Commercial farmers’ strategies to control water resources in South Africa: an empirical view of reform |
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| Authors: | Linda Estelí Méndez-Barrientos Jeltsje Sanne Kemerink Philippus Wester François Molle |
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| Affiliation: | 1. Department of Environmental Science and Policy, University of California, Davis, USA;2. UNESCO-IHE Institute for Water Education, Delft, the Netherlands;3. International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development, Kathmandu, Nepal;4. Water Resources Management Group, Wageningen University, the Netherlands;5. Institut de Recherche pour le Développement, Montpellier, France;6. International Water Management Institute, Colombo, Sri Lanka |
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| Abstract: | This article shows how large-scale commercial farmers, individually and collectively, are responding to land and water reform processes in the Thukela River basin, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. With a high degree of innovative agency, commercial farmers have effectively executed four strategies, enabling them to adapt and use their access to resources to neutralize multiple water reform efforts that once promised to be catalysts for inclusive change in the post-apartheid era. It is likely that policy alone will not facilitate the envisioned transformation, if local practices are not sufficiently understood and anticipated by the governmental officials charged with the implementation of water reform processes. |
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| Keywords: | Commercial farmers irrigation boards water user association water resources water rights water reform South Africa |
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