevent unlawful evictions from farms. However, tenure insecurity has persisted, with farm workers and their families continuing to be displaced from farms, a trend that the amalgamation of farms into larger farming units is exacerbating. This has led to the growth of informal settlements around especially some larger towns in the Karoo, as displaced farm-worker households, with few skills to facilitate their entry into alternative livelihoods, have been legally or illegally evicted or have moved to town by themselves.
Ecological dynamics
The changing nature of farming has had important consequences for social-ecological dynamics in the Karoo.The decline in livestock numbers and greater conservation awareness of many farmers means that, overall, the Karoo has more and better vegetation today than in the first half of the 20th century, and its ecological health has improved. This needs to be defended against the threats from the more recent and poorly regulated extractivist land uses, and taken into account in evaluating the challenges to biodiversity conservation.
Relationship between farming and small Karoo towns
However, the decline in family farms and rise in ‘weekend’ farmers has greatly weakened the synergistic relationship between commercial agriculture and the economic and social wellbeing of the region’s small towns. Increasingly, lifestyle farmers and large commercial enterprises by-pass these towns in favour of larger regional centres when making significant purchases, while the investment of the farming community in local schools and other social institutions has declined dramatically as well.
This has had serious consequences for the small towns, where most Karoo dwellers live. Finding ways to reinvigorate linkages between farms and small towns this presents both researchers and policy-makers with an important challenge.
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FEATURED IMAGE: Counting sheep, near Carvarvon, 2016. Image: David Chinigò.