Promoting farm/non‐farm linkages for employment of the poor in South Africa: A research agenda focused on small‐scale farms and agroindustry

Abstract

This article presents a policy research agenda for the promotion of farm/non-farm linkages in South Africa. Our premise is that promoting the participation of small farms and small agroindustrial businesses in these linkages will have a strong impact on employment and income for the poor. We argue that there is potential for growth in linkages. The first question of the policy research agenda concerns the current status of linkages, and we note the dearth of research on this. The second question concerns the constraints on and prospects for promoting linkages from the demand side, and the third question treats the same concerns from the supply side. The fourth question is rooted in the duality in South Africa's non-farm and farm sectors, and asks whether, and how, small and large agroindustrial businesses and farms will compete or relate in 'business linkages' that can benefit intersectoral linkages. The final question concerns the impacts of and alternatives for policies and programmes to spur linkages.

Urban agriculture and poverty reduction: Evaluating how food production in cities contributes to food security, employment and income in Malawi

“…This observation extends the results of already published work (e.g. Machethe and ReardonT, 1997;Maxwell, 1999), that more powerful urban interests have realised the value of under-utilised urban land and have converted it to agriculture. Table 8 summarises household characteristics of the urban farmers in Malawi disaggregated into gender and income status.…”

Agroindustrialization of the global agrifood economy: bridging development economics and agribusiness research

“…Despite limited time series evidence, a rural structural transformation is documented involving producer specialization and consumer demand diversification into non-farm goods and services (Haggblade et al, 1989). Machethe et al (1997) build on this literature proposing a research agenda dealing with how to spur linkages between farm and non-farm sectors. The authors identify a set of determinants of investment and capacity utilization affecting the establishment of linkages, among them, transaction costs.…”

F.R. Tomlinson Gedenklesing / F.R. Tomlinson Memorial Lecture

“…The main body of related work deals with the upstream and downstream linkages between the farm and agribusiness sector. The most important of these contributions include Kirsten (1995); Mokitimi and Nieuwoudt (1995), Machethe et al (1997), Ngqangweni et al (1999Ngqangweni et al ( , 2000; Tregurtha and Vink (1999);and Le Roy et al (2000).…”