I was chatting to Oom Krisjan Lemmer in the Dorstbult Bar the other day. ”Subsistence farming? Jy trek my been, man!” he exclaimed. ”It will take our farming backwards. Anyway, not many rural people want to farm these days.
”Modern boerdery is about the market, including exports. It needs capital and skills. Only plaas-yuppies can win in this business.”
Oom Krisjan’s is a common response to suggestions that small-scale agriculture in communal areas and land reform projects could be central to poverty reduction — South Africa’s most important challenge.
Dismissive stereotypes of small-scale agriculture are found not only among commercial farmers (who use them to argue for their own indispensable role), but by many policymakers and officials. Few government policies and programmes support the mass of small producers in black rural areas.
Agricultural development programmes tend to favour ”emergent” black farmers, who model themselves on large commercial producers. Through the National African Farmers’ Union they have demanded the intensive state support white farmers got under apartheid.
Although they have not yet won the argument for subsidies on the apartheid scale, their cause has caught the imagination of the national and provincial agriculture departments. Land redistribution is heavily biased towards them.
Black commercial farmers deserve state support, but should they be the main beneficiaries? I would argue not. Growth, equity and rural poverty reduction require a major government programme to promote broad-based agricultural and natural resource-based development. The prime beneficiaries should be the hundreds of thousands of ”subsistence” producers in the former Bantustans, and those receiving land through redistribution and rural restitution.
Research shows they are often highly productive and make a valuable contribution to the national economy. Some rural households secure more than half their livelihood from the land, others regularly sell surpluses for sizeable cash incomes. Natural resource harvesting from communal resources also contributes.
Hard evidence gives the lie to the negative stereotypes, and indicates the potential for a revival of small farming.
Delali Dovie of Wits University recently found that maize yields in Thorndale village, Bushbuckridge, averaged 4,3 tonnes a hectare. The net value of cropping per household was more than R4 000 a year, from an average of 1,86ha under crops. These match yields and returns from commercial farms.
More than 22% of the harvest was sold for cash. The value of crops constituted about 15% of the total value of household livelihood activities, with livestock contributing 22% and woodland resources another 19%. Land-based livelihoods thus made up about 56% of total livelihood value.
Pat McAllister reports similar findings for coastal Transkei, where maize yields averaged 2,5 tonnes a hectare. As in Thorndale, purchased inputs, such as fertilisers and pesticides, were not much used. Both areas offer little research and extension support, micro-credit schemes, infrastructure, crop storage facilities or marketing services.
Livestock production is also important in communal areas, where cattle are kept for ploughing, transport, milk, manure, hides, cash sales and as a form of savings. Taking all these into account, communal area livestock systems often show higher returns than commercial farms.
Charlie Shackleton and colleagues at Rhodes University found that in the Sand River catchment, the average net value from cattle was nearly R5 000 a year for households with a small herd, when the savings value of herd growth was included. This represents a 33% net annual return on capital value of the herd. Goats yielded a net value of R415 a year and a 38% return on capital.
This does not mean rural poverty does not exist, or that rural households do not need government support. People trying to farm on a small scale have to contend with a difficult economic environment, the legacy of decades of deliberate underdevelopment.
Rural markets for inputs and outputs are poor or non-existent. Some people lack enough land, because of the overcrowding that followed apartheid forced removals. Others cannot afford livestock. Declining jobs means that cash to buy basic farm tools is very scarce. Extension services barely exist in many areas and are not generally available to land reform beneficiaries.
Many cannot overcome the constraints and underutilisation of arable land is common in areas like the Eastern Cape. Severe malnutrition exists in places like Mount Frere.
To enhance the agricultural livelihoods of most small producers will require imaginative policies and well-designed development programmes. Important lessons are available from the success stories that do exist.
One is the sugar industry where 50 000 small growers contribute a growing share of the crop. Another is the remarkable tale of improved wool production from communal grazing in the Herschel district, Eastern Cape. A third is the thousands of successful food gardens countrywide.
The key lesson? Appropriate and sustained support, which addresses the real production constraints, is vital. This may be capital for inputs and a ready market for the crop (in the case of sugar), expertise in animal production and wool grading (Herschel), or access to land, fencing and tools (food gardens). A widespread constraint in the ex-Bantustans is good land, which land reform must address.
Oom Krisjan sips his brandy thoughtfully. ”Ja, ou swaer — hulle is tog ook boere! The government must help them…”
Professor Ben Cousins directs the programme for land and agrarian studies at the School of Government, University of the Western Cape.