The role of smallholder farmers has come under the spotlight in South Africa as the country navigates the tricky process of land reform. Smallholder farming is billed as the main avenue through which emerging black farmers are likely to grow their share of the country’s agricultural economic activity.
But they face major obstacles. Most of these originate from a lack of financial muscle, knowledge and networks. There is growing evidence from across Africa that organising smallholder farmers into groups helps overcome some of these challenges. Examples include farmer groups among vegetable growers in Sierra Leone, frankincense cooperatives in Ethiopia and potato farmer groups in Malawi, which boost farmers’ success by sharing costs and facilitating access to relevant, contextual information.
Our study adds to this body of evidence. It looked at fertiliser use trends among KwaZulu-Natal smallholder farmers who were organised into groups versus those who were not. We found smallholder farmers in South Africa often don’t know which fertilisers suit their specific soils. They also lack resources to buy and transport the fertilisers to their farming areas, which are often far from major centres on impassable roads.
Our findings suggest that organising farmers into groups can help to tackle these issues, modernise farming and improve incomes.
But not all smallholder farmer groups work well. In South Africa many are consumed by leadership tensions, corruption and toxic relations and become dysfunctional.
It is critical that smallholder farming groups are run democratically and by the farmers themselves, with less interference from outsiders.
In South Africa many farmer groups have been formed because government, NGOs and other rural development agencies prefer to work with groups instead of individual farming households. This makes it easier to reach and support more people at the same time.
But many problems have arisen, including infighting among the group members, and faults with group leadership or management.
This has resulted in some farmer groups becoming dysfunctional.
But our work on the role of farmer groups and poverty reduction suggests that these groups have some positive aspects and the model should continue. We found the information and cost sharing, as well as the bulk-buying power associated with such groups, can drive an increase in the use of modern technologies, resulting in better crop yields and incomes.
We compared group members and farmers who weren’t in groups across four districts in the KwaZulu-Natal. Group members produced better crops. We also found group members tended to earn higher incomes.
But the benefits of group membership did not equally accrue to all members. Socioeconomic characteristics played a role. For example, wealthier farmers – presumably because of their social standing and influence in the groups – saw more benefits. Interestingly, we found that farmers without an education benefited more from groups than those who were educated. Given that most smallholders have modest education levels, the sharing of information, presumably in local languages, allows members to clarify the nature and benefits of the technologies.
Our findings suggest that access to relevant information is key in motivating smallholders to improve their usual farming practices.
Smallholder farming methods are largely rudimentary, learned through trial and error. Farming can be enhanced by adopting and adapting better practices.
One concern was that richer members benefited more in groups than their poorer peers. This suggested that farmer groups, like many interventions in rural areas, can easily be captured by elites at the expense of the poor and disadvantaged.
Work is needed to reduce internal disputes among groups that could render them dysfunctional, and to ensure these groups can work in pro-poor ways. The key is to allow farmers to take the lead in forming such groups. They should be able to get involved in the groups that best serve their needs, and feel free to define the specific activities they wish to cooperate in. All of this is meant to happen as a matter of policy, but in practice farmers don’t have this sort of freedom of choice.
Farmers should take the lead in their group operations and activities, as well as in linking themselves with external players. Support from government departments is crucial. But officials should not overly interfere: some autonomy is necessary. Our research showed there is too much interference from extension officers, facilitators who provide technical and information support to farmers in particular.
The farmers should also be encouraged to work out how they want the groups to run. Do they want to farm together? Or is the focus merely on buying inputs such as fertilisers or marketing output together, while farming individually? There are many ways that such groups can be structured to offer smallholder farmers the maximum benefit...