Report of the Long Term Agricultural Policy Commission / Known as the J. D. M. Keet Report

Chairman: J. D. M. Keet

This commission strongly influenced South African agricultural policy in Namibia in the postwar decades, and in certain respects prefigures recent discussion of post-independence development policy. It remains the only official investigation into agriculture in the 70 years of South African rule to have been given a comprehensive brief; its nearest sequel is the recent and more specific Harrison report on farm profitability. The report is broad in scope. A long introductory chapter describes the natural environment, the first systematic account of its kind, and farm economy and society on white-owdut ranches and, briefly, in the reserves. Two short chapters on agricultural organizations and support services and on soil and water conservation are followed by discussion of methods of improvement, primarily in settler karakul and cattle ranching, and an extended analysis of the marketing of livestock products. A concluding section provides a useful summary of the argument and main recommendations. The report bears the stamp of thorough local knowledge, intensive investigation, and a pragmatic problem-oriented approach. It contains much empirical detail, and the statistical appendix provides valuable coverage of the first 25 years of South African rule. Although the reserves were not entirely neglected, the commission's main concern was with settler stock-farming, and nearly all its 50 public hearings were in white farming localities, with the SWA Agricultural Union closely involved in coordinating the evidence. The report is written in clear and forthright style and is at times trenchantly critical of existing farming practices and official policy, diagnosing a gathering crisis in soil and pasture degradation. Its recommendations legitimated the three foundations of official policy towards settler ranching right up to present reconsideration: comprehensive planning of water and pasture use; state-subsidized enclosure of the open range into camps; and state-organized marketing, particularly of exports. Interestingly, while endorsing the primary subsistence role of the reserves, the commission recommended cash incentives, facilities for marketing surplus production, and equal access to services for peasant agriculture, in the north as well as the south aspects which were not so actively taken up by the government. (Eriksen/ Moorsom 1989)

W001483, W011415