The small-scale farming sector continues to battle with the daunting task of moving from the "subsistence syndrome" to the "plane of entrepreneurship". This paper provides a review of some of the attributed factors which continue to affect the performance of the sector. Suggestions about ways to...

Phosphates (P) are an important nutrient required by every living plant and animal cell, and deficiencies in soils could cause limited crop production, thereby reducing profitability. Phosphates are also a primary nutrient essential for root development and crop production, and are needed in the...

Land reform has traditionally had two objectives: equity and productivity. Food insecurity and the need for agriculture to contribute to development emphasise the need to maintain and improve productivity while improving equitability. Land must foster production and agriculture must attract good...

Market-based environmental policies have been forwarded as alternatives to current pollution control policies. Implementation of the "polluter pays" principle and governmental enforcement of pollution clean-up have led to astronomical environmental liabilities and clean-up costs, which may...

Salinization of South African rivers is serious and has rendered some dams and reservoirs unsuitable for irrigation. The contribution of agriculture to the environmental problem of salinization was empirically analysed in this study. Linear regression models demonstrated that increases in the...

Thoughts on the role of government changed late in the nineteenth century from nonintervention in economic affairs to government control. Events over the last decades have upstaged the ability of governments to achieve what had become to be major goals. The future role should be a balance...

A survey on food consumption patterns was conducted in an urban black community and a rural black community. Urban consumers tend to consume more bread, and less maize meal than rural consumers. Urban consumers consume more meat than poverty-stricken rural dwellers. The same is true with respect...

Irrigation vegetable farmers in Seymour District, Eastern Cape, have had problems concerning market access. Initial action by the researcher showed that problems can be solved. A survey showed younger farmers to be better educated, more businesslike and more eager to solve problems than older...

Developing countries' small-scale farmers lack access to financial services. In the Eritrean Savings and Micro- Credit program (SMCP), solidarity groups are jointly responsible for individual members' loans; this reduces transaction costs, improves repayment and substitutes for collateral....

This paper uses data collected from 177 small-scale farming households in Mpumalanga in an effort to identify factors that significantly influence the degree of commercialisation or market participation. A logistic regression model was applied within the transaction costs framework. Results...