Today's co-operatives struggle to support emerging farmers

Driven by the retail sector through large supermarket groupings, the SA market is highly instrumental in facilitating dualism in the agricultural value chain. In addition, Coetzee says, the market is not addressing the racially divided nature of the sector, which struggles to facilitate real co-operation between small and large-scale farmers, Business Day reports.

"Simply put", he says, "small-scale farmers need three things to thrive - access to markets, access to skills, and access to finance." Whereas in the past, agricultural co-operative, through a single marketing channel and support from the Land Bank, made it possible for small-scale farmers to access markets, skills and finances, "since democratisation and market liberalisation," he says in his Business
Day opinion piece, "the co-operative movement has struggled to give this comprehensive support to emerging farmers."

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