About 18 months ago, Simphiwe Jalisa thought he had drawn the short straw when the farm dished out to him under the Land Restitution Act (LRA) was struck by a severe drought.

But then an innovative new government initiative came to his rescue.

Desperate to keep his farm going in the dry spell, Jalisa experimented unsuccessfully with drought-resistant crops.

A hot, dry summer followed a winter with one of the lowest rainfalls in decades. Dams dried up, grass anchoring topsoil died and fertile fields crumbled to dust.

Hundreds of thousands of hectares of arable land in Elliot in the Eastern Cape were swept away in sand storms.

Scores of hungry families boarded up their farms and headed to nearby towns, pinning their hopes on finding jobs.

Cash-strapped, Jalisa, a former taxi boss, was also ready to abandon his land and return to Johannesburg.

The farm, given to him under the LRA, had cost him almost all the money that he had made selling his taxi fleet.

Under restitution laws, victims of forced removals are entitled to reclaim their ancestral land, or be offered alternative land or cash compensation.

Since its establishment in 1994, South Africa's Commission on Restitution of Land Rights has settled more than 74800 land claims, at a cost of R16-billion.

But a Sunday Times investigation last year found that the land reform programme was failing beneficiaries and threatening the country's food security. The probe found that thousands of once-productive farms had been abandoned.

The Centre for Development and Enterprise, a policy think-tank, said at least 50% of land reform projects had failed.

But now Jalisa, through a programme by two government-funded organisations, could become an LRA success story.

The Accelerated Shared Growth Initiative for SA in the Eastern Cape (Asgisa-EC), which engages in agricultural revival, and the National Development Agency (NDA) are pioneering a project that might turn around the LRA failure rate.

In less than a year, the two organisations, through their Sakhisizwe Livestock Beef Programme, have turned 150 struggling farms into cattle ranches.

The project aims to herd a million head of livestock onto rural farms by 2019.

Jalisa and 149 other emerging farmers in Elliot were each given 30 pregnant beef heifers and a bull. The farmers agreed to repay Asgisa-EC and the NDA within five years - not in cash, but with 30 heifers.

These 30 cattle will then be given to other emerging farmers - and the cycle will continue.

Asgisa-EC's agriculture and agro-processing manager, Thukela Mashologu, said the farmers generate cash by selling newly born bulls from their herd.

"The farmers cannot sell young heifers, as these will produce for them in the long term, but they have to dispose of the bulls to generate income and repay interest to Asgisa-EC," he said, adding that 337 young bulls had been sold for a total of R777811.

"At least 80% of the farmers have managed to start servicing their debt with Asgisa-EC," said Mashologu.

Soon farmers will work directly with abattoirs and market the meat themselves.

Jalisa's neighbour, Hudson Dibela, 66, owns Fairview, a once-barren small holding that now has 30 heifers and a bull.

A few months ago, Dibela was desperate as he had his wife, four children and two grandchildren to feed. "This project promises great things," he said.