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Abstract
A good indicator of successful farm redistribution cases has to be the continuation of viable
productivity rates in their post transfer periods. Continued productivity benefits all the
stakeholders that are involved in the process. Unfortunately negative productivity levels have
been reported in numerous South African land redistribution transfers in recent years. A game
theoretic perspective is adopted to argue that cooperation among key stakeholders, which could
be enforced through long term contracts between a land buyer, sellers and new owners, would
lead to higher productivity levels and other benefits. Additional benefits would, for example,
include market related prices paid by a buyer. Sugarcane farm transfer cases from two
municipality districts in KwaZulu Natal province are used to show that the productivity rates in
post transfer periods of cooperative land sales were more than 10% higher than the rates
observed before such transfers. At the opposite end of the scale, the productivity rates in noncooperative
land sales dropped by 16% after land takeovers. Furthermore, the prices paid for
farms that became less productive after transfers were higher by more than 40% compared to
those paid for productive farms. The cases illustrate the values of cooperative strategies in
economic transactions.