Agriculture has always been one of the most important employers of low-skilled workers. But as farmers adopt more sophisticated technologies and improve their efficiency, the type of work and number of opportunities being created is changing.
A recent project of the Institute for Futures Research at the University of Stellenbosch Business School explored how employment in agriculture was changing and how the sector would have to adapt to go on contributing to employment.
The scope of the study, commissioned by Business Unity SA with Agri SA and the Agriculture Business Chamber (Agbiz), and included considering the future of work in agriculture and understanding skills barriers that could prevent the absorption of workers.
Speaking on Thursday at the launch of the study report, Theo Boshovv, CEO of Agbiz, an organisation representing agribusiness in SA, said the number of people employed in agriculture had kept steady at 800,000-900,000 for several years. The sector’s inability in the past few years to add significantly to the number of people employed poses challenges, given that SA’s post-pandemic economic recovery plan places high expectations on agriculture to drive employment in the country.
Despite the goals of the National Development Plan (NDP), which targeted a million new jobs in agriculture by 2030, agricultural employment did not display the desired upward trend. Boshoff said that when the NDP was put together the government did not yet grasp the full implications of a just transition and the drive towards a carbon-neutral economy.
“Given the new realities and the need to move away from carbon-intensive industries, government will look to agriculture and tourism to become even bigger employers,” said Boshoff.
He said it is assumed that adoption of technology, which was key to staying competitive, would result in more workers losing jobs as efficiency improved or machines took over their jobs. But, as the report showed, this was not necessarily so as new types of farming enabled by technology may appeal more to the youth and contribute to job creation, such as aquaculture, vertical indoor farming or restoring degraded land.
The report said the future of agriculture employment would hinge mainly on two factors. One was the composition of the market — whether it would be dominated by a few large players amid high barriers to entry, or if a wide range of players would farm at different scales. The other was whether the workforce would be equipped with appropriate skills. In a less concentrated market, where employers have access to workers with the right skills, agriculture could contribute significantly to job creation.
According to Doris Viljoen, director of the Institute for Futures Research, to create jobs in SA it must first be known what the skills levels of unemployed people are. In this segment about 50% do not have matric and 38% had only matric and no tertiary qualification.
Viljoen said skills that will be needed in agriculture in future are soft skills such as communication, customer service and sales, systems thinking, technology integration, data management and basic soil, biology, plant, and animal sciences. Job creation would have to be supported by educational initiatives targeting low-skilled workers.
The report cautioned against the NDP’s approach which sees 589,500 of the nearly a million jobs being created in the subsistence and small-scale farming space and through redistribution of land. “This may be seeking to maximise the job-creation potential from a sector that is known for being labour intensive. However, we also need to consider the kind of livelihoods that could be created and how sustainable these could be in the long run,” the report said.
Jobs in subsistence and small-scale agriculture may not appeal to the youth, and it may not be sustainable considering land degradation and the vulnerability to climate change often associated with small-scale agriculture.
Updated: February 17 2022
This article has been updated with additional information and comment
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.