November 1995 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.

This open access book discusses the current role of smallholders in connection with food security and poverty reduction in developing countries. It addresses the opportunities they enjoy, and the constraints they face, by analysing the availability, access to and utilization of production factors. Due to the relevance of smallholder farms, enhancing their production capacities and economic and social resilience could produce positive impacts on food security and nutrition at a number of levels. In addition to the role of small farmers as food suppliers, the book considers their role as consumers and their level of nutrition security. It investigates the link between agriculture and nutrition in order to better understand how agriculture affects human health and dietary patterns. Given the importance of smallholdings, strategies to increase their productivity are essential to improving food and nutrition security, as well as food diversity.

Volume 3 of this series of the Handbooks in Economics follows on from the previous two volumes by focusing on the fundamental concepts of agricultural economics. The first part of the volume examines the developments in human resources and technology mastery. The second part follows on by considering the processes and impact of invention and innovation in this field. The effects of market forces are examined in the third part, and the volume concludes by analysing the economics of our changing natural resources, including the past effects of climate change.Overall this volume forms a comprehensive and accessible survey of the field of agricultural economics and is recommended reading for anyone with an interest, either academic or professional, in this area.*Part of the renown Handbooks in Economics series*Contributors are leaders of their areas*International in scope and comprehensive in coverage

A joint FAO and World Bank study which shows how the farming systems approach can be used to identify priorities for the reduction of hunger and poverty in the main farming systems of the six major developing regions of the world.