‘Willing Buyer, Willing Seller’: South Africa’s failed experiment in market- led agrarian reform EDWARD LAHIFF ABSTRACT Since its transition to democracy, South Africa has implemented a multifaceted programme of land reform to address problems of historical dispossession and rural poverty, relying heavily on the concept of ‘willing buyer, willing seller’. This version of market-led agrarian reform has been influenced by the World Bank but enjoys support from landowners and elements within the ruling African National Congress committed to maintaining the structure of large-scale, capital-intensive farming. Central to the South African approach is the voluntary acquisition of land, but also important have been the methods of beneficiary selection, of farm planning and of post-settlement support, all of which have been influenced by the market-led approach and serve to discriminate against the very poor. The rate of land transfer remains far below official targets and the limited available evidence suggests that, where land has been transferred, it has made little positive impact on livelihoods or on the wider rural economy. Key to understanding the slow pace of reform is the lack of mobilisation and militancy among the rural poor and landless, who to date have had minimal influence over the design and implementation of the land reform programme. Since its transition to democracy in 1994 South Africa has adopted a strongly pro-market approach to land reform, influenced by conservative forces within the country and international backing for market-assisted agrarian reform (MLAR), particularly from the World Bank. A slow rate of land transfer, however, has led to calls for a more radical approach that would effect a more rapid redistribution of land from the white minority to the black majority, but has not been backed up by mobilisation of the landless and has yet to deflect the state from its chosen path. In contrast to countries such as Brazil and the Philippines, where market- led agrarian reform evolved from, and has not entirely replaced, longer- running processes of ‘state-led’ reform, South Africa’s land redistribution programme has fallen entirely within the era and the parameters of MLAR. Factors that made South Africa a candidate for MLAR—apart from the timing of its liberation—were the extreme inequalities in landholding Edward Lahiff is at the Programme for Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS), University of the Western Cape, Private Bag X17, Bellville 7535, Cape Town, South Africa. Email: elahiff@uwc.ac.za. Third World Quarterly, Vol. 28, No. 8, 2007, pp 1577 – 1597 ISSN 0143-6597 print/ISSN 1360-2241 online/07/081577–21 Ó 2007 Third World Quarterly DOI: 10.1080/01436590701637417 1577