Abstract

South Africa is amongst the developing countries with high prevalence of socio-economic challenges. These challenges include high levels of joblessness, poverty, food insecurity and malnutrition, particularly among rural and peri-urban poor people. Since 1994, the South African government has had a goal that the farming sector should play an important role in food security, job creation and wealth creation. This study investigated the potential of farming small, micro, medium enterprise (SMMEs) to contribute to the resolve of socio-economic problems. Both qualitative and quantitative research methodologies were used in this study, with the former relying on participatory forums, where the data was taken with the aid of video recordings, whilst the later methodology used semi-structured questionnaire. The quantitative data obtained and used in this study were gathered from year 2006 to 2007. This data was from a sample size of 1873 (20% of the registered farming SMMEs in all nine provinces of South Africa) farming SMMEs collected by extension officers as the numerators. It appears that the majority of the SMMEs thus formed in agricultural sector lack the capacity to be sustainable and hence, there is a need to innovate and explore mechanisms that can transform micro and small enterprises to medium enterprises in order to improve their probability of contributing to resolve the socio-economic challenges.

Key words: Farming small, micro, medium enterprises (SMMEs), socio-economic, job creation, wealth creation, land reform.