The relationship between poverty and rural land use in Nongoma
Nongoma is characterised by a rugged terrain with soils that are unsuitable for agriculture. The rainfall is insufficient and erratic, and the average temperatures are relatively high. There is scanty natural vegetation. For agriculture to thrive under these circumstances would require extensive irrigation. Nongoma is inhabited by an ethnically homogeneous, traditional, conservative and patriarchal Zulu population. There is a preponderance of young people below the age of 18 years, which is associated with a high fertility rate. The economically active population is only 34.6 percent of the total population. Of this economically active population, about 55,5 percent consists of females. The number of potentially active full-time peasant fanners is small compared to the total population, and the dependency rate is high. There is a high unemployment rate in Nongoma and many of the young males eam money through migrant labour. Within Nongoma the cash resources of most peasants are derived from meagre resources such as remittances, pensions, welfare payments, and petty commodity production. Such income is usually insufficient for household subsistence. The present pattern of rural land use among the peasants in Nongoma resulted partly from . the land and agricultural policies of the colonial and post-colonial governments. The two major farming systems identified among the peasants are crop raising and livestock grazing. Due to ecological and socio-economic constraints production in both these farming systems is at subsistence level. The main hypotheses on which this dissertation is based are that there is poverty in Nongoina, and that this poverty is directly related to the failure of agriculture to provide a livelihood for the inhabitants. The aim of the study was to examine the relationship between poverty and agricultural land use in Nongoma. The objectives being to determine causal relationships between poverty and agricultural land use. The dissertation is written on the knowledge that there are differences in the conceptualisation of poverty. On the examination of peasant agriculture it was found that there were high population densities among the peasant areas in Nongoma. The average population density on arable land was about 26 people per ha of arable land, and the average size of land per peasant homestead was only 0,4 ha. When considering that the peasants do not have access to irrigation in this arid land, and considering that the major crop produced on this land was maize, a low yielding staple and field crop, it was evident that there was insufficient food produced from agriculture by each homestead. Peasant agricultural activities in Nongoma contribute only a small fraction to household income. The failure of agriculture to provide a living for the peasants has resulted in general poverty. The survival strategy of the peasants lies in cash income from diverse sources such as migrant remittances and petty commodity production. It has been found that there was social differentiation among the peasants in Nongoma, and that it was folly to treat them as a homogeneous group for research purposes. Although their level of well-being differs according to their differing levels of access to land and off-farm income, it is evident that there is general poverty among the peasants,
Land use, Rural--South Africa--Nongoma., Poverty--South Africa--Nongoma.
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