ABSTRACT
The Southern African Development Community (SADC) region initiative on land policy, the SADC Land Reform Support Facility (SLRSF),2 presents an opportunity for addressing the peculiarly southern African agrarian problem that pits land owners against workers, referred to in this chapter as the farm workers’ question.3 A view is taken here that there is a common acknowledgement among public and private institutions within the region of the existence of the farm worker’s question and also for action to be undertaken towards the settlement of this question. The contemporary private estate in the SADC region is characterized by tension-filled contradictory claims. On the one hand, private estate owners seek to validate the status quo and particularly the extent to which their legal rights over private estate land have been exercised. On the other hand, an amorphous group representing a variety of interests, including farm workers, advance a variety of ‘genuine’ counter-claims which challenge the extent private estates owners have exercised their legal rights over private estate land.4 A common feature in the socio-political history of the SADC region countries is the encounter with western colonial capitalism and associated social, economic and legal disruptions it left in its wake. The process and consequences of the colonial encounter on the social groups of the SADC region including the farm workers class are well documented.5
