The Variability Of The Southern African Standard Farm

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Abstract
The idea of a standard sized farm for distribution to pioneers in newly occupied areas was conceived in southern Africa in the early eighteenth century. The concept survived for nearly two hundred years, during which time it experienced many vicissitudes as it was applied to large portions of the subcontinent, south of the Zambezi River. Successive governments, both colonial and republican, applied the concept to varying environments, with differing degrees of success, until the apparently unlimited supply of free land for grazing purposes was exhausted. Although each pioneer officially obtained the same physical area (2570 ha), this did not occur in practice. Actual size varied from region to region. and internally within regions; a state of affairs whIch is investigated in this paper.

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