Johan van Zyl

FOOD SECURITY IN SOUTH AFRICA

Abstract South Africas agricultural policy has had food self-sufficiency as a major objective until recently. This is still the case for a number of the homelands. South Africa has to a large extent achieved this goal by producing a surplus in most of the agricultural commodities. Despite this efficiency, large inequities, inefficient food distribution networks and high levels of malnutrition are experienced. South Africa is therefore characterised by surpluses and exports amidst food shortages—a situation of “hunger and malnutrition next to the granary” is therefore typical. These conditions necessitate a review of the current agricultural policy goals. This paper strongly argues in favour of a policy of food security aimed at both national and household level. The paper initially reviews the issues and terminology of food security as a matter of clarification. The dimensions of the food security problem in South Africa at national and household level are subsequently quantified showing that 21% of the ...

Total factor productivity in South African agriculture, 1947‐91

Indices of total factor productivity (TFP) measure aggregate output per unit of aggregate input, providing a guide to the efficiency of agricultural production. This article outlines the relationship between production functions and TFP indices. Then, an index is constructed for South African agriculture for the period 1947‐91. The index shows that TFP grew at an average rate of 1,3 per cent per annum. However, TFP growth has increased since the reforms of the early 1980s. Since capital has been more realistically priced relative to labour, greater productivity growth has gone together with increasing employment, which must have improved social welfare.

THE RATE OF RETURN ON EXPENDITURES OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH COUNCIL (ARC)

All the rate of return estimates, regardless of methodology or the level of aggregation, are entirely consistent and logical. The returns show that the ARC has been extremely successful economically and has followed a sound strategy of exploiting spillovers from foreign R&D systems. However, there must be a strong socio-economic component to the ARCs efforts if it is to reach the disadvantaged.

The efficiency of smallholder agriculture in South Africa

This study applies data envelopment analysis (DEA) to 1990-91 maize production data for small-holders in the Northern Transvaal homelands of KaNgwane, Lebowa and Venda. There are extremely large differences in efficiency, both between farms and between regions. Within regions, the poorest farms are less than 10 per cent efficient and comparing the homelands shows Venda to be far less productive. Decomposing the efficiency estimates shows that farm size and technical efficiency each explain about half of the total differences. Land is the most serious constraint on output, fertilizer the least binding constraint and the FSP strategy of supplying modern seeds is economically efficient.

Interactions Between Food Market Reform and Regional Trade in Zimbabwe and South Africa: Implications for Food Security

A major role of agricultural policy is to identify policy changes that may induce technological innovation and productivity growth throughout the food system, in order to increase the living standards of people who must relate to it in one way or another. While food market reform has been subject to contentious and often emotional debate over the last decade in Africa, the debate has generally been over assumptions about how food markets work in reality as opposed to theory, and how markets actually respond to particular forms of policy change. The lack of consensus is partially due to a shortage of empirical, ground-level information linking specific policies to specific impacts. It is in this context that we draw on applied analysis in Southern Africa to make some observations on recent food market reforms and their effects on the performance of food systems in the region. The latter part of this paper considers how potential food market reform in South Africa will alter relative prices, trading incentives, and distributional consequences within the region. Particular emphasis is given to Zimbabwe and South Africa, the two largest traders of maize in the region.

THE EFFECTS OF INCREASED EARNINGS FROM TRADITIONAL AGRICULTURE IN LEBOWA / The effects of increased earnings from traditional agriculture in Lebowa/Die effekte van hoër inkomste vanuit tradisionele landbou in Lebowa

Abstract Effects of increased earnings from agriculture on consumption and investment on households in the Phokoane area of Lebowa are determined by utilising cross-sectional survey data. Income elasticities indicate that the demand for goods (staple food) produced by households increases less than the demand for purchased goods. A discriminant analysis of surplus versus deficit products indicates that surplus production is associated with farmers who participate in the Farmer Support Programme (FSP) (i.e., farmers using insecticides and purchase inputs on credit). Availability of labour, specifically female labour, also plays an important role in explaining the difference in production performance between surplus and deficit food-producing households.

CROP LEVEL SUPPLY RESPONSE IN SOUTH AFRICAN AGRICULTURE: AN ERROR CORRECTION APPROACH

This article investigates South African supply response in agricultural production. It applies time series techniques to explain production planning decisions of the two dominant crops in the summer-rainfall grain area, maize and sorghum. After establishing the time series properties of the variables, cointegration is determined and used as the theoretical foundation for an error correction model (ECM). Maize area planted in the short run or the long run (or both), is found to depend on two sets of variables. One group changes the quantity or supply (area) of maize directly, like own price, the prices of substitutes like sorghum and sunflowers, and complementary intermediate input prices. The other variables change the supply environment, like rainfall, farmer education, R&D and cooperative extension. Sorghum is found to be a secondary crop dominated by expected changes in the maize variables, and the area planted depends simply on intermediate input prices and rainfall over both the short and long run. T...

FARM SIZE EFFICIENCY, FOOD SECURITY AND MARKET ASSISTED RURAL LAND REFORM IN SOUTH AFRICA

This paper explores the South African experience with respect to farms size efficiency, food security and the South African market for rural land. The evidence suggests that the South African experience is no different from that which is generally observed internationally. The present situation in South African agriculture subsequently provides both an unique and necessary opportunity for advancing a market assisted land reform program. Managing the imminent debt crisis, increasing efficiency, improving food security and addressing some of the racial imbalances in South Africas farm sector following market liberalization and the withdrawal of other privileges can be facilitated through a market assisted land reform process, rather than through a much more costly, inefficient and inequitable blanket debt relief program. It will also have the added advantages of increasing employment at a low cost and adding to the rural safety-net. In addition, the market assisted process provides a mechanism for efficient and quick land reform without most of the problems and excessive procedures associated with a state or parastatal-led expropriation and redistribution mechanism.

The effects of climate change on the farm sector in the Western Cape.

This paper links two different methodologies to determine the effects of climate change on the Western Cape farm sector. First, it uses a general circulation model (GCM) to model future climate change in the Western Cape, particularly with respect to precipitation. Second, a sector mathematical programming model of the Western Cape farm sector is used to incorporate the predicted climate change, specifically rainfall, from the GCM to determine the effects on key variables of the regional farm economy. In summary, results indicate that future climate change will lead to lower precipitation, which implies that less water will be available to agriculture in the Western Cape. This will have a negative overall effect on the Western Cape farm economy. Both producer welfare and consumer welfare will decrease. Total employment in the farm sector will also decrease as producers switch to a more extensive production pattern. The total decline in welfare, therefore, will fall disproportionately on the poor.

The costs and benefits of providing agricultural support services to rural households in the developing areas of South Africa

The Farmer Support Programme was introduced specifically to deal with the constraints faced by smallholder farmers in the former homeland areas of South Africa. These farmers operate largely outsid...