Abstract
As rural poverty deepens over much of Sub-Saharan Africa, smallholder transformation has become more urgent than ever before. A majority of rural people derive their livelihoods from agriculture, hence the urgent need for transforming the sector. The South African government launched a comprehensive land reform programme at the dawn of democracy in the country on the assumption that constraints on land size would be eliminated to make room for a more inclusive agricultural economy. The present study sought to assess how cultivated area affects food security and the profits of maize and cabbage farmers. The purposive sampling technique was used for the selection of study sites, from which 158 irrigators and homestead gardeners were selected. The data were then subjected to analysis by defining a maximum likelihood estimator that combines the seemingly unrelated regression (SUR) and one-way error correction model, to determine the factors influencing food security and farm profits. The model revealed diverse relationships, suggesting that location, farm type and income were important variables in explaining food security. The area under cultivation was found to influence profits for both crops. Policies in favour of technology adoption, market access and input use would greatly incentivize farmers to cultivate larger plots of land.
Highlights
Smallholder farmers face various constraints in their efforts to engage in profitable agriculture [1]
Most farmers had 0 to 10 years of farming experience (n = 98, 62%), which is part of the legacy of Apartheid, during which most adult males worked in the mines to earn wage income rather than in agriculture, which was dominated by white farmers whose superior production technology put the black population at a disadvantage
With the end of Apartheid and the launch of the land reform programme, which coincided with reductions in mine employment due to rising labour costs that have occasioned large-scale retrenchments, farm employment has grown among the black population
Summary
Smallholder farmers face various constraints in their efforts to engage in profitable agriculture [1]. The international development system considers that “food security” is achieved when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life [6]. In this regard, the ability of households to access food through production, purchase or transfers becomes important in defining household food security [7]. Household food security can be examined as a function of the availability of food within the country and the level of household resources necessary to produce or purchase food as well as other basic needs
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