Land reform policy has been increasingly criticised for its narrow concern with economic growth at the expense of more equitable, pro-poor development strategies (James 2010). Observers of the programme highlight the significant shift after 1997, when the ANC adopted ‘the extremely conservative set of macroeconomic policies under the misleading acronym of GEAR (growth, employment and redistribution), and the entrenchment of the market-based “willing buyer, willing seller” principle as the basis for land reform’ (Ntsebeza and Hall 2007: 13). The state, in this view, was primarily concerned with creating the conditions for market-led development and the formation of a new class of African farmerentrepreneurs (Lahiff 2007).

The principle of ‘letting the market do its work’ has certainly taken hold in the land redistribution programme (Naidoo 2011; chapters 2 and 3, this volume). Land restitution, however, implies a more proactive state intervention in terms of land acquisition and the selection of beneficiaries on the basis of their having a rightful claim to land as opposed to their having the ‘right attributes’ (such as skills and access to capital) to replace exiting white commercial farmers. This is not to say that restitution policies are inherently better-suited to servicing the rural poor than land redistribution policies. Even when market conditions and state commitments coincide, and land is restored to claimants – when ‘willing sellers’ are forthcoming and government funds are released for land purchase – state demands frequently lead to inequitable outcomes.

In cases where the reclaimed land is considered to be highly productive farmland which it is in the national interest to preserve, state functionaries may set conditions on land use and business options. An extreme manifestation of this occurs when the state insists that claimant groups enter into joint ventures with agribusiness partners (Fraser 2007). In such instances, project planning focuses on the maintenance of the status quo on the farms at the expense of the diverse needs of the beneficiaries. As Lahiff (2011: 69) comments, ‘Great attention is paid to the physical features of the land, its recent history and its agricultural potential, as seen through the eyes of the commercially oriented planners who have been appointed by the state.