The Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS) is a research and teaching centre with an international reputation for high quality applied research and critical scholarship.
Founded in 1995 as a specialist unit in the School of Government at the University of the Western Cape (UWC), PLAAS undertakes in-depth research on rural and urban poverty and inequality, land and agrarian reform, agro-food value chain restructuring and natural resource management in South Africa and the southern African region. Besides research and post-graduate teaching, PLAAS is involved in training, and provides advisory and evaluation services.
A key focus of the Institute is contributing evidence-based findings to policy-making processes. Researchers engage with both government and civil society groups, and sometimes act as expert witnesses in strategic litigation on constitutional rights.
Professor Ben Cousins founded PLAAS in 1995 and acted as Director until 2009, when he was awarded a DST/NRF Research Chair in Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies. He remains within PLAAS as part of the research and teaching team, and directs a group on land reform, food systems and agrarian change comprised of twelve post-graduate students.
As is true of all PLAAS projects, this group aims to engage in high quality, rigorous research that can inform both mobilisation and policy-making in relation to deeply-rooted problems inherited from the past. “In 1994 it became clear that the new government’s ambitious land reform programme would benefit from policy-relevant research on the dynamics of rural economies, the complexity of land tenure and governance systems, and the impacts of land redistribution and restitution”, Cousins explains.
“A dedicated research initiative could also help to build research capacity, and nurture a new generation of black applied social scientists working in rural areas”. Initially focused mainly on land and rural livelihoods in South Africa, PLAAS soon expanded its focus to include fisheries and natural resource management, and began to work with partners in the broader Southern Africa region.
Since 2002 PLAAS has undertaken research on poverty, inequality, social policy and informal self employment. It is often commissioned by the Presidency and other governmental bodies to undertake work on these issues. Land continues to be a key concern for PLAAS.
Currently, international debates are centred around the commercialization of agricultural land and the tensions this is giving rise to. Mounting pressure on land in sub-Saharan Africa, Asia and Latin America over the past decade was exacerbated by the food price crisis of 2007-2008.
Since then governments have been courting foreign investment by leasing or selling large tracts of land to companies and sovereign funds for food production, tourism and bio-fuel production. However, because these new deals often involve leases or concessions on land that is already occupied and used by local people, often under forms of ‘communal’ tenure, PLAAS researchers say that they potentially threaten the livelihoods of rural households and could severely disadvantage the continent’s 80 million small-holder farmers.
A new regional research programme led by PLAAS senior researcher Ruth Hall, together with a range of partners across Southern Africa, focuses on these issues. But land and land rights are only part of the picture. PLAAS Director, Professor Andries du Toit, explains that while the institute is now beginning to look at the food system more broadly.
“You can’t consider land and land rights in isolation. You have to ask questions about the way value chains in food and agriculture are structured. For example, in South Africa, one problem we have is that value chains are vertically integrated, and are driven by powerful centralized supermarkets. Small farmers find it almost impossible to compete in these value chains. At the same time, questions are being asked about the environmental sustainability of industrial, large-scale commercial farming. So we are asking about how to create food economies that are sustainable and make local sense.”
Another key focus at PLAAS is helping to build the capacity of governments and civil society organisations. Since 2001 PLAAS has graduated over 100 Diploma, Masters and PhD students, drawn from across Africa, and is currently planning to expand its offerings to include training in social policy. “The University’s renewed commitment to supporting top-quality research is good news for PLAAS”, says du Toit.
“With the excellent levels of support from the faculty and the university management that we currently enjoy, PLAAS is confident it can maintain its position as the leading centre of its kind on the African continent”.