The Journal for Transdisciplinary Research in Southern Africa

The purpose of this article is to investigate the effectiveness of the model used by the South African government to finance emerging black farmers for agricultural development and empowerment. It is widely acknowledged that the South African government spends a vast amount of money attempting to help black community members become commercial farmers. In this article, I argue that those who currently qualify for the funding are mostly farmers with little experience, expertise or interest in agricultural farming.

The traditional concept of security has broadened over the past decades. Food security in South Africa is an imperative for human and non-human survival. In the contemporary political economy, there is a real nexus between globalisation, exploitation, the state, scarcity of resources, the market, peoples’ need to feel secure, notions of state responsibility and food production. Political economy and human security in theoretical debates and face-to-face politics are intrinsically linked.