Mentorship Alliance between South African Farmers: Implication for Sustainable Agriculture Sector Reform

make verbatim copies of this document for non-commercial purposes by any means, provided that this copyright noti ce appears on all such copies. 2 South Africa’s agricultural sector is characterized by a skewed participation of the population. There are vastly white commercial farmers and black subsistence farmers. This is attributed to the past government’s int ervention in the economy, which lead to exclusion of and discriminat ion against the blacks regarding access to land. The new government is committed to redressing thi s imbalance through agricultural reform and development strategies namely land, agrarian, trade and market reforms. One of the government’s primary policy thrusts i s providing access to agricultural land for people not adequately represented in the agricultural sector. However, the government lacks sufficient resources to provide land and support services to the developing farmers. This study is motivat ed by the insights to explore the complementarities of established and developing farmers ’ characteristics and the need for