The maize subsector in South Africa: emerging policy issues
1992
Rubey, L. (University of Zimbabwe, Harare (Zimbabwe). Dept. of Agricultural Economics and Extension)
The paper discusses South Africa's maize marketing system suggesting that it was designed to meet the needs of a particular group of market participants, namely the white commercial farmers and large-scale maize millers. Since to date, the marketing system has met these needs, there is little impetus for change, especially given the rigidities of the current political system. Many of the same peculiarities that led researchers in Zimbabwe to partially attribute rural and urban household food insecurity to a restrictive maize marketing system exist in South Africa. The "food insecurity paradox" of the 1980's in Zimbabwe mirrors the South African experience very closely. Maize production and marketing is dominated by large commercial farmers in the favourable agro-ecological zones. The vast majority of smallholders live on marginal lands and are dependent to some extent on non-agricultural earnings and remittances. In this view, significant reforms of the maize marketing system will only occur when representatives of the disenfranchised majority obtain a degree of control over the conduct of agricultural policy in South Africa. This paper attempts to identify the emerging policy issues in the maize subsector and outline an agenda for future research
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