A review of the possibilities of alleviating poverty and food insecurity challenges in South Africa through agricultural cooperatives

Abstract

The issue of food insecurity and poverty has been a critical one since the dawn of democracy in South Africa. With the World Bank also, having set the 2014 target of halving poverty in developing countries, the South African government has found itself with a task of finding ways of contributing towards meeting this target. One approach that has been proposed by many as the best vehicle for addressing these challenges particularly in the rural areas has been that of channeling resources towards the uplifting of the smallholder agricultural sector. In addition to this, there is evidence that smallholder farmers can actually perform better if they pool their resources together and work as cooperatives. This paper therefore seeks to provide evidence of the importance of using cooperatives to empower smallholder farmers in an attempt to reduce poverty and food insecurity in South Africa. It further highlights the various challenges that need to be addressed to allow cooperatives to reach their full potential. The paper concludes by suggesting a few interventions that could be implemented in order to boost the smallholder farming sector's cooperatives with the hope of helping the nation reduce its poverty levels and become more food secure.

Innovative and Sustainable Food Production and Food Consumption Entrepreneurship: A Conceptual Recipe for Delivering Development Success in South Africa

“…Innovative and transformative digital technologies are becoming the core success factor of integrated and entrepreneurial food production and food consumption [94][95][96][97][98]. Entrepreneurship research initiatives in SA highlight the significance of digital technologies to encourage more creative and innovative food production and food consumption business development [83,86,98,99].…”

“…The findings emerging from the research more than justify the use of digital technologies particularly, disruptive technologies, to challenge obsolete and ineffective traditional ways of business food production, for instance. A wide range of disruptive and transformative digital theories now exist [95,96]. Gonzalez et al [99] in their research have used some of these theories to identify a wide range of technologies and explore how they can be applied to transform SMEs and lifestyles is SA.…”