This paper revisits the legacy of the 1954 Tomlinson Report, a seminal blueprint for rural development in apartheid-era South Africa and examines its influence on agricultural and rural development policy over seven decades. It reviews how the Tomlinson themes of economic dualism, tenure reform, modernisation, and farmer empowerment were influential in subsequent scholarship and policy discourse through the apartheid and democratic eras. Despite partial implementation and persistent underdevelopment, Tomlinson's vision continues to inform contemporary debates on land, infrastructure, skills development, and inclusive growth. The paper concludes by pointing to the unfinished agenda of rural transformation and calls for agricultural economists to persist in informing policies that align with Tomlinson's principles.
This paper presents a novel application of the non-monotonic Stochastic Frontier model to South African agriculture in order to investigate the inverse farm size relationship. Using data for 1989 beneficiary farms from the Proactive Land Acquisition Strategy programme, the marginal effects of farm size, managerial capacity and extension frequency on inefficiency and output are estimated and the effect of the Recapitalisation and Development programme evaluated. The estimated results demonstrate that increased farm size is associated with decreasing returns to inefficiency reduction. For livestock farms beyond 2415 ha land is no longer significant in affecting inefficiency. For livestock farms in the 90th and 95th percentile of farm size, the marginal effect of increasing farm size is an increase in inefficiency although this effect is not significant. The non-linearity of the marginal effects of farm size justifies adopting the non-monotonic Stochastic Frontier approach to model the inverse relationship.
Profit is a primary factor determining the viability of any enterprise. The objective of this study was to assess the profitability of early- and traditionally weaned calves (EWC and TWC) under feedlot conditions. The feedlot arrival body weights for EWC and TWC were 254.86 +/- 27.28 kg (n = 136) and 308.47 +/- 24.56 kg (n = 149), respectively. A backgrounding program was followed by a 123-day finishing program, with a 1-week grower-adaptation period and a finisher ration provided ad libitum at 3% body weight (BW). The added carcass income (ACI) and total costs (variable and overhead costs) were used to determine the gross margin (GM). Total costs included initial value (IV), average daily feed cost (ADFC), average cost of gain (ACOG), processing costs, and total morbidity and mortality costs. Break-even, sensitivity, and partial budget analyses were conducted to assess profitability. The IV and ACI of the TWC group were significantly (P < 0.05) higher than those of the EWC group by 13.56% (R10 723.23 vs. R9 442.65) and 7.74% (R7 481.37 vs. R6 943.79), respectively. Weaning treatment significantly (P < 0.05) affected ACOG without impacting ADFC. The TWC had a 4.98% lower (R19.80 vs. R18.86) ACOG than the EWC group. Significant differences (P < 0.05) were observed for morbidity and mortality costs: morbidity costs for TWC were 93.64% higher than for EWC (R31.84 vs. R16.44), with average mortality costs of R92.00. Financial models indicate that the TWC group is more profitable than the EWC group under finishing conditions.
Land reform in South Africa has not only been slow compared to official targets and popular expectations, but also, where land has been acquired for redistribution, people lack secure rights and have limited options for improving their livelihoods. In this paper we report on our field-based research on ten projects in the Eastern Cape, offering insights that can only become visible with detailed fieldwork. In our initial study, none of the beneficiaries had valid leases, and by the time of writing over a decade later, rights had been secured in only four of the projects. We show how the projects studied fit into three distinct types: the "stymied middle class" of aspiring emerging farmers; "agribusiness cashing in" where strategic partners have taken over; and "abandoned farm workers" who have lost their jobs but remain on farms where they struggle to eke out a living. All three are far from what is written in policy or imagined in the public discourse on land reform. Without redistribution of wealth or assets, and without secure tenure, much of what we have found is in fact not land reform at all but rather a state-driven programme of expanding insecure state tenancy.
South Africa's agricultural legislation has undergone substantial reforms in the past centuries, spanning the colonial, apartheid and democratic regimes. Notably, the policy framework evolved from a regulated landscape to one that ascribes to principles of a free market, liberalised trade and minimum government involvement, underpinned by the neoliberal epistemology. Since 1994, most sectoral laws have advanced inclusive agricultural growth, land equality and commercialisation. Notwithstanding the improved agricultural growth and footprint in export markets, the structure of agriculture remained characterised by dualism and skewed landownership patterns despite policy reforms. This signals the invisible hand of market forces that have unintentionally excluded small-scale farmers in the democratic epoch. Most policy studies in the past 31-years attributed the sustained dualism problem to small-scale farmers' technical inefficiencies and budget limitations, coupled with the state's executional deficiencies. This address argues that executional failure is not sufficient to explain small-scale farmers' problems. It contends that the dominant research paradigm of accrediting small-scale farmers' underdevelopment to implementation failures tends to mask policy denialism that has maintained market power relations and wealth distribution channels in the democratic dispensation. This address encourages intellectual diversity to stimulate a new wave of agricultural policy reforms for inclusive agriculture. It illustrates that, while commercialisation is a practical developmental model, it treats policy as a technical outcome instead of being a consequence of a contested space influenced by market and institutional structures. This tends to minimise structural and systematic challenges faced by small-scale farmers in the country.
This study examines how patrilineal and matrilineal kinship systems shape customary land rights in Eastern Zambia, drawing on a survey of 379 smallholder households. It examines land ownership, decision-making, and widowhood outcomes to assess whether lineage systems mediate women's tenure security. Findings reveal a pervasive patriarchal bias across both systems: husbands hold 75-80% of land and control decisions on land use and sales. Contrary to theoretical expectations, joint spousal decision-making is more common in patrilineal than matrilineal chiefdoms. Although inheritance practices show significant tribal heterogeneity, particularly in land transfer to daughters, widows' rights remain usufructuary and conditional on non-remarriage in all contexts. The study concludes that entrenched patriarchal norms essentially override kinship variations, with matrilineal systems offering minimal advantages for women's land rights compared with their patrilineal counterparts. The study advises rural development actors to account for evolving land inheritance institutions when designing development interventions.
Food insecurity remains an acute global challenge, disproportionately burdening developing regions, where multifaceted barriers hinder agricultural systems. While government input support programmes are viewed as a potential solution to Zimbabwe's growing food insecurity, the heavy reliance on state-funded input subsidies is facing intense debate amid fiscal strain and persistent production shortfalls. This study empirically evaluates the impact of Zimbabwe's Pfumvudza input subsidy programme on household food security using propensity score matching while identifying key drivers using an ordered probit analysis. We use data from a representative sample of 408 randomly selected households in Mashonaland East Province, Zimbabwe. Findings reveal severe food insecurity, with only 24% of households achieving acceptable consumption, versus 28.2% in poor and 47.8% in borderline categories. Critically, the input subsidies exhibit a statistically insignificant negative impact despite substantial investment, signalling design/implementation inefficiencies. The findings highlight the need to redesign the programme and its implementation to rectify critical input allocation inequities and ensure effective resource targeting toward its core objective of enhancing rural food security. A standardised and transparent input disbursement system is imperative to address apparent inconsistencies. Key structural determinants emerge with food security significantly enhanced by tertiary education, irrigation access, foreign remittances, contract farming, livestock ownership (TLU), cash crops, and moderate livelihood diversification, but undermined by ageing household heads, high dependency ratios, and excessive diversification. Strategic reprioritization toward scaling evidence-based drivers identified in this study is vital to foster resilience and boost acceptable food consumption.
Adoption of pro-nutritional crop varieties such as orange-fleshed sweet potato (OFSP) remains limited among smallholder farmers in Malawi, despite their proven superiority to conventional varieties in improving household nutrition and income. Understanding the behavioural and contextual factors underpinning varietal preferences is critical for designing effective interventions. This study employed a contingent valuation approach to elicit farmers' differentiated willingness to pay (WTP) for clean planting materials of OFSP and non-OFSP varieties among 721 smallholder households across four districts. Using a Seemingly Unrelated Regression (SUR) model and a Triple-Hurdle framework incorporating a lognormal component and number-line concept, the study innovatively identified the determinants of awareness, preference formation, and the direction of preference thereby capturing both sustained and switching tendencies. Findings revealed that 41% of farmers had adopted OFSP, while the mean WTP for non-OFSP vines (USD 2.64) slightly but significantly exceeded that for OFSP (USD 2.57), confirming the persistence of resistance to biofortified varieties. Sustained preference for OFSP was positively associated with education, household size, off-farm income, and access to vine multipliers, whereas sustained preference for non-OFSP was reinforced by location, higher transaction costs, and mixed extension outcomes. Yield perceptions, market distance, and production purpose influenced potential preference switching. These findings highlight that varietal choices are adaptive responses shaped by perceptions, context, and household needs rather than simple awareness gaps. Policy interventions that integrate targeted nutrition education, strengthen extension messaging, subsidise clean vine access, and improve market linkages are essential to move farmers from indifference towards sustained preference for OFSP.
Small-scale irrigation (SSI) is widely recognised as a strategy to increase agricultural productivity, stabilise rural income, and improve household welfare. In Ethiopia, despite its considerable potential, adoption remains limited, and its welfare effects are not yet fully understood. This study investigates both the determinants of SSI participation and its impact on household welfare, measured by total household consumption expenditure, via survey data from 340 households (157 participants and 183 nonparticipants) in the Dire Enchini and Toke Kutaye districts. A propensity score matching approach is employed to correct for selection bias and isolate the causal effects of participation. The results reveal that SSI adoption significantly improves household welfare: participating households spend, on average, ETB 57,410 more on consumption than comparable nonparticipants do, as indicated by the estimated value of the average treatment effect on the treated (ATT). The welfare gains, however, are heterogeneous: male-headed households, larger landholders, and those with access to credit capture the greatest benefits, whereas female-headed and smaller farms still benefit significantly but to a lesser extent. The estimated welfare effects also remain robust to alternative model specifications, including the exclusion of potentially post treatment covariates and the use of bootstrap-based median treatment effects, with both the ATT and ATE retaining almost similar magnitudes and statistical significance. Therefore, emphasising inclusive policies that expand access to credit, enhance technical support and information delivery, and mitigate gender - and resource-based barriers is essential.
Hunger is defined as periods when people experience severe food insecurity due to a lack of money, access to food, or other resources, while resilience refers to a household's ability to maintain food security despite exogenous shocks. This study uses the case of districts participating in the second phase of the Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN)/First 1000 Most Critical Days Programme (MCDP) II in Zambia to understand the key drivers of household hunger and resilience. Nearly half of these households experienced severe hunger, while approximately 40% of the households demonstrated resilience to shocks. To address this issue, it is critical to contextualise and understand the underlying drivers of household hunger and resilience. Using ordered probit and probit models, drivers of household hunger and resilience were examined. Results indicate that households engaged in farming, salaried employment, or business activities, households with smaller household sizes, and households with higher education attainment experience less hunger. Access to support programmes like the Farmer Input Support Programme (FISP), participation in savings groups, crop and livestock production, and food preservation contribute to hunger mitigation. Resilience is more common among households headed by salaried individuals, those with higher levels of education, and those with smaller household sizes. To reduce hunger and strengthen resilience, policies should enhance economic opportunities, promote education and family planning to support smaller household sizes, and expand access to food production and preservation initiatives.
Postharvest losses remain a critical challenge for smallholder maize farmers in Tanzania, undermining food security and income potential. This study examines the determinants influencing the adoption of hermetic storage bags as a sustainable postharvest solution. Using a cross-sectional survey of 377 respondents from Kilosa and Kondoa districts, a logit model and return on investment (ROI) analysis were employed to assess adoption drivers and economic viability. Results reveal that training significantly increases the likelihood of adopting hermetic storage, with trained farmers nearly eight times more likely to adopt the technology. Household income and maize stored for sale positively influence adoption, while higher total maize production correlates with reduced uptake, likely due to immediate market sales for cash flow. Additionally, expectations of higher maize prices further motivate adoption. ROI analysis showed hermetic storage bags outperform traditional methods, delivering positive returns of 15.3% and 17.2% in Kilosa and Kondoa, respectively, while conventional methods yielded negative ROI. These findings underscore the role of training, economic incentives, and market dynamics in shaping adoption decisions. To promote wider use, the study recommends enhancing farmer training, improving access, and aligning policies to support postharvest innovations. Scaling hermetic technologies can reduce losses, improve incomes, and strengthen food security in rural Tanzania.
IntroductionEstate farming has been a historical part of agriculture in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). This study investigated the role that proximity to estates in Malawi had on smallholders' allocation of labour on their own farms, as well as their supply and hiring of casual agricultural labour (ganyu).MethodsThis study used propensity score matching and covariate adjustments with propensity score matching to estimate the effects of proximity to estates on the time spent by smallholders on different labour activities. We used data from the 2019 Malawian Integrated Household Panel Survey (IHPS) and geospatial data from the OpenStreetMap project.Results and DiscussionOur findings show that the presence of estate farms was negatively associated with the time smallholder household members spent on their own farms and was positively, albeit modestly, associated with the amount of time used for both casual labour (ganyu) supply and hiring activities. We also found that estates were negatively associated with the shares of smallholder household income that came from their own crop farming and positively associated with the shares of household income from non-crop farming activities, especially non-ganyu wage employment.
South Africa simultaneously faces chronic food insecurity and mounting retail food waste, which is exacerbated by retail establishments that dispose of nearly expired products due to consumer misapprehensions surrounding date labels, such as "sell by" and "best before." Focusing on how brand loyalty and risk tolerance shape purchase decisions, the misinterpretation of on-pack date labels such as sell-by and best-before prompts retailers to discard edible products, while financially constrained households struggle to afford nutritious diets. This study applies binary logistic regression to 205 survey responses gathered in low- and middle-income suburbs of Johannesburg to predict consumers' willingness to purchase discounted near-expiry canned goods. The result indicates that brand loyalty (OR approximate to 5.9), habitual consumption beyond the labelled date (OR approximate to 26), and perceived product safety (OR approximate to 5.4) are stronger drivers of purchase than discount magnitude itself. The paper concludes that a trusted-brand discount programme, coupled with consumer education on date-label semantics, could meaningfully reduce waste while improving access to affordable food. This study contributes to the discourse on sustainable food practices by proposing data-driven interventions that align with both economic and environmental objectives.
Climate-related shocks increasingly threaten smallholder agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa, highlighting the need to strengthen farmers' climate change awareness for effective adaptation. Using survey data from 1499 rural farmers in Zambia, we apply supervised machine learning models - logistic regression, ridge, and Least Absolute Shrinkage and Selection Operator (LASSO) to identify key predictors of climate change awareness, and a random forest classifier to capture nonlinear effects and variable importance. This approach generates robust empirical evidence on the determinants of climate change awareness among rural households, which constitutes the study's core contribution. We then compare model performance using accuracy, sensitivity, specificity, and area under the curve, which are standard evaluation metrics in supervised classification. We find that 85.2% of farmers are aware of climate change and its impacts on agriculture, with the models yielding consistent and high classification accuracy. Key predictors include socioeconomic characteristics (household headship, education, household size, cattle ownership), farm practices (use of crop residues, manure application, agroforestry, adjusting planting dates, yield changes), institutional access (cooperative participation, mobile phone and internet access, farming training), and recent exposure to climate shocks (drought and unusual rainfall). These findings underscore the need to decentralise climate information through cooperatives, agricultural hubs, and strengthened training services to enhance awareness and resilience, supporting efforts to improve adaptive capacity and food security in climate-vulnerable regions.
We study the impacts of sustainable soil fertility management (SFM) practices - animal manure, minimum tillage, and improved fallows, on maize income per hectare in Zambia. Using data from 1,210 rural households, we use debiased/double machine learning (DML) to estimate average treatment effects (ATE) - the expected impact if all farmers adopted a practice - and effects on the treated (ATT), reflecting the actual benefit realised by current adopters. We also implement a DML-causal mediation analysis to understand how these effects occur, with maize yield as the primary mechanism. Results show that individual SFM practices lead to substantial income gains. For example, improved fallows - a short-term agroforestry practice where farmers plant fast-growing, nitrogen-fixing trees or shrubs on fallow land to restore soil fertility, could raise maize income per hectare by 37% if adopted universally. Minimum tillage shows a similar pattern (ATE: 21% higher, ATT: 15% higher), whereas animal manure offers moderate potential (ATE: 20% higher) but lower realised benefits, suggesting room for improved implementation. Farmers who adopted animal manure and minimum tillage achieved, on average, about 18% higher maize income per hectare. Moreover, adopting at least one of the three SFM practices is associated with 30% higher income on average, and 18% higher income among current adopters. Mediation results reveal that over 80% of these effects operate through yield improvements rather than through other pathways. These findings highlight the value of promoting flexible SFM options. Even partial SFM adoption can improve soil fertility, rural incomes, and strengthen resilience to environmental and economic stress.
This study examines the effect of agricultural commercialisation on household welfare using survey data from 2,400 households. To address potential selection bias arising from non-random participation and unobserved heterogeneity, three econometric approaches were employed: Propensity Score Matching (PSM), Endogenous Switching Regression Model (ESRM), and Inverse Probability Weighted Regression Adjustment (IPWRA), to estimate the causal treatment effects of participation in agricultural commercialisation among smallholder farmers. The results indicate that participation in agricultural commercialisation significantly increases per capita income, a finding that remains consistent across all three econometric models. Furthermore, agricultural commercialisation was found to have a positive and statistically significant effect on asset value and wealth index under the ESR model. However, the relationship between commercialisation and the wealth index was not statistically significant under the PSM and IPWRA models. The ESRM results reveal that access to credit and ownership of a radio significantly increase the likelihood of household participation in agricultural commercialisation. Conversely, access to public extension services was found to have a negative effect on commercialisation, suggesting that current public extension programmes may not adequately address the market-oriented needs of farmers. The study recommends targeted policies that address smallholder farmers' financial and informational needs to drive agricultural commercialisation. In addition, investment in infrastructure, market access, and farmer education, coupled with enhanced access to technology and media, is critical for fostering a more commercially viable agricultural sector, leading to wealth creation.
This study examines the impact of the land certification programme on migration using 10-year interval household panel data in Ethiopia using the difference-in-differences (DID) approach. Our estimation results indicate that the land certification programme has no significant impact on the participation of seasonal, non-seasonal migration, and rural wage earners. However, for households with initial expectations of land redistribution before the programme, the certificate has a negative effect on non-seasonal migration. This finding suggests the importance of complementary efforts to change people's perceptions of land tenure security when implementing a land registration and certification programme.
This paper investigates the relationship between logistics performance and agricultural exports in Sub-Saharan Africa. Using dynamic panel data from 2012 to 2022, we examine the impact of various components of logistics performance on aggregate agricultural exports. We also analyse how logistics performance affects exports in agricultural subsectors. Our results show that improvements in logistics infrastructure, customs procedures, and international shipping services significantly increase agricultural export performance. The food and live animals subsector benefits the most, followed by crude materials and animal and vegetable oils and fats subsectors. We also find that financial development, foreign direct investment, and world demand are important drivers of agricultural exports in Sub-Saharan Africa. We include institutional quality indicators in our analysis for robustness checks, showing that governance factors also play a significant role in boosting exports. These findings highlight the need for targeted investment in logistics and complementary economic policies, supported by good governance, to harness the region's agricultural export potential and promote sustainable economic development.
