Harvest of Hope: The Contribution of Peri-Urban Agriculture in South African Townships

This study investigates the efficiency of urban micro-farms in two Cape Town townships, Nyanga and Khayelitsha, and their contribution to livelihoods and food security. The Harvest of Hope programme provides credit, access to inputs and an outlet for organic vegetables. Comprehensive data on inputs are limited and in this study only land, labour, seeds and seedlings, compost and farmer experience are included. Non-parametric models are used to generate individual efficiency measures relative to best practice. The results revealed an average level of overall, technical and scale efficiency of 72.4%, 79.7% and 90.6%, respectively. Overall efficiency was negatively correlated with land holdings and the use of compost and seedlings. This is supported by the finding that the nine best-practice farms were characterised by a smaller scale of production, indicating that efficiency losses are experienced as greater quantities of inputs are used. In terms of area differences, Nyanga farms exhibit significantly higher technical efficiency, whereas farms in Khayelitsha are more scale efficient. Expenditure on compost and seed added value, although mulching or operator experience did not increase output substantially. The latter can be explained by the highly effective training programme provided that makes prior experience unnecessary to achieve good practice. Fully efficient farms are R2 600 per plot more profitable than inefficient farms, while farms that need a windbreak earn R700 less per plot per season than more sheltered operations. These results are the first of their kind for South Africa and lay the foundation for more effective extension to the sector.