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The concept of family farming covers various elements.
From a sociological perspective, family farming is associ-
ated with family values, such as solidarity, continuity and
commitment; in economic terms, family farming is identi-
fied with specific entrepreneurial skills, business ownership
and management, choice and risk behaviour, resilience and
individual achievement. Family farming is often more than a
professional occupation because it reflects a lifestyle based on
beliefs and traditions about living and work.
4
Since the majority of families in Africa reside in the
rural areas, the main activity they engage in is agricultural
production and that is the reason why family farming is
regarded as a way of life for most African families. In as
much as most families practice or perform farming activi-
ties, in most cases it is more for a sociological purpose than
a business and most families still use traditional ways of
farming and can hardly produce enough to feed themselves
let alone for sale.
South African agriculture has been described as being
of a dual nature – with a sophisticated, technologically
advanced and globally competitive commercial sector on
one hand and, on the other, a subsistence sector that is
underresourced, unsophisticated and with a low technol-
ogy uptake. This was largely a direct result of centuries of
neglect and marginalization of the subsistence sector where
the vast majority of Africans still trying to make a living
or livelihood in the rural areas find themselves. Since the
advent of democracy in 1994 the focus of the successive
African National Congress-led governments has been firstly
on redress and secondly on transformation in order to try
to bridge this divide. At the heart of these programmes have
been land reform initiatives.
In order to come up with policies and farmer support
programmes in South Africa, it is necessary to put these farmers
into categories so that the policies and support packages are
designed in a category- or segment-specific way. The South
African farmers are segmented into the following categories:
• subsistence farmers (only black farmers farming on a
communal farming system for household food security)
• emerging farmers (mainly black farmers who are land
owners and lessees and are developing first-generation
commercial farming for local and national markets)
• established commercial farmers (mainly white farmers
farming for national and export markets).
Farmers in the subsistence and emerging categories face a
number of impediments to the growth of their family farming
enterprises. The major ones that have been identified by
the African Farmers’ Association of South Africa (AFASA)
and National Emergent Red Meat Producers’ Organisation
(NERPO) over the years include:
• access to agricultural land with adequate infrastructure
• limited technical and entrepreneurial skills, which cost
the farmer high losses in production and the value of
the product
• limited access to timely and applicable production and
marketing information
• limited access to affordable finance/credit
• low volumes and poor quality of products, largely
as a consequence of the farmers’ limited skills and
capital resources
• poor access to competitive markets
• weak collective action by farmers on policy and legislative
matters as well as input and market bargaining power.
Any intervention strategy must understand and recognize the
needs of each category. For established commercial farmers,
the focus must be on policy and the regulatory framework that
affects commercial farming (trade and protection policies).
For first-generation commercial farmers, the focus must be
on increasing production levels and participation in formal
markets. And for subsistence communal farmers, the focus
must be on the provision of consistent social support pack-
ages (free basic farm inputs like seed, fertilizer and herbicides;
Categories of farmers in South Africa
Source: AFASA
CATEGORY A:
Established commercial farmers
CATEGORY B:
First-generation commercial farmers
CATEGORY C:
Subsistence communal farmers
Mainly white farmers farming for national
and global markets
Mainly black farmers who are developing first-
generation commercial farms for local and
national markets
Only black farmers farming on a communal
system for household food security
About 35,000 farmers
About 5,000 farmers
About 2,800,000 households
Most of the title deeds transferred from
generation to generation
Most farm on state land with short-term leased
agreements (five years)
All farm on tribal land with no security of
tenure
Well organized collective action policy and
legislative matters
Weak farm structures with inadequate capacity
on policy and legislative matters
Ineffective farm structure on policy and
legislative matters
Mostly highly mechanized and use latest
technology
Mostly rely on manual labour to greater extent
and use outdated technology
Most rely on government mechanization
programmes and technology
D
eep
R
oots