An Apartheid Oasis?: Agriculture and Rural Livelihoods in Venda

This is a socio-economic study of agriculture and its contribution to livelihoods in Venda, one of the black "homelands" created in South Africa under apartheid. It is based on a survey of households on the Tshiombo irrigation scheme, a project in central Venda with approximately 600 plot-holders. The objective of the study is to gain an understanding of how small-scale agriculture contributes to household livelihoods in the homelands during the transition from apartheid to democracy and to identify areas in which the state, or other parties, can intervene to redress the historic neglect of black agriculture and develop the rural economy. The book concludes that there is scope for further development of the agricultural economy at Tshiombo but this will require comprehensive reform of existing state services. Constraints of land, capital and household labour suggest that in most cases agriculture is likely to remain supplementary to income obtained from the non-farm economy, but can be a valuable sourceof food and an important safety net in times of crisis.