Households typology for relating social diversity and technical change. The example of rural households in the Khambashe area of the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa.

Abstract

Various South African policy statements and strategy proposals argue that farmer focused planning and farming systems research approaches are required to develop policies, strategies and project activities to serve farmers efficiently. Then, the question is how to give a practical content to these requirements, and how to avoid that technical farm relations could be emphasised without recognising the diversity in farming situations and without contextualising such technical relationships in the wider social, economic and political environment. In this prospect a research, based on rural household surveys, has been carried out in the Khambashe area of the Eastern Cape Province. On the basis of this example, the authors discuss the usefulness of household typologies to link social diversity and technical change.agriculture; households; typologie; technical change; agricultural policy; South Africa; post apartheid.