Most commercial farmers in the district rely on irrigation systems for farming whilst the smallholder farmers generally depend on seasonal rainfall which typically falls from November to March. . The average rainfall ranges from 246 mm to 681 mm per annum.Soils in the district are variable and tend to be sandy in the west, but with a higher loam and clay content towards the east. The soils developed on basalt, sandstone and biotite gneiss and some have low inherent soil fertility. Maize is the predominant cereal grain grown in the district among smallholder farmers . Leguminous crops like groundnuts, Bambara nuts and cowpeas are also grown by smallholder farmers as well as vegetable crops which include spinach, cabbage, tomatoes andonions.These are grown for the farmers’ own consumption with any surplus sold to neighbours or relatives. Rain-fed crop yields are generally poor due to low and erratic rainfall coupled with poor fertility.
Commercial horticulture farming is well established in the south eastern side of the district and includes stakeholders which grow mangos, litchis,bananas, avocados, citrus, pecan and macadamia nuts . A study was conducted using an analysis of primary and secondary data to identify and characterize large and small-scale farming systems of three tree crops,vertical rack system in the Vhembe district. The analysis was aimed at highlighting the connectivity of interactions between the farming systems in terms of the four drivers of production.The focus of the paper is on land as a driver of production. Secondary data were collected from: the official subtropical crop database obtained from the local Department of Agriculture located in the town of Thohoyandou, climate data from the Institute for Soil, Climate and Water , land type and soils data from the Agricultural Research Council , peer reviewed research papers and related books. The target population was a combination of large-scale commercial and small-scale farmers within the district.
Based on the FAO definition of farming systems which informs the study, three different enterprises based on commodities grown at farm sites were chosen: 1) macadamia nut farming systems 2) mango farming systems and 3) avocado farming systems. Farming systems where initially broadly characterised based on available information extracted from the local Department of Agriculture database. The database is comprised of data on the farm location ,farm size , gender of farmer, farmer name and telephone number.A purposive sampling method was employed in choosing four criteria for site selection, these were used in the study namely commodity, size of the farm,location of the farm and gender of the farmer. This information was available for six subtropical commodities, namely bananas,litchis , avocados ,mangos , macadamia nuts and citrus . According to the database there are a total of 1121 documented subtropical crop farmers in the Vhembe district. According to the database the three commodities selected in the study were the most commonly grown commodities in the district.
Avocados were selected based on the willingness of the farmers to participate in the study based on a preliminary interaction with the farmers at a local study group meeting. Macadamias were selected based on their significance to the South African agricultural economy as high value export crops. The next selection criterion was size. Farms were selected using a systemic random sampling procedure to ensure that there was equal representation of farms within the size categories that exist in the database, these were namely small-scale as the study required both farmers with smallholdings and larger holdings. The next selection criterion was location. Farms were selected to ensure that there was equal representation of all 4 local municipalities that comprise the Vhembe district municipality namely Mutale, Makhado, Thulamela and Musina.Lastly, the farmers’ gender was also used as a farm selection criterion. A random number generation method was used to ensure that there was equal representation of both genders across the farms.