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This chapter focuses on the question of what contribution land and agrarian reform can make to reducing inequality and addressing the structural nature of rural poverty in post-apartheid South Africa. It suggests that the problem needs to be conceptualised in terms of the ‘agrarian question of the dispossessed', which can be resolved only through a wide-ranging agrarian reform. This must include the redistribution of land and the securing of land rights, but must go beyond land questions and aim to restructure rural economic space, property regimes and socio-political relations. This approach is premised on the potential for accumulation from below'in both agricultural and non-agricultural forms of petty commodity production, and expanded opportunities for'multiple livelihood strategies. The chapter suggests that area-based agrarian reform should play a central role in such an approach.

South Africa's new democracy has made tremendous strides in its first decade, as a host of ten-year reviews have pointed out. But continuing poverty and inequality undermine these gains. We continue to live in one of the most unequal societies on earth. The continuing coexistence of economic growth and structural poverty poses challenges to how we understand the problem, and even greater challenges to policy makers charged with constructing a developmental path that can result in rising incomes for all.