Capacity building strategies for sustainability farming SMMEs in South Africa

[摘要] English: South Africa's land reform programme is faced with many challenges associated with its sustainability. It is widely believed that one of the major causes of the collapse/failure of farming SMMEs is lack of capacity in many aspects of running farming as a business. Critical success factors for these SMMEs are capacity, market accessibility, business management skills, effective extension services, adequate support programmes as well as adequate financial injection. Therefore, any entrepreneur in this business must have skills in both marketing and management, coupled with adequate support systems. To address the above-mentioned problems, a comprehensive study of farming small, micro, medium enterprises (SMMEs), pre- and post-settlement support, the involvement of youth and women, accessibility of markets, linkages, small, micro, medium enterprises (SMMEs') institutional structures and other support services, was carried out. An intensive desktop study which included amongst others reports from government, consulting agencies, development and training institutions was used. Workshops with experts, farming stakeholders, agricultural economics departments from universities, government officials and farming small, micro, medium enterprises (SMMEs) were conducted. Participatory action research methodologies were employed during workshop sessions. Empirical evidences were drawn from eighteen case studies and surveys conducted by both Land Bank and National Department of Agriculture. Various tools of analysis were used to analyse different data sets used in this study. For instance, case studies used narrative coupled with strength, success, weakness, failure, opportunities and threats (SSWFOT) and ridge regression (RR). The data set from the Land Bank survey was analysed using GENMOD, MEAN, frequency (FREQ) and multiple logistic regression models. The data set from National Department of agriculture was analysed using frequency (FREQ) and multiple regression analysis. Case studies revealed that micro and small scale farming enterprise severely lack important key success indicators such as sustainable markets, input supply; increased income, sustainable production, skills development and professional business operation. On the contrary, it was found that medium sized enterprises have adequate levels of important key success factors that are lacking in micro and small scale farming enterprise, but also shows a need to improve on sustainable markets and input supply. These cases also revealed that financial capacity depends on marketing capacity. Consequently unit increases in marketing capacity have a corresponding increase in financial returns. The Land Bank survey revealed that perceptions of emerging farmers portray a lack of capacity and exposure. It also showed that skills, financial support, and infrastructure are important requisites for sustainable farming small, micro, medium enterprises (SMMEs). Extension support and sustainable production were found to be crucial for farming success in the emerging farming sector. It was also found that lack of understanding of the importance of formal markets; benefit of training and extension support may be the main contributors to the unsustainable nature of the emerging farming sector in South Africa. Therefore, this sector requires access to formal markets, extension support services and training in order to be profitable. The National Department of Agriculture data set revealed that there are many more micro enterprises compared to their small and medium counterparts. In addition, women are most beneficiaries for agrarian development; their involvement surpasses that of men, youths and disabled people. The results also indicate the training received to be insufficient, with much of the training being inappropriate for farming. There is a need to devise strategies to convert micro enterprises into small and medium enterprises with since a high conversion rate to small and medium levels can help to reduce poverty, unemployment and above all increase women's empowerment and thereby improving the socio-economic impact of these farming enterprises. The results have good implications for the present and future owners of small, micro, medium farming enterprises. The study has formulated comprehensive and sustainable strategies as a guideline for agribusiness entrepreneurs, with the overall objective of eradicating poverty in rural areas and commonages through increased agricultural production.

[发布机构] University of the Free State