The case for re-strategising spending priorities to support small-scale farmers in South Africa

Abstract

This paper summarises what is known about South Africa’s public expenditure trends in respect of small-scale farmers, and discusses the growing contradictions between the policy priority placed on small-scale farming and the adequacy of support provided to small-scale farmers. It then proceeds to argue that: i) dramatic increases in public expenditure support to small-scale agriculture are highly unlikely, while further incremental increases to support the sector will in themselves make little difference; ii) a lot of the money already available to support small-scale agriculture is not well spent, with a particular imbalance evident between relatively large amounts of support to badly conceptualised land reform projects at the expense of black farmers in the ex-Bantustans; iii) there is an urgent need to shift the emphasis of support from on-farm infrastructure and inputs, to community-level infrastructure, market development and institutional re-engineering.