GTAC/CBPEP/ EU Project on Employment-Intensive Rural Land Reform in South Africa: Policies, Programmes and Capacities. Thematic Study – Conceptualising Finance to Support Labour-Intensive Land Redistribution

This paper seeks to provide an overview and understanding of how South Africa’s smallholder farmers and small-scale black commercial farmers (‘SFs & SSBCFs’) presently finance their agricultural operations (excluding land acquisition), with a view to identifying where the current system could be improved so as to support an employment-intensive land reform premised on these types of farmers. As such, the paper seeks to identify what are the main sources of loan and grant finance to farmers, and to indicate what is known about the reach and effectiveness of these various institutions / products / programmes. The paper also briefly considers what we know about selffinancing, while also touching on sundry other financial services and issues, in particular input subsidies, e-money and insurance. While doing so, the paper traces recent policy discussions and debates regarding the provision of agricultural finance.