Investigating the relationships between production and marketing in smallholder irrigation farming : A case study in Mpumalanga, South Africa

This study has been carried out in a smallholder irrigation scheme in South Africa. The aim was to investigate the links between production and marketing, as access to produce markets appears now as a major hindrance for smallholder agriculture's development in a context of growing market liberalisation and competition between producers. To achieve this, a survey was done through a detailed questionnaire applied at household level in a case study scheme: the Hereford irrigation scheme. The Hereford scheme is perceived as a commercially oriented, and quite successful scheme, hence the choice thereof, as a case study. However, a closer look reveals that inner diversity does exist between farmers, in terms of technical and economic performance. Most farmers are not in such a good position and are not economically sustainable, as shown by their low farming income. The scheme has collectively benefited from specific settlement circumstances and large assistance, which allowed it to stand out from other South African smallholder irrigation schemes (more commercialization, bigger size of farms, existence of contract farming on some commodities, huge public investments in refurbishment of irrigation infrastructure, building of a storage-packaging plant -a so-called co-operative-). However, individual farmers seem to manage with difficulty and have kept subsistence-farming practices: low productivity, no record keeping, and little planning in production in order to meet the market requirements. It seems that the main problem for most farmers is not marketing access per se, since they sell their produce to a wide range of market outlets, but rather access to secure and high-price produce markets. Indeed, the farmers sell mainly to hawkers, but more by default than by choice (owing to lack of transport, incapacity to find other markets, lack of market information and collective organisation). Access to more secure markets would give them the opportunity to plan their production in advance accordingly and probably produce more as land is not (yet) a limiting factor (only half of the total commanded surface is being cropped at present). A publicly funded co-operative has recently been build on the scheme and appears as a great potential to solve the farmers' main issues concerning marketing -and even production. However, it would require much more involvement from the farmers and a shift from individual and opportunistic behaviours, to collective production and marketing management. The ability and readiness of the farmers to do so is being discussed and questioned. (Résumé d'auteur