The Promotion of Small Farms in Swaziland: A Sound Agrarian Policy, Friendly to the Environment

Abstract

The Swazi economy is agriculture based, yet productivity on the predominantly small farm subsector is very low. Efforts toward improvement of productivity of this subsector could lead to tremendous increases in agricultural output and a considerable reduction in food imports — hence the Government’s avowed commitment to agricultural development. Another reason for this commitment is the need to increase productive rural employment as a cure for extreme rural poverty. The question of how best the productivity of agriculture could be improved often goes with the issue of agrarian structure Britton and Hill (1975:1) have noted that “whenever the current difficulties and the future prospects of agriculture are under discussion, it is not long before the question of the most desirable size is raised”. In Swaziland, because of the relatively high contribution of large-scale farms to GDP, the small-scale farms have received less attention.