Emerging from Below? Understanding the Livelihood Trajectories of Smallholder Livestock Farmers in Eastern Cape Province, South Africa

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This is a very interesting and well-written paper on (small-scale) farmers’ upward transitioning into commercial farming in South Africa. I find it particularly interesting and important, because it deals with medium farmers and the question of transition from subsistence to commercial farming. Both aspects deserve greater attention in academic research, so this is an important contribution.

The background of the study are South Africa’s agrarian reforms and land redistribution programs. The study aims at deriving policy recommendations that improve existing reforms to also consider livelihood security of involved farmers and not merely commercial production goals.

I have no major issue with the paper. I find it well researched, well organized and well written. I would, however, appreciate a few clarifications and maybe added context regarding South Africa’s land redistribution programs. This is a central point of the study but does not become sufficiently clear to the readers who are not as familiar with the South African agrarian context as the authors are. Secondly, I would question the definition of “small-scale farmer” as it is currently presented in the study (cases of farming about 400ha of land and owning 100 cattle). Thirdly, it remains kind of blurry in the paper what “access” means, access to land or access to cattle. I would recommend to use a more precise language here. Fourthly, the materials and methods section completely lacks information on when the study was carried out.

Kindly see detailed comments below:

• Introduction, line 42, “Sub-Saharan Africa”: I understand the authors want to make some general recommendations and add to a general discussion. However, I would suggest to be clearer on where they position themselves in the debate. In the first sentence to the introduction they mention “Africa” as a whole. Now, South Africa, as part of the BRICS cannot be put in the same group of countries as many other SSA or African countries.
• Page 2, line 63, “South Africa provides a case in point”: please see comment above, can SA be used as an example for the whole of Africa or even SSA?
• Page 2, lines 63-80: I would recommend explaining SA’s land redistribution schemes in greater detail, also with greater (yet concise) consideration and explanation of historical processes. Maybe add a brief overview of current land distribution patterns in SA.
• Page 2, line 70, “access to land”: it remains unclear throughout the paper what exactly this access looks like. Does it mean the farmers can “use” the land, lease it, or they can buy it, etc.? Please be more precise. Land redistribution schemes vary greatly across countries and readers might interpret this study using their knowledge from different settings which might lead to misinterpretations if not stated clearly here.
• 3, line 114: when was the study carried out?
• 3, line 116: why did the authors select livestock farmers as an example? Later on in the paper, the authors mention that farmers also produce crops. Are they then still livestock farmers or mainly livestock farmers? What percentage of income comes from livestock versus crop production?
• 3, line 117: when did the resettlement take place? Did they want to be resettled? Where have they been resettled from etc? Kindly add more details on the process.
• 3, line 117, “small town of Elliot”: what is the number of inhabitants? How “small” is it in SA terms?
• 4, map: I would suggest the location of SA on the map of Africa is not needed but instead the local/regional map can be enlarged so that the names are readable. Maybe add the names of villages and towns that are mentioned on page 5. What do the numbers behind the district names (ECxxx) stand for? Are they needed?
• 4, line 148, “context of social-ecological change”: how about economic change?
• 5, lines 176-177: maybe add the villages/towns to the map
• 5, lines 177, “85% of them having existing access to small fragmented land parcels of less 177 than three hectares in size”: please, as mentioned before, explain what exactly this “access” means, what it practically looks like
• 5, line 180, “a smaller group of nine 179 smallholder farmers already producing surplus agricultural products”: what kind of products?
• 5, lines 182-183, “and produced little if any surplus for market”: what kind of products and for which market?
• 6, table: the table lacks numbering if I am not mistaken. Also, the span of farmland area (“Access to large land holdings purchased or rented (>3 ha and up to 230 ha)” is extremely large.
• 6, table, “Not formally organized, although some were members of unions.” How about cooperative membership? This is mentioned later in the paper but not in this table. What exactly does “some” mean? Maybe add a number/percentage.
• 6, table, “Average education with limited agricultural knowledge/training”: what exactly does that mean?
• 6, table, “Agricultural income augmented by social grants, remittances and wage labour”: maybe the authors could add a rough estimate here on the augmentation in %,.
• 8, line 242, “After agrarian reform, …”. It does not become sufficiently clear to me how exactly the land transfer was done. Kindly explain in greater detail,
• 8, lines 252-263, “This group, consisting of 43 farmers, accessed freehold land ranging in size from 10 to 379 ha through either SLAG or LRAD”: why such a wide range (10-379 ha) How was the land distributed?
• 8, lines 253-254, “but demonstrated little or no transition from 253 their original subsistence mode of production”: did they get any support (and if so, from whom) to do the transition?
• 8, lines 254-255, “Farmers who received land on a small 254 group basis (four farmers in this case) eventually separated from one another…”: what did the ones that left the farm do for a living?
• 8, line 266: maybe this should be differentiated between hanging in and abandonment into two sections as these are two very different responses to a situation.
• 9, lines 268-269: “who were unable to sustain 268 themselves on the farms”. Why were they unable to sustain themselves?
• 9, line 271, “were unable to move much beyond subsistence production”: This sounds as if they did not receive any support. Is that correct or why were they unable?
• 9, line 272, “effectively abandoned their farms”: what did they do instead for a living?
• 10, line 370, “and undertake crop production in their farm”. Then these are not mainly/purely livestock farmers as expressed in the title, methods etc.
• 13, line 464, “these small-scale farmers averaged 416 ha (range 343-510 ha) in size”. To me, this is not small-scale anymore. Maybe provide a classification of farm sizes in the context of SA to put these figures into perspective.
• 18, lines 753-754, “most of them have subsequently acquired and utilised some form of agricultural education”: from whom and how?
• 20, line 829, “It is also vital that local cooperatives work to ensure a more level playing field…”: What role do agricultural cooperatives in SA play in general? What is their coverage in SA? Why is there so (seemingly) little involvement in the presented cases?
• General comment: maybe add interview dates after the quotes

Author Response

We welcome the constructive comments we received from the reviewer. The comments necessitated revisiting key arguments and introduction of new literature to support the arguments. We believe this improves the contribution of the paper considerably. We hope we have done full justice to the amendments requested. However, if there is anything outstanding, we would be happy to have the opportunity to address any further issues. We set out the specific changes we have made as clearly as we can in the attached file. Please kindly see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Thank you for the opportunity to read this paper on the livelihood trajectories of smallholder farmers in the context of agrarian reform in South Africa. I found it very interesting. 

The dataset that this research is based on is large and means that the results are very rich. I particularly enjoyed reading the case studies for each type of farmer (Although I note there wasn't a case to illustrate the fully commercialised farmers, which is a shame and would be a welcome addition). This gives a solid basis for the discussion and conclusion of the paper.

I feel that there are a few things that would make this paper stronger, not least a more in depth discussion of the literature. Currently, the section on theoretical underpinnings is very short and not very analytical. E.g.:

• Line 147 – 'A livelihood is conceptualised to be sustainable when’ etc. – in which body of literature? Is that in the SLF? Clarify this in text, not just with references.
• Line 152 – definition of resilience as status quo, but how about the whole section of the literature that talks about transformation? Could you bring some literature that discusses and critiques resilience here?

There are a couple of clarifications I would like to see in terms of the data collection:

• Interviews with key informants [Who?]
• Use of secondary data sources [Which ones?]

I found that table 1 was not easily readable - could you add some horizontal lines please to make it clearer?

Figure 3 mostly makes sense, except for the a and b arrows that I find confusing because you have the big arrow ‘livelihood transitions through agrarian reform’ that implies a temporal reading from left to right, yet arrow a seems to be about the next steps that was taken. Could you please revise this figure? Also you state line 262-264 that the figure shows farmers intermittently moving from one sub-group to another. This wasn’t clear upon reading of the figure.

Whilst I was really impressed with the details provided in the results, at times I also felt that the results could be streamlines and the headline messages made a little clearer for the reader. Could you perhaps try and do that, which would also make space in the paper for a more in depth discussion of the theoretical underpinnings?

In terms of the discussion, I think the paper would be stronger with more connections to the critiques of resilience that seem to underpin some of your thinking (e.g. with suggestions you make regarding the role of government in your conclusion). E.g. line 760 you talk about 'improved capacity to learn' = what has made this possible? What structural differences existed here with other farmers? I'm concerned that some of what you write, because of taking a trajectory approach, puts too much emphasis on individual responsibility and not enough on the structural barriers the farmers face. Again, line 779 – ‘effective use of these capitals’ = same question, what is it that enabled them to use these capitals better than other farmers? Line 789-790 – interesting sections about strengthening connections to government and third sector programmes because it shifts the model of responsibility to be not solely on individuals but on collectives and on institutions. Would be interesting to hear this discussed further in this paper. (although I note this is alluded to in the next sub-section lines 823-826)

Overall, this is an interesting paper which could be made more significant with a clearer theoretical discussion of resilience and references to this in the discussion and conclusion. 

 

Author Response

We welcome the constructive comments we received from the reviewer. The comments necessitated revisiting key arguments and introduction of new literature to support the arguments. We believe this improves the contribution of the paper considerably. We hope we have done full justice to the amendments requested. However, if there is anything outstanding, we would be happy to have the opportunity to address any further issues. We set out the specific changes we have made as clearly as we can in the attached file. Please kindly see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Overall, I found this manuscript interesting. It details results from a South African case study on farming livelihoods and the trajectories of 60 farmers participating in a series of land reform initiatives. The authors situate their research in relation to important policy questions at the crossroads of food security, agricultural production, and resilient livelihoods. I have a few revision suggestions that I believe would strengthen the manuscript further and facilitate its potential to have a broader impact.

Firstly, the potential impact of this article would be strengthened by some attention paid to situating the research more deeply in the literature. Right now, the authors frame the study largely in relation to policy questions and leverage the sustainable livelihoods framework for analytical coherence. There is little to no discussion of what the findings tell us in terms of more general theories about smallholder farming livelihoods and potential transitions out of poverty and food insecurity. In the discussion section, discussion largely remains narrowed to South Africa, with findings sometimes compared to similar findings in a few other African countries. The authors could do more initially to review the state of our understanding in relation to their research questions/aims, and then in the discussion to relate their findings to this understanding—in effect to emphasis the study’s contribution to knowledge (in addition to emphasizing the study’s policy implications in the South African context).

Secondly, the methods section would benefit from some additional information related to the secondary data sources and the division of the 60 farmers into the three broad categories. What are these secondary data sources and how are they used? This is currently not clear. How precisely did the authors decide what category a given farmer belonged to? What were the criteria used and the “cut-points” to bin the farmers into the three categories (and for the subsistence/petty commodity farmers, into the subcategories)?

Some more specific suggestions or minor concerns:

• Table 1 is difficult to read with the text in different cells running together.
• SSA needs spelling out in an initial use.
• The concept of “self-organisation” could use some small amount of additional explanation, especially to clarify the logic of the concept’s label (why it’s called self-organisation).
• There is some apparent discrepancy in the detailing of “up to 10” animals in Table 1 versus “at least 10” in line 206.
• Explain your meaning with the use of “hegemony” in line 257.
• Use of “they”/”their” in reference to an individual farmer (especially in the case studies)—is this intentional?
• Copy-editing is required throughout to catch minor, largely punctuation issues.

 

Author Response

Not applicable