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Abstract
South African agriculture is comprised of mainly two categories of farmers -- the subsistence
farmers in the former homeland areas and the large-scale commercial (mainly white) farmers.
This is in contrast with the situation in many other countries in the world where one would
find a whole range of farm sizes, ranging from the very small or subsistence farmer to the
very large farmer/agribusiness. The paper highlights the situation of small-scale farmers in
an international context and compares it with the South African situation that is totally
different. Within this context, this paper has as basic premise that in South Africa the
concept of "small-scale farmer" is usually value-laden, creates wrong impressions and is
often viewed in a negative light. "Small-scale" is often equated with a backward, nonproductive,
non-commercial, subsistence agriculture that we find in parts of the former
homeland areas. This paper endeavours to correct the negative perceptions towards smallscale
farms by redefining the small-scale farmer and laying to rest the fallacy that small
relates to land size only.