Agricultural involvement amongst smallholders of South Africa: Evidence from GHS 2015 and GHS 2018

Résumé

The smallholding is central to livelihood diversifications that drive economic growth in non-metropolitan settlements. This gained recognition in the Zero Hunger Challenge, Agenda 2063, SDGs, and NDP 2030 for South Africa. Agricultural support programmes must be well-defined and transparent to rural communities. Subsequently, for smallholders to enact their role, there should be a clear reflection of the constraints they encounter. This study sought to ascertain factors influencing the agricultural involvement of smallholders heading households in rural settlements of South Africa. The secondary data from the 2015 and 2018 General Household Survey (GHS) were utilized and retrieved from the Statistics South Africa website. SPSS software version 28 and Microsoft Excel were exploited for data analysis using the Chi-square test and binary logistic regression. The findings established that younger household heads are more agriculturally involved and do not have tertiary education to market occupations, particularly in the off-farm sector, where food production is their source of livelihood. This study shows that socioeconomic and sociodemographic characteristics play a significant role in determining agricultural involvement. Accordingly, it contends that constraints faced by small-scale food producers are urgently revisited to ensure adequate farm resources’ accessibility and support, especially for the poor youth in rural areas.