Deep Roots

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Family farming in sub-Saharan Africa

Professor Sam Moyo, Executive Director of the African Institute for Agrarian Studies, Harare, Zimbabwe

he persistent agrarian crisis facing sub-Saharan Africa

(SSA), and the recent world food price hikes, have

provoked greater urgency among governments, civil

society actors and multilateral development agencies to

identify public policies which can more speedily promote

agricultural transformation and food security and nutrition,

as well as rural development. Consequently, SSA states and

non-state actors have highlighted the important contribution

and strategic role of family farms in the region’s agrarian

transformation and socioeconomic development.

Since over 75 per cent of the SSA population is involved

directly and indirectly in small-scale farming and related

employment, family farms are pervasive in the economic

life of this largely agrarian region. Family farms generally

shape the social organization of life in a largely rural SSA,

and consequently play a key role in social protection. The

state of human development in SSA (such as poverty, food

security and gender relations) largely reflects the socioeco-

nomic fortunes of family farms. Furthermore, family farming

communities are a critical electoral constituency which shapes

political organization in SSA, even if their sociopolitical

importance is not reflected in public policy priorities.

Historical land alienation and integration into world

markets led to the extensive destruction of petty production

in a few SSA countries and the creation of a limited scale of

plantation enclaves in others.

Consequently, agrarian change

in SSA is characterized by a variety of accumulation paths,

including petty-commodity producers ‘from below’ and from

above, through large-scale commercial (capitalist) farms

(LSCFs) and corporate estates. However, struggles over the

control of land, led by independent movements and the peas-

antry since colonial times, resulted in the numerical and areal

predominance of various forms of family farming systems.

Conceptualizing family farms

Family farms comprise a diverse range of relatively small-sized

units, mainly involved in agricultural, pastoral and natural resource

management activities. Unlike other categories of farmers, they

are largely managed by and rely mainly on the labour of family

members, and produce for auto-consumption and sale. While

there is no official or legal definition of ‘family farming’ in SSA, the

terms ‘small-scale farmers’ or ‘smallholder famers’ are commonly

used by governments, civil society and scholars, while the term

‘peasantry’ is mainly used in scholarly literature. Conceptually

small-scale farmers are akin to small-scale family farms which

depend on family labour and produce a significant share of their

own food. However, ‘small-scale family farm’ is a relative term

which differentiates them from LSCFs, which are businesses

managed by family owners who hire most of their labour.

Historically, LSCFs mostly comprise European settlers found

in parts of Southern and Eastern Africa, as well as a scattering

of relatively new indigenous ‘emerging farmers’ with middle-

sized landholdings. Furthermore, LSCFs can be distinguished

from corporate farming ‘plantations’ or ‘estates’, which in SSA are

‘Janet Katushabe, displays tomatoes grown to boost immunity of her HIV/AIDS

positive daughters and herself’ (IYFF photo competition - Africa regional winner)

Image: Edward Echwalu

egional

erspectives