OP-ED: Big agro-business still dominates farming while small producers wilt on the vine

Competing coalitions were very evident at a national stakeholder consultation on the smallholder farmer support policy held in Ekhuruleni in April 2019. The debate was far from the needs of the marginalised smallholder farmers and household producers the policy is meant to target.

The policy has been thoroughly captured by the neoliberal agenda, under the banner of the National Development Plan, which informs the Agricultural Policy Action Plan. The latter focuses on crops and products with commercial potential, with an emphasis on global competitiveness, export markets, value-chain integration and public-private partnerships.

To access support a producer must have “bankable” business plans . Why is this “innovation” so much celebrated when the commercial business plan model is a complete failure for smallholder and resource-poor food producers? There is nothing wrong with assisting smallholder farmers and household producers to develop production plans.

While the policy allocates 85% of the resources to smallholder farmers and household producers, the contradiction of using a commercial model will hamstring implementation in their interests. Riven through with neoliberal prescriptions, it is difficult not to conclude that this policy has been hijacked deliberately to channel resources from smallholders into commercial and corporate pockets.

Despite this apparently hopeless situation, there are glimpses of social and ecological dimensions, albeit fragmented and sometimes in contradiction with the neoliberal prescriptions. For example, there is a contradiction between stated aims of climate change response, including reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and the push for mechanisation and use of synthetic fertilisers, which contribute to greenhouse gas emissions.

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