National Wool Growers Association programme for communal farmers in Amahlathi local Municipality

Abstract

By 2030, the majority of the world's population will live in urban areas and the farming populations we see today will be less. For the foreseeable future, meeting the needs of the future means confronting the problems that small farmers face in their daily struggle. The South African experience in relation to the agricultural sector is still principally dualistic, comprising of the large-scale commercial farming dominated by white farmers as well as small-scale sectors dominated by black farmers and this is distinctive in the local context of writings on agricultural and rural development. As a result, the government has adopted various approaches to promote Transformation in the sector, with mixed results. The well-known are the agricultural development programmes and black farmer empowerment programmes which also include land reform. This paper reviews one of the agricultural development programmes which seek to empower small holder farmers. The study assesses the impact of the National Wool Growers Association (NWGA) Wool Programme on the communal farmers productivity and agricultural income in Amahlathi Local Municipality. The NWGA has been the custodian for transformation and it has been a good vehicle to represent all wool producers in South Africa. The research discovered that the programme has a positive influence on productivity and agricultural income, yet there is a room for improvement both for the NWGA and the government. It was highlighted that the programme offers extension services, infrastructure for shearing shed, wool and carcass competition, shearing training to both shearers and wool farmers. The study also found that women and youth need to be included, in the programme