Thesis (MPA.) -- University of Limpopo, 2017 / Despite the attempt by the South African government to transfer farms to black
ownership, black farmers still remain poor and have to compete without technical
skills. The majority of the previously disadvantaged farmers part of mostly practice
subsistence agriculture characterised by low production and lack of market. The
question that still remains to be answered is whether these subsistence farmers will
ever grow to be commercial farmers, and white farmers continue dominating
commercial farming. This prompted the researcher to engage in this study that will
identify the challenges that make emerging farmers not to succeed as they should.
The aim of this study is to investigate the challenges faced by black emerging
farmers in the transition from subsistence to commercial farming in Ba-Phalaborwa
Municipality and the role played by the Limpopo Department of Agriculture and Rural
Development in ensuring that such transits take place. Data used in this study
collected from 50 emerging farmers from the five villages in Ba-Phalaborwa and
eight (8) extension officers from different sections in the department of Agriculture
and Rural development in Ba-Phalaborwa Municipality. The researcher used mixed
research design, questionnaires and semi-structured interviews to achieve the
intended objectives.
The finding shows that the majority of emerging farmers receive support to run their
farm activities from the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development mostly in
the form of extension services. The study further indicated that emerging farmers are
aware of the role being played by the Department of Agriculture, and Rural
Development although they are not satisfied with the support the Department is
giving them and they believe that if the departments can further support them, they
can improve their productions.
The study established that emerging farmers have been facing several challenges,
including lack of property right or title deed, insufficient farm size, shortage of money,
inadequate extension services, inadequate or damaged infrastructure, and climate
change, risk on production, lack of market, and lack of information, stock theft, erratic
rainfall is a major challenge, lack of access to electricity, lack of access to telephone,
not receiving advices on farming activities, not receiving advices on marketing of
products, bookkeeping and technology. The emerging farmers’ challenges are
worsened by the fact that farmers who are facing droughts are not able to get
immediate funding to engage in farming activities. Despite these challenges emerging
farmers want to continue with farming and in the next five years they want to see
themselves in commercial farming.
The concerned government departments should be encouraged to provide farm
inputs and equipment like tractors, fertilisers, improved seeds, irrigation system and
other types of farm inputs to emerging farmers to empower them to move from
subsistence to commercial. The government departments and extension officers
should be encouraged to provide skills to emerging farmers like, soil cultivation,
irrigation, controlling of weed, packaging, livestock health care, hygiene, breeding
and nutrition, recording skills and maintenance of farm equipment to empower
emerging farmers to move from subsistence to commercial. Furthermore, policy
makers should be encouraged to develop alternative strategies that will motivate
emerging farmers to overcome challenges they are facing like lack of property rights
of title deeds, insufficient farm sizes, climate change and shortage of money
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:ul/oai:ulspace.ul.ac.za:10386/4275 |
| Date | January 2017 |
| Creators | Mathye, Dinny Diniwe |
| Contributors | Asha, A. A. |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | xi, 120 leaves |
| Relation |
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