Agriculture as a Key Driver for Community Development: A Case of Magomani Village, Limpopo Province

Abstract

Limpopo province covers 123 600 km2 and has a population of 5.3 million people, 89% of whom live in non-urban regions and 40–50% of whom are unemployed. It is undoubtedly South Africa's poorest province. The community of Magomani village for a long time has used commercial farming as the main basis for survival and sustaining livelihoods. However, because of the obstacles that local farmers have experienced over the years, there has been a reduction in commercial farming development which has led to the rise of poverty. These obstacles include: insufficient farming land which has been caused by population increase and land occupation; because of a variety of restrictions and constraints, smallholder farmers in rural areas face a lack of market; lack of investment from government and other potential sponsors, lack of working capital which result in poor veld condition and restriction to access of market. This study was qualitative in nature and aimed to investigate how commercial farming can be revived to develop the community of Magomani village.