Besides the political factors discussed above, ecological, technological and cultural factors played their part in the decline of agriculture and the resultant conversion of land to residential use. One constant factor cited as contributing to the decline of agriculture, is the change in the pattern of rainfall especially in the 1980s. It has been argued that South Africa faced a drought in these years and this negatively affected agricultural output (Wilson & Ramphela 1989, Porter & Phillips-Howard 1997). In the Transkei region the situation was much worse as most households did not have access to the dams and sophisticated irrigation systems of most commercial farmers. Ncambedlana was no exception as most of its black middle class farmers were dependant on rainfall patterns for irrigation. As the 1980s drought set in, the Ncambedlana middle class began to struggle with agricultural production. The following narrative from a member of the third generation, ‘Poni’ Raziya, explains how ‘climate change’ has affected life and agriculture in Ncambedlana:
One other thing I see, I don’t know what happened to the water. That’s another thing because water is running out. There used to be a lot of water. What I saw as I grew up is that it’s dry .. you find people say, ‘there is drought now’. I think water became scarce. That’s what you get from people they say, ‘It became drier, and the rains are not like before. It’s drought! It is difficult to practice agriculture’ .. the climate has really changed! If you look at the river, on the way to Tsolo, the river in Ncambedlana, below the Peter’s; there used to be a lot of water there, but today there is none. It is dry now! So, I agree with what the government is saying that water will run out. Even the water sources are drying up. It’s happening now .. there is proof
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because when we grew up, these places had water, we used to swim there. I think one needs irrigation equipment to survive and not only rely on rainfall. I don’t think one can survive [on rainfall].107
The issue of climate change began to be taken seriously by the end of the 1980s (Toulmin 2009). However, there is still no consensus among researchers on the causes of climate change and, as Giddens (2008: 5) puts it, there is not yet a ‘developed analysis of the political changes we have to make if the aspirations we have to limit climate change are to become real’. Current projections of global warming suggest that Africa will face serious water challenges which will affect agriculture and livestock production as a result of declining rainfall. This will be particularly severe in the Southern African regions (Toulmin 2009).
To many of the Ncambedlana black middle class, water shortages due to unsteady rainfall patterns were a reality that affected agricultural production and contributed to its decline in the 1980s. A lack of technology, such as irrigation systems and dams, also made agriculture under the drought conditions difficult. The farming activities of this class were small-scale, self-sustaining endeavours, and did not reach a high level of technological and financial investment. As one member puts it, water problems discouraged many from agriculture:
The main thing that discouraged people from agriculture is the drought. On top of that, what became a problem for us was lack of equipment because we never had chances to get things such as equipment.108
Although many families took a surplus to the market, their scale of agriculture cannot be compared to the full large-scale commercial operations of white commercial farmers. For example, white commercial farmers had a host of subsidies and loans available to them (Mather & Adelzadeh 1998). As soil quality deteriorated, this put a further strain on agricultural productivity for the Ncambedlana farmers. For example, the Mpahlwa family had planned to go into farming full-time after retiring from their entrepreneurial activities. They bought one of the Ncambedlana farms in the 1980s but found out that the soil was in a bad state. Aunt Laura Mpahlwa explains:
Some of us who bought farms tried to make some development to use these farms. We came here thinking we would do some farming but we called the agricultural officers to test the soil and found out that this soil was not good for farming.109
107 Interview with Poni Raziya, Mthatha, 31/07/2010. 108 Interview with Vuyisa Qhinga, Mthatha, 18/07/2010. 109 Interview with Aunt Laura Mpahlwa, Mthatha, 21/07/2010.
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Once soil degradation set in, there was no possibility for the recuperation of agriculture. It is likely that limited financial services in terms of investments, loans or subsidies played a part in the eventual abandonment of agriculture by the Ncambedlana middle class.
The approach of Ncambedlana residents to agriculture needs to be understood in its proper context. As shown in the preceding chapters, in most cases agriculture was not their sole occupation. These were people who had other sources of income besides agriculture. Land and farming provided an additional livelihood, but also addressed social and cultural expectations among the Ncambedlana middle class. That is, someone’s status in society was measured not only based on his or her education, but also in terms of land and livestock. There was an implicit expectation that one should always produce one’s own food and buy as few items as possible. These were to be limited to those foodstuffs which one could not produce on one’s own land, for example tea, sugar and salt.110 Vuyisa Mbangatha proudly remembers
his childhood:
We produced for own consumption. Father never went to the shop, he only went for sugar and coffee. Even the maize bread was made here, there is nothing we didn’t do here, there was a grinding stone that we used, even for samp we had a grinding stone, that’s how we grew up here. We grew up in that manner, working.
It must also be borne in mind that up until about the 1950s agricultural training was provided in missionary institutions such as Lovedale, where most of the first and
second generations were schooled. This training was important as it equipped people
with fundamental farming skills. At the same time, however, it was of such a basic nature that one was not able to compete with white agriculture. The rationale behind the industrial and agricultural training offered at missionary institutions was that blacks should be trained so as to develop their ‘rural economies’ and be kept out of the towns and competition with whites (Rich 1987). This focus on the local context would also keep them away from agitating for political reform at the national level. Thus, the approach of the second generation to land can be described as symbolic and cultural, even spiritual, rather than purely economic. The third generation, as will be discussed below, had a different attitude. Within this generation, land was viewed mainly as an economic resource.