Reading Wandile Sihlobo’s A Country of Two Agricultures raises an important question: is South Africa really a country of only two agricultures, or is the picture more complex than that? My view is that the divide runs deeper than a simple contrast between established commercial farming and emerging black farming.
South Africa’s agricultural challenge is not only about land. It is also about information, infrastructure, institutions, market access, extension support, and the political will to connect these things in a practical way.
What struck me most is that transformation will remain slow and uneven until the country understands farming as a geospatial system. We need to know where farms are, who owns them, what they produce, what land is suitable for expansion, and how farmers connect through road networks to markets, storage, processing plants, finance, and support networks.
Key takeaways
- South Africa has more than “two agricultures”; it has multiple farming realities that need different forms of support.
- Land reform without spatial intelligence, transparency, and extension support will keep underperforming.
- Former homeland areas hold major agricultural potential, but corruption, weak institutions, and poor market linkages continue to hold them back.
- Public-private partnerships can work, but only when ownership, incentives, and long-term support are clear.
- A national geospatial observatory for agriculture could help turn rhetoric into measurable action.
South Africa Has More Than Two Agricultures
The phrase “two agricultures” is useful because it captures a deep historical divide. But in practice, South Africa has at least three broad realities: large-scale commercial farming, small-scale commercial farming, and subsistence farming, each with different constraints and opportunities.
That matters because policy fails when it treats all black farmers as one category and all commercial farmers as another. A farmer trying to move from subsistence into market production needs a very different support package from an established producer trying to expand exports or improve logistics.
It also matters because transformation should not mean weakening one productive part of the sector to strengthen another. Real transformation should grow the whole agricultural economy while drawing more black farmers into viable, supported, and commercially sustainable production.
The Missing Layer Is Spatial Intelligence
The biggest gap in the debate is the limited role given to geospatial information. Without it, government cannot plan land reform properly, identify suitable land, target infrastructure, or understand how close farmers are to transport routes, storage facilities, processing plants, and markets.Our geospatial services
This is not a technical extra. It is the foundation of rational agricultural planning, because it helps answer the basic questions that policy often ignores: where is the land, who owns it, what is it suited for, what is currently produced there, and what economic network supports it? Mapping food systems
A practical example is the mapping of land restitution claims in the Eastern Cape, which made visible not only where claims were concentrated but also how limited the transition into actual farming ownership often was. Another example is research in KwaZulu-Natal indicating that sufficient funds existed for meaningful land redistribution, yet the money was not allocated effectively, underlining why transparent spatial monitoring matters.
Geospatial intelligence also creates transparency. Once the country can see land ownership, restitution patterns, productive capacity, infrastructure gaps, and support networks on a map, it becomes much harder for weak policy, poor coordination, and corruption to hide behind vague promises.
Why So Many Agricultural Pilots Fail
South Africa has seen many agricultural initiatives announced with great optimism and weak follow-through. The pattern is familiar – a pilot starts with funding and excitement, but it collapses because the farmers are disconnected from markets, extension support is too thin, expectations are unrealistic, or local governance is too weak to keep the system moving.
One example was Walmart’s herd improvement and feedlot initiative in the Kokstad/East Griqualand area, which reportedly failed within a year because local farmers were unwilling to send heifers into the system and because veterinary support was weak. Another was in the grain sector, where an initiative to develop emerging maize farmers in the Umzimkhulu/Transkei area collapsed due to a long preparation cycle before returns clashed with farmer expectations and immediate livelihood pressures
That is why long-term support matters more than short-term publicity. The stronger examples are not the loudest ones; they are the ones where farmers received consistent technical guidance, patient development support, and enough time to build real capability rather than chase immediate returns.
A further example is the dairy project in the O.R. Tambo District area, which collapsed after only a few years, leaving local people without jobs. This reinforces the point that poorly governed pilots do not just fail quietly; they can deepen distrust, waste resources, and weaken confidence in future agricultural interventions
The lesson is clear. Agriculture does not transform through slogans, once-off funding, or politically attractive pilots; it transforms through patient institution-building, commodity-specific planning, and support systems that remain in place for years rather than months.
Former Homelands Are the Next Agricultural Frontier
If South Africa is serious about inclusive agricultural growth, it cannot ignore the former homeland areas. Many of these regions, especially parts of the Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal, have substantial agricultural potential, yet they remain trapped by weak governance, fragmented land systems, poor infrastructure, and limited access to finance and markets. Building a Spatially Intelligent State
O.R. Tambo is a clear example. It is an area with exceptional agricultural potential, spanning coastal resources, subtropical opportunities, citrus potential, maize land, and cattle production, yet one where this potential remains largely unrealised because governance, institutional coordination, and political incentives have not aligned with development needs
This is one of the great contradictions in the country. Some of the poorest districts sit on land with the strongest potential for livestock, citrus, maize, sugarcane, subtropical farming, and other forms of production, but the productive system around that land is either missing or broken.
For example, municipal facilities such as the abattoir and fresh produce market in O.R. Tambo were hardly functional, despite their potential importance to local farmers. In effect, the land may be productive, but without functioning institutions and market infrastructure, the wider agricultural system remains broken.
The challenge in these areas is not simply natural potential. It is whether government can work with traditional authorities, farmer bodies, private investors, and local communities to unlock land in a way that is practical, transparent, and economically sustainable rather than politically performative.
Transformation Needs Partnership, Ownership, and Extension
One of the strongest thoughts from reading the book is that the commercial and black farming sectors do not have to stand in opposition to one another. In many cases, farming associations and commercial structures are willing to work with emerging black farmers, but these relationships need formal support, clear mandates, and government that enables rather than controls everything. Stakeholders engagement
Having conducted research for the Department of Land Reform and Rural Development (previously including Agriculture) on stakeholder engagement and intergovernmental relations strategies, I experienced cases where white farming associations showed a true willingness to work with black farming associations, particularly in productive provinces like the Free State, suggesting that cooperation is often possible where the political and institutional environment does not obstruct it.
Ownership also matters. Short-term lease arrangements may create access on paper, but they often do not create the confidence, investment horizon, or personal commitment needed for long-term agricultural success.
The strongest success example is the small-scale sugarcane farmer initiative in the Malalane area of Mpumalanga, where funding from the DBSA, private sector engagement, and the presence of a full-time agricultural extension officer over roughly a decade helped convert dryland cotton farmers into viable sugarcane producers. Over time, some farmers exited, others expanded, and the result was the gradual emergence of more commercially sustainable black farmers.
Most importantly, transformation without extension support will fail. Farmers need ongoing technical assistance, production advice, commodity guidance, market intelligence, and help navigating the value chain, because access to land without access to knowledge is rarely enough. Research surveys
South Africa Needs an Agricultural Observatory, Not Another Slogan
The country needs a national agricultural observatory grounded in geospatial data, not just another policy promise. Such a platform could map ownership, track restitution and redistribution, identify high-potential land, monitor infrastructure gaps, and show where investment is happening and where it is failing. AI and geospatial analysis
An observatory of this kind would have made it easier to track the kinds of problems with redistribution funds in KwaZulu-Natal not being spent effectively, restitution patterns in the Eastern Cape producing more compensation than active farming transfer, and public agricultural facilities in districts such as O.R. Tambo failing to operate as intended.
This kind of observatory would support better decisions on land reform, market access, irrigation, processing hubs, rural roads, storage, risk, climate exposure, and food security. It would also allow both citizens and stakeholders to monitor whether transformation is actually taking place or whether public resources are once again being lost in bureaucracy and local dysfunction.
South Africa already has much of the underlying land capability information. What it lacks is the political commitment to integrate that knowledge into a transparent operating system for agricultural development that links planning, accountability, finance, infrastructure, and farmer support.
Why This Matters for Growth, Jobs, and Food Security
Agriculture can do far more than produce food. It can create jobs, expand local processing, support secondary industries, build wealth in rural areas, and reduce poverty if the sector grows in places where people, land, and market opportunity can be connected.
The contrast between success and failure is telling. Where support is sustained, as in the Malalane sugarcane example, agriculture created a path towards commercial growth and livelihood expansion. Where projects were poorly governed or based on unrealistic assumptions, as in the Walmart feedlot, maize pilot, and O.R. Tambo dairy examples, the result was frustration, lost opportunity, and little lasting value for local communities.
But food security will not improve automatically just because output increases. The country also needs to think carefully about household nutrition, affordability, local access, and the diversity of foods available in poor communities.
That is why agricultural development must be designed as a full system. It must link land suitability, labour, logistics, extension, finance, value chains, market access, and local demand into one coherent strategy rather than treating each problem in isolation.
From Debate to Delivery
The real opportunity in South Africa is not simply to talk about “two agricultures.” It is to build an agricultural economy that is more inclusive, more transparent, and more productive than the one we have today.
Taken together, these examples show that South Africa does not lack agricultural potential, and it does not entirely lack workable models. What it lacks is the consistency to replicate what has worked, the transparency to expose what has failed, and the institutional discipline to connect land, finance, infrastructure, extension, and markets into a single practical system.
That will only happen when land reform, farmer support, infrastructure planning, and stakeholder collaboration are placed on a clear geospatial foundation. Until then, the country will keep debating transformation without being able to see, measure, or manage it properly. Contact us
FAQ
What is the main argument of this blog?
The central argument is that South Africa’s agricultural divide cannot be resolved through land reform rhetoric alone. The country needs a practical, geospatially informed agricultural strategy that connects land, ownership, infrastructure, market access, extension support, and accountability if it wants transformation to produce real economic results.
Why is geospatial data so important to agricultural reform?
Geospatial data makes the agricultural system visible. It helps decision-makers identify where farms are located, what land is suitable for different commodities, how close producers are to roads and markets, where infrastructure gaps exist, and whether redistribution is happening and support programmes are in the right places and producing measurable outcomes.
Why have many agricultural support programmes struggled to succeed?
Many programmes fail because they are not designed as long-term systems. They often lack sustained extension support, realistic timeframes, proper market linkages, local institutional capacity, and strong coordination between government, farmer bodies, private partners, and funding agencies.
What would a better agricultural transformation model look like?
A stronger model would combine land access, secure tenure or ownership pathways, long-term extension support, formal partnerships between commercial and emerging farmers, transparent spatial planning, and targeted investment in infrastructure, processing, and market access. There is no doubt the lessons learned from intergovernmental and stakeholder relations study with the Department of Land Reform and Rural Development must be taken to heart and that is the establishment of MOUs with relevant organizations forming part of the model as well as delegated authorities. In other words, it would treat transformation as an economic development system, not a political event.
Biosketch
Craig Schwabe is a South African geospatial strategist with over 30 years of experience in agriculture, land reform, rural development, and spatial planning. He has worked on land use management frameworks for the Department of Land Reform and Rural Development, stakeholder and intergovernmental strategies for rural development, food security and vulnerability studies, and agricultural value-chain analysis. His work focuses on using geospatial intelligence to turn land reform and agricultural development into more practical, transparent, and evidence-based programmes.
