Markets Work for Rural-Poor: Why a Need to Develop Roadside Farm Markets for Small-Scale Farmers in South Africa?

Over 70% of rural population in South Africa survives on subsistence small-scale farming as source of food and household incomes. However, due to lack of Agro-market facilities in rural South Africa, small-scale farmers can hardly compete favourably to benefit from the nation agricultural market, leaving almost 85% share of agricultural-market to the well-off large commercial farmers. These imbalances in South Africa’s agricultural markets are manifested in its dualistic economy, the first-world economy and the second-impoverished economies , respectively. Recent policies have been focused more on increased agro-productivity with less emphasis on markets for the rural-poor subsistence small-scale farmers. This review used case-study elsewhere especially in Sub-Saharan Africa and Asia where surveys have shown tremendous positive results to supported the argument. Therefore, this review suggest Markets Work for Rural-Poor in South Africa: Developing Roadside Markets for Smallholder Farmers to improve on their shares and benefit more from the rich national agricultural market.

Keywords:

Small-scale farmers , Roadside markets , rural poor , South Africa , supermarkets