Deep Roots

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The scope of agricultural commodity production in SSA

tends to reflect a division of labour between poorer family

farms and better-off family farms and LSCFs and estates

according to types of commodity produced and their value

in commerce. Family farms tend to produce over 75 per cent

of the main (lower value) staple tubers, as well as most of the

groundnuts, roundnuts, beans and sweet potatoes. However,

most of the cotton is produced by family farms. Family farms

produce limited amounts of higher value crops, including

less than 20 per cent of tobacco, less than 10 per cent of

oilseeds (such as soybeans), and less than 5 per cent of

wheat, fruits, sugar, tea, coffee and marketed beef and dairy.

Cash crops such as sugar, tobacco and fruits are also domi-

nated by better-off family farms, LSCFs and estates. This

division also reflects the predominance of dryland farming

and crops with low financial input requirements and/or the

labour intensity of crops such as cotton. This corresponds

to the scarcity of irrigation facilities and limited access to

capital (credit, subsidies).

The exclusion of family farms from private commercial

credit facilities is often attributed to various risks, associated

with land tenure insecurity, market dispersion and variable

weather. Contract farming has, however, partly broken the

effects of discriminatory farm financing in the production of

cotton and tobacco among family farms.

However, family farms mobilize family and kinship labour

and other local resources, and save (mostly for social repro-

duction and risk insurance) and invest, although this is

inadequate for large-scale capital formation.

They adopt new

technologies and shift crops, and have maintained agricultural

production, despite the reversal of state support to farming

and social welfare and their exposure to unfavourable terms

of trade. Family farms face largely extractive agricultural

markets and limited public finance, since the retrenchment

of state marketing boards. They also face off-farm infrastruc-

tural constraints.

Nonetheless, family farms contribute about 80 per cent

of the food supply in Africa, and are central to SSA employ-

ment.

Yet, malnutrition levels are around 25 per cent,

with 239 million people in SSA being undernourished

despite the important contributions of family farming to

food security. The challenge of redressing food insecurity

and undernutrition remains high, because of low levels of

food crop productivity and of animal protein supplies from

family farms. Furthermore, SSA has experienced rising levels

of food importation and aid dependency, particularly for

wheat, rice, maize, meat and dairy produce.

The future of family farms in SSA

The socioeconomic importance of family farming in SSA is

underlined by the fact that about 600 million rural people

derive their main source of income (and food) directly from

cultivating and/or grazing small family landholdings, while

large sections of the urban populace are fed by family farms.

Although most family farmmembers reside in the countryside,

large sections of them straddle between urban and rural areas,

and part-time urban family farming is common in SSA. Despite

the high rate of urbanization and migration, due to the scar-

city of non-farm employment and incomes, many SSA families

struggle for access to land and to maintain stable food produc-

tion at very low yield levels.

Absolute rural poverty, which is closely related to food inse-

curity and malnutrition, is largely associated with vulnerable

lifestyles and uncertain production on family farms. However,

while poverty levels in SSA are reported to have declined

from 56 per cent in 1990 to 49 per cent in 2010, just below

400 million people still live in extreme poverty – although

poverty levels vary widely, from 5 per cent in South Africa, for

example, to more than 90 per cent in Niger.

SSA states have relatively different public policy stances

towards transforming agriculture and promoting rural devel-

opment, particularly with regard to the empowerment of

family farming and the promotion of LSCFs. The continuing

scramble for control over SSA’s agricultural land constitutes a

threat to the reproduction of family farming.

The equitable

distribution of land and secure land tenure (not necessarily

as private property) is a precondition for the reproduction of

existing family farms, while the increasing scarcity of arable

land threatens their future.

The critical agrarian question facing family farms in SSA is

how to promote a transition from farming based mainly on

the extension of their cropped area towards a more inten-

sive but sustainable land utilization system with three times

higher productivity, and the diversification of food produc-

tion

to meet the current and future demand for diverse foods

and other farm products.

Strengthening the capabilities of

family farms to ensure ‘farm viability’ requires market institu-

tions which enhance the internal accumulation of capital and

increased investments in family farming.

Improving family farm viability will require higher levels

of yields based on better research and extension, access to

more rewarding markets, involving more domestic entre-

preneurs and increased state support for rural infrastructure

and irrigation. There are various ways through which SSA

governments could intervene in food markets to create incen-

tives for investments which can improve the productivity and

diversification of family farm production and promote food

sovereignty. These include promoting food supplies to local

markets, including through public procurement programmes

for various institutions and by augmenting social welfare

transfers, as well as building collective family farm action to

aggregate inputs and output marketing.

Regional cooperation through the African Union and

regional economic communities could enhance the pace

of transformation based on better coordinated policies and

increased intraregional trade in agricultural inputs, commodi-

ties and service markets.

An agrarian transition is necessary for wider economic

diversification, including appropriate forms of industriali-

zation and balanced rural development. Such a transition

also requires attention to the ecological sustainability of

agriculture and the ecosystem, while balancing the conflict

between food and energy requirements in the context of

climate change. Addressing various objective constraints

arising from repressive gender relations within family farms

is critical. These are integral aspects of any development

strategy concerned with reducing food insecurity, high levels

of unemployment and eliminating absolute poverty.

egional

erspectives