Economy-wide implications of biofuel production in Zambia

ABSTRACT

Potential biofuel demand in South Africa is estimated to increase to 1550 million litres by 2025 due to mandatory blending rates. Land and water constraints, however, limit the ability for domestic production. Zambia, due to its abundance in land, suitable climate, supportive set of bioenergy incentives and close geographical location to South Africa, has the potential to meet this increase in demand. Using a dynamic recursive computable general equilibrium model, we estimate the macro- and socio-economic impacts of bioethanol production in Zambia from three potential crops: sugarcane, cassava and sweet sorghum. The results show that the development of a single product bioethanol industry has the potential to increase economic growth without negatively affecting overall food security. Further expansion of the industry to multiple products results in larger gains to growth and welfare.     

Policy and trade issues for a future regional biofuels market in Southern Africa

ABSTRACT

This paper reviews the domestic political and legislative context surround biofuels initiatives to highlight what opportunities exist for establishing a biofuels trade network between South Africa (as an anchor market) and its neighbours, specifically in Zambia and Mozambique. By analysing global developments in major biofuel importers, reasons for policy inertia in South Africa, and recent experiences with biofuels investments, we suggest that the likelihood for a regional biofuels market developing is slender without addressing land-related challenges in producer countries and revising South Africa’s domestic legislation.     

Analysis of the animal feed to poultry value chain in Zambia

ABSTRACT

Rapidly growing populations, urbanisation and income are together triggering increased demand for high-value agricultural commodities across Southern Africa with scope for gains from trade and regional integration. The poultry sector in Zambia, in particular, has witnessed a rapid growth triggering increased investments and competition, benefiting the consumers. Despite this growth, the sector still faces huge challenges hindering the development of the animal feed, feed input and poultry production sub-sectors. This has limited the extent of participation of the Zambian poultry industry in the regional market due to uncompetitive prices. This study analyses the animal feed to poultry value chain in Zambia, focusing on the industry capabilities with a view to enhancing its competitiveness and production for the regional market. Enhancing value chain capabilities will require improvements in productivity and production of key poultry inputs, and addressing transportation inefficiencies and coordination among governments.     

Bioenergy in Southern Africa: An opportunity for regional integration?

ABSTRACT

This introductory paper sets out the rationale for revisiting questions surrounding biofuel futures in Southern Africa and exploring the case for the establishment of a regional market. This contrasts with most research that has focused upon benefits and risks of production and consumption for individual countries. The analysis in this issue suggests that while benefits exist, the key challenges that have stifled production and consumption to date would need to be overcome. Unlocking trade requires relaxing requirements for South African manufacturers to source all their feedstock domestically. Key among factors to encourage production is resolving agricultural investment processes, particularly designing inclusive business models and clarifying land acquisition processes.     

Economic impacts of developing a biofuel industry in Mozambique

ABSTRACT

Mozambique is one of the most promising African countries for producing biofuels and the national biofuel policy of 2009 identifies measures to incentivize biofuel production. Demand for biofuels in the Southern African Development Community is expected to increase over the next few years as 7 of its 15 member states have implemented or proposed the implementation of blending mandates by 2020. South Africa is one of these countries. Using a dynamic recursive computable general equilibrium (CGE) model, we estimate the impacts of expanding biofuel production in Mozambique under both commercial and smallholder-type farming models, including and excluding bagasse cogeneration.     

Sulawesi's Cocoa Boom: Lessons of Smallholder Dynamism and a Hands-Off Policy

The rapid expansion of cocoa production on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi over the last decade surprised the world, not least because it came mainly from smallholders This paper examines government policies that have affected the subsector, and identifies issues it faces. The study concludes that the following factors contributed to the expansion, the availability of suitable land; low production costs; a highly competitive marketing system (a result of the government s policy of limited intervention), relatively good transport infrastructure, favourable macroeconomic policies, and smallholder entrepreneurship. It is particularly important that Indonesia s government left cocoa marketing and distribution free of many of the interventions applied to other commodities. Because of the competitive marketing system, the farmgate price of cocoa in Indonesia is very high relative to the export price Issues that must be addressed if cocoa is to develop further include product quality, the ‘adding-up’ problem, pest control and VAT.     

Place,belonging and population displacement: new ecological reserves in Mozambique and South Africa

This paper investigates the effect the proclamation of conserved areas in southern Africa may have on the ability of inhabitants in these areas to retain control of ancestral territory and to access long-standing livelihood options in the future. In particular, it examines how two national parks (in South Africa and Mozambique) effect a change in ownership and land use, and the resulting impact of such a change on local socio-cultural patterns of identity, or ‘place’. This is achieved by examining the dilemma confronting social and ecological scientists in planning these parks – where interventionist policies often deny customary tenure of land and thus prevent a thorough understanding of any historical claims to land prior to actual proclamation of the area. Accordingly, this paper argues for greater cooperation between social and ecological researchers in order to prevent the politicisation of national reserves and the intense opposition that has accompanied most instances of population displacement in the subcontinent.     

Resources,techniques, and strategies south of the Sahara: revising the factor endowments perspective on African economic development, 1500–20001

This article seeks to revise and re‐apply the factor endowments perspective on African history. The propositions that sub‐Saharan Africa was characterized historically by land abundance and labour scarcity, and that the natural environment posed severe constraints on the exploitation of the land surplus, are broadly upheld. Important alterations are suggested, however, centred on the seasonality of labour supply, Ruf's concept of ‘forest rent’, and, for precolonial economies, the role of fixed capital. This revised endowments framework is then applied in order to explore the long‐term dynamics of economic development in Africa, focusing on how the economic strategies of producers and political authorities created specific paths of change which shifted the production possibility frontiers of the economies concerned, and ultimately altered the very factor ratios to which the strategies had been responses.     

深化改革开放,调研土地流转—基于小岗村的调查

我国农村土地制度正处于从家庭联产承包责任制向土地流转制度的转型期。小岗村作为农村土地改革第一村,目前正在积极开展土地流转,以发展集约化、规模化经营,提高土地产能,发展村域经济,造福农民。同时,小岗村土地流转过程中存在一些棘手的制约因素,一定程度上阻碍了其土地流转的顺利开展。     

Resistance to coal inequalities and the possibilities of a just transition in South Africa*

ABSTRACT

Coal mining and burning are among the most destructive activities on the planet, and a major driver of environmental inequality in South Africa. This article suggests that, despite heavy constraints, initiatives involving resistance to coal are building a ‘counter-power’ which challenges inequality, generates solidarity, and is potentially infused by imaginative visions of another world beyond coal. Following the ‘social power’ approach this vision could, with deeper connections between three sites of resistance to coal – organised labour, mining affected communities and environmental justice organisations – cohere into a vision of a ‘just transition’. This could embed the anti-coal struggle in a social movement for an alternative development path to challenge deepening poverty and inequality.     

Institutional arrangements of outgrower sugarcane production in Southern Africa

ABSTRACT

Management models are needed that empower local communities to produce biofuel feedstock in a manner that drives rural development. Much can be learnt through the accumulated experiences of sugarcane outgrower schemes in southern Africa. Early schemes provided limited empowerment, but protected outgrowers from the risks of volatile sugar value chains. In later schemes, processing plants were responsible for all operations and simply paid dividends to participating farmers. More recent schemes offer full ownership, which comes with greater rewards and empowerment, but also exposure to risks. The underlying institutional structures of outgrower schemes largely dictate their performance, and thus the factors that affect their viability or collapse. To understand the different institutional arrangements of sugarcane outgrower schemes we undertake a comparative analysis of 13 schemes in southern Africa employing a political economy framework that uses the three key questions: ‘who owns what’, ‘who does what’, and ‘who gets what’.     

Knowledge production and publishing in Africa

This article explores the practice of ‘knowledge production’ and ‘publishing’ in Africa. Knowledge production and publishing in Africa has been and still is dominated by Western experts, most of whose interests do not serve Africa. Powerful social groups in post-colonial Africa construct knowledge about Africa from the sites of universities. Ordinary people also produce knowledge, most of which is elaborated through unwritten forms, and actually contest dominant modes of knowing. Publishing in Africa ought to be controlled by Africans if African states are to realise the dream of an African renaissance. African governments ought to invest in knowledge production and publishing. African intellectuals with university education should work with ordinary African intellectuals to create new sites of knowledge. Knowledge production and publishing is not an ideologically neutral phenomenon. Therefore, African governments should create, and not thwart, conditions conducive to knowledge production and publishing that is self-interrogating.     

Energy consumption patterns and supply problems in underdeveloped areas in South Africa

Energy usage provides one striking example of processes and conditions of development and underdevelopment in South Africa and the concomitant inequalities in fulfilment of basic needs. Access to affordable and convenient fuels increases as households shift from underdeveloped rural and peri‐urban areas to the developed metropolitan centres. The form and quantity of fuels used by households is constrained by levels of urbanization, the availability and cost of fuels, and household income.

The energy supply problems in developing areas centre on two critical and immediate issues. Firstly, in rural areas the demand for fuelwood is exceeding supply with quite devastating social, economic and environmental consequences. A fuelwood supply and demand model has been developed which indicates the urgency for implementing afforestation programmes, although lack of sufficient suitable land implies that other energy supply strategies will also have to be considered. The second major problem is that the standard, most convenient and affordable domestic energy supply option, electricity, has still not been made available to many black townships and most peri‐urban areas. With increases in population and urbanization, the problem of adequate household energy supply is shifting to peri‐urban areas, which experience major social and economic costs as a result of dependence on costly and inconvenient fossil fuels and batteries. Electricity has been shown to be the most economical and preferred option.     

The Biofuel Controversy

Summary  About a decade ago, the main OECD countries decided to promote the use of biofuels so as to reduce greenhouse gases, to contribute to energy self-sufficiency and to create additional demand for agricultural commodities. The introduction of mandatory blending requirements and lavish subsidies spurred fast adoption of this technology. In the course of 2008, the already existing controversy about the effectiveness of this strategy culminated as the resulting upward shift in demand contributed to staggering rises in food prices on world markets. It is uncertain as yet whether this will tone done current ambitions among policy makers to expand biofuel production. The paper shows that high ratios of energy prices to food prices are needed to make biofuel production profitable without the mandatory blending and subsidies. Yet, even if food-based biofuels disappeared, the issue remains that rising high energy prices will promote intensified use worldwide of land for energy crops, requiring huge amounts of mineral fertilizers and putting nature under additional pressure. In policy terms, this defines three major tasks. The first is replacing the current excise taxes on energy carriers by a uniform carbon tax, so as to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions in an efficient manner, the second to prevent price fluctuations on the oil markets from destabilizing food markets, as happened in recent years. Introduction of upper limits on the use of food for biofuel could prove effective here. The third, much wider, task is to make the transition to a partly biomass based energy production possible and sustainable, that is establishing fair distribution of property and user rights over the lands, while safeguarding biodiversity and soil fertility and maintaining adequate labour standards and living conditions, also during periods that these become non-profitable following a drop in energy prices. The authors thank Lia van Wesenbeeck for her comments.     

Agricultural growth multipliers for two communal areas of KwaZulu-Natal

Expenditure data were collected from 99 households in two rural areas of KwaZulu-Natal. District and wealth group expenditure analyses suggest a less-than-proportional increase in the demand for tradable farm commodities, and a more-than-proportional increase in the demand for non-tradable farm commodities following a 1 per cent increase in household expenditure. Expenditure on non-farm tradables (imported consumer durables) showed the greatest potential for demand growth, with expenditure elasticities ranging from 1,75 to 2,59. An increase of R1,00 in household income is predicted to add an additional 28 cents (multiplier of 1,28) to the local economy. The study estimates relatively weak growth linkages. However, even relatively weak growth linkages could lead to much needed new income and employment opportunities in the local farm and non-farm sectors if the constraints limiting agriculture, and hence broad-based growth in rural incomes, are alleviated. Agriculture-led growth in South Africa requires public investment in both physical and institutional infrastructure to reduce transaction costs and risks in all markets, thus encouraging greater participation by local entrepreneurs and private sector investors. In addition, the roles, functions and services offered by extension agents should be extended to promote collective marketing, facilitate land rental contracts and provide training, technical and business support for farm and non-farm entrepreneurs.     

Institutions for the taking: property rights and the settlement of the Cape Colony, 1652–1750

We examine the formation of property rights in land during the early settlement by the Dutch of the Cape Colony at the southern tip of Africa. After its founding in 1652 as a provisioning outpost for ships of the Dutch East India Company (VOC), the colonial government promoted settlement initially by granting land with well-specified and enforced property rights in restricted zones near Cape Town. By 1714 it transitioned to accommodate rapidly expanding settlement by creating a weaker form of property rights, the loan farm, which was imprecisely defined and had limited government enforcement. We develop a profit-maximizing monopsony model to explain the VOC's choice to transition from the better-specified land grant to the less well-specified loan farm. We conclude that the decline in the population size and ability of the Khoikhoi, the Cape's original inhabitants, to organize effective resistance to the Dutch invasion was critical to the transition, as it lowered the costs of private enforcement of settlers’ territorial claims. The choice of property rights thus enabled and encouraged the rapid taking by European settlers of the western Cape of Africa for the expansion of the Dutch colony's pastoral economy.     

The land question in KwaZulu: Is land reform necessary?

Land reform in the ‘homelands’ depends on whether or not a viable economy can emerge in these areas. If not, the only alternative may be to accept the failure of rural development and follow the new state policy line of ‘positive urbanization’. Outside the limits of state policy, the apparent consensus on freehold tenure may be illusory. Black‐held priorities for land appear to differ at base from those held up by white groups. White business interests want to see large‐scale commercial farming, while blacks want the free and secure right to hold and deal in land, together with a right to use rural land for residential purposes.

There is renewed international interest in land reform. Some of the Far Eastern market economies have obtained startling rises in production under a reform regime of owner‐operated mini‐farms. It is doubtful if this type of reform is appropriate in KwaZulu, where the tenure system already strongly protects the universal right to hold land, and where the community's small role in land matters is still important to local self‐organization capacity. More appropriate models might be found in Zimbabwe and China, which have also achieved sharp rises in small‐farm production without full freehold tenure. Zimbabwe's village committee system recognizes existing land rights and allows for substantial local option. In China, decentralization policies seem to be encouraging a new rural economy in which most of the population may eventually be absorbed into self‐generated nonfarm activity. This kind of enterprise‐led rural development, may offer a possible pattern for KwaZulu.     

Pesticide use among emerging farmers in South Africa: contributing factors and stakeholder perspectives

The commercial agricultural sector in South Africa has historically been dominated by large-scale operations run by white owners and managers. In redressing this imbalance, black farmers classified as ‘emerging’ are being encouraged to engage in high-input agricultural production in order to obtain ‘commercial’ status. Since existing practices in commercial agriculture rely heavily on pesticides, emerging farmers aspiring to become commercial are pressured to adopt and/or increase the use of pesticides. However, problems of access to land, finances, resources, skills and markets overshadow the health and safety of these farmers and their labour force that may be affected by exposure to pesticides. This paper presents the results of a policy study based on primary interview data with key stakeholders and secondary documentary review data, to illustrate how pesticides are used in an occupational health and safety vacuum because the focus of key institutions is rather on economic productivity.     

Economic incentives in the subsistence areas of South Africa and the need for reform

While land tenure reform within the subsistence areas of South Africa will not address fundamental black grievances about land inequality, it is essential that the land in these areas, as well as other agricultural land used for resettlement, be used in a productive and sustainable manner. This article examines the way in which discriminatory policies with respect to land distribution and public support, together with the high level of transaction costs under existing black tenure systems, have structured economic incentives within the subsistence areas, leading to the apparent under‐ and over‐utilization of arable and grazing land respectively. The potential for formal private tenure to reduce these constraints is then explored, while noting the necessity for property institutions to be both impartially administered and well adapted to the particular needs and resource constraints at the community level. Finally, a number of reforms which would increase the level of information provided by informal tenure are examined.     

Analysing legal mobilisation’s potential to secure equal access to socioeconomic justice in South Africa

ABSTRACT

From the moment South Africa became a liberal democracy, the Government promised to deliver on social security for the poor. However, South African NGOs have reported that several barriers prevent poor South Africans, and black women in particular, from accessing the country’s social assistance system. Government inaction has compelled NGOs to approach the Courts. As reflected in a series of court judgements, many problems faced by the system relate to the administration of payments by South African and multinational corporations. But is this the complete story?

Applying a critical, analytical lens of legal mobilisation to explain the potential of legal mobilisation to secure progressive structural change, this article will assess the extent to which civic-based, legal advocacy aimed at securing access to social grants, and challenging the manner in which these grants have been administered, has the potential to more strategically advance socioeconomic justice and inequality for South Africa’s poor.