Orchards of Privilege : Water, Oranges, and Race in the Gamtoos Valley of South Africa, 1700-2023

This study of the Gamtoos River floodplain in South Africa’s Eastern Cape Province traces its transformation from an eighteenth-century natural landscape of thick bush into an agricultural zone now threatened by climate change. The first half of the book explains how missionaries from the London Missionary Society and residents of the Hankey Mission Station introduced irrigation, turning the area into a community of small-scale farmers.Despite early failures, by 1849 they had constructed South Africa’s first major irrigation tunnel and aqueduct.However, conflicts between the missionaries and residents led to the loss of communal lands to privatization, which ultimately impoverished the local farmers. The second half explores efforts to develop the valley for large-scale agriculture, addressing challenges like drought, flash floods, and saline water.By the mid-twentieth century, Afrikaners dominated the area, benefiting from the construction in 1970 of the Kouga Dam, which provided fres