The Makuleke partnership

Land claims are a thorny issue. In recent times it has been found that a number of ‘successful’ land claims were found to have been unsuccessful in that land claimants were not always able to sustain the farming land that had been restored to them. In 2009, then Land and Agriculture Minister Lulu Xingwana warned that land-reform beneficiaries needed to run productive farms or they would run the risk of losing their farms.

This is the context that makes so noteworthy the ground-breaking partnership that exists between the Makuleke community, South African National Parks (Sanparks) and private lodge and safari operators. Thrown off their land in the north-eastern tip of the Kruger National Park in 1969 and submerged into the Gazankulu homeland, the Makuleke could claim stewardship over a tract of 24 000ha of land going back to the early 1800s.

The community’s legal right to the land was not much of an issue. As soon as they formed a Community Property Association (with the assistance of Webber Wentzel Attorneys and the Legal Resources Centre), they were entitled to take ownership but conservationists were extremely worried that if the community chose to carry livestock on the land, it would kill any hope of creating a transfrontier park in the area – the Pafuri triangle touches South Africa, Mozambique and Zimbabwe.

This was when the creative partnerships kicked in. The Makuleke signed an agreement with the owners of 10 Bompas Hotel in Johannesburg whereby they would run a lodge for 45 years. The community has a 12.5% share in The Outpost, the 12-suite lodge perched on the top of a high hill overlooking the confluence of the Luvhuvu and Matale rivers. An 8% lease fee from operating profits is paid to the community and a further 2% is paid into a trust fund devoted to skills training and education.

A second concessionaire, Wilderness Safaris, runs a tented camp called Pafuri Camp Lodge on the edge of the Luvhuvu River, on a similar basis to The Outpost. Both of these arrangements were brokered by the African Wildlife Foundation (AWF) The business model for the partnerships indicates that members of the Makuleke community will take over the reins in 45 years time when the concession agreements expire.

However, Development Bank of Southern Africa analyst Dudley Moloi, writing in a 2010 edition of the Service Delivery Review, asks whether they will ‘be in a position to run the multi-million- rand eco-tourism business’. Moloi points to the ‘slow movement of the Makuleke to the executive and strategic echelons of both concession lodges’ as a worrying sign.

However, the AWF is using the Makuleke initiative as a benchmark in trying to assist other communities bordering the Kruger National Park to maximise economic opportunities arising from their location.

The biodiesel revolution

The Mapfura-Makhura Incubator (MMI) is a Section 21 non-profit organisation that supports small, medium and micro enterprises (SMMEs) in the agricultural sector with an emphasis on exploiting the complete biodiesel value chain. Critical to the thinking behind the MMI, is to link entrepreneurs with the markets of the first economy.

Getting farmers to farm soya beans and sunflowers are key objectives of the programme, as are the promotion of rotational crop production and intercropping as a way of ensuring food security. The MMI has strategic partnerships with the SEDA Technology Programme, the Agricultural Research Council (ARC), the Limpopo Department of Agriculture, National African Farmers’ Union, National Agricultural Marketing Council, Trade &
Investment Limpopo, the universities of Limpopo
and Venda and the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR). Operations are taking place in three of the provinces districts, Sekhukhune, Waterberg and Capricorn, and since 2006, 105 small-scale farmers have joined the incubation programme and operate on 200 000ha.

In the 2008/09 financial year, 35 SMMEs were established. The 27 farmers active in sunflower production managed to produce an income of R412 000. A successful example of a farmer upscaling with the support of the MMI is Choma Mashoke, who farms sunflowers in the Elias Motsoaledi area in Sekhukhune District and was one of the first farmers to sign up for the programme in 2006.

He started farming with vegetables in 1999 but had problems in purchasing inputs such as seed. As an MMI incubatee he can purchase inputs using receipts from sales as surety. Mashoke wants to farm on a commercial basis and has already been able to repay his Land Bank loan and is finding more stability in his income from year to year.

The MMI has not yet succeeded in its goal of building a biofuel plant but intends to set up a demonstration plant that will be capable of processing 300 000 litres of fuel per year