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Abstract
This paper considers private and public institutions that will help promote the competitiveness of
commercial farms and agribusiness firms, and enhance the productivity of communal farmers
and the competitiveness of emerging farmers in South Africa. Commercial agriculture and
agribusiness are creating institutions (such as food safety standards and strategic partnerships),
adopting existing private and public institutions (e.g. TQM, ISO 9000 and HACCP) or
restructuring to add value to products and services, reduce costs and gain access to export
markets. Government should focus its relatively scarce resources on providing physical and legal
infrastructure (such as secure property rights and contract enforcement) to reduce transaction
costs, including risk, so that markets work efficiently. A major challenge for local agricultural
economists is to provide information about institutions that will promote the productive use of
land in communal areas, and the competitiveness of emerging farmers on redistributed
commercial farmland.