The relationship between farm size and efficiency in South African agriculture

Commercial farms in South Africa could become significantly more efficient if they became smaller. The government could encourage that trend by removing policies and distortions that favor large over small farms.Drawing on international evidence, van Zyl, Binswanger, and Thirtle discuss the sources of economies of scale. Using representative farm level survey data for South Africa's six major grain producing areas and one irrigation area for the period 1975 90, they:Describe the structure of South African agriculture, detailing the distribution of farm sizes and results from previous studies of farm size efficiency. Analyze the evidence on scale efficiency in the former homelands. Analyze the relationship between farm size and efficiency in commercial farming and discuss how policy affects that relationship.Clearly policy has a crucial impact on the relationship between farm size and efficiency. They find that:Farms in the former homelands seem to be scale inefficient, which is unsurprising, given the historical lack of access to support services and infrastructure, policies that discriminate against farmers in the homelands, and the extremely fragmented and limited land use rights of farmers there. There is an inverse relationship between farm size and efficiency in the commercial farming areas for the range of farms analyzed, regardless what method is used. This inverse relationship seems to become stronger and more accentuated as policy distortions --- which tend to favor large farms over small ones --- are removed. Large farms tend to use more capital intensive methods of production, while smaller farms are more labor intensive. And managerial ability seems to be better on larger farms.There is an inverse relationship between farm size and efficiency in South African agriculture despite South Africa's history of policies favoring relatively large mechanized farms. Clearly, efficiency gains could be significant if commercial farms became smaller. To encourage that trend, policies and distortions that favor large farms over small should be removed.This paper --- a product of the Office of the Director, Agriculture and Natural Resources Department --- is part of a larger effort in the department to design appropriate strategies for land reform. Copies of the paper are available free from the World Bank, 1818 H Street NW, Washington, DC 20433. Please contact Melissa Williams, room S8222, telephone 2024587297, fax 2025221142, Internet address mwilliams@worldbank.org. (45 pages)