When South Africa’s agricultural sector commands attention, the conversation gravitates predictably toward citrus exports, wine, maize and livestock. These industries have, without question, shaped the country’s agricultural identity and continue to make substantial contributions to national output and export earnings.
By Boineelo Keraetswe, Founder & Director, Manelo Keraex19 (Pty) Ltd
Yet this familiar narrative obscures an equally important story – one unfolding in fields, smallholdings and communal farming plots across the country.
South Africa’s vegetable sector is not merely growing. It is becoming structurally indispensable to the nation’s food security, rural economic development and long-term agricultural resilience. Accelerated by rising consumer demand for fresh produce, a generational shift toward health-conscious eating and the urgent need to localise food supply chains, vegetables now occupy a critical, and chronically undervalued, position in the agricultural economy.
What gives this sector its particular significance is the character of those driving its growth: small and emerging farmers, many operating in underserved regions with minimal institutional support.
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I founded Manelo Keraex19 in Batlharos, within the John Taolo Gaetsewe District of the Northern Cape, on the conviction that agriculture has the power to generate meaningful opportunity where few alternatives exist. Through the daily work of producing spinach, cabbage, tomatoes, carrots and green peppers, I have gained an unfiltered understanding of both the systemic barriers confronting small-scale producers and the extraordinary potential that remains latent within South Africa’s farming communities.
Across the country, emerging farmers continue to deliver quality produce despite operating under conditions that would challenge far better-resourced enterprises. Constrained access to capital, inadequate cold-chain and storage infrastructure, escalating input costs, unreliable water supply and near-exclusion from formal retail and institutional procurement channels are not exceptional hardships – they are the structural norm.
And yet, these farmers persist. Not merely out of necessity, but out of a deep understanding that agriculture is not simply a business venture. It is a mechanism for building community resilience, transferring skills across generations and anchoring rural economies to something productive and enduring.
The uncomfortable truth is that South Africa does not suffer from a shortage of agricultural talent, viable land or market demand. What it lacks – consistently and at scale – are the enabling systems that allow emerging farmers to grow, formalise and compete meaningfully within broader value chains.
Genuine commitment to an inclusive agricultural economy demands more than policy pronouncements. It requires targeted investment in rural infrastructure; expanded and accessible market linkage programmes; practical, farmer-centred skills development; and financing instruments designed for the realities of smallholder operations. Critically, it demands coordinated partnerships between government, the private sector and farming communities – partnerships that deliver not to boardrooms, but to the farm gate.
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South Africa’s agricultural future cannot be constructed on a narrow foundation of established export industries alone. It must be broad enough to encompass the thousands of farmers who quietly supply fresh produce to local markets, schools, retailers, hospitals and households daily, often without recognition, subsidy or systemic support.
The vegetable sector represents far more than an agricultural opportunity. It is a vehicle for job creation, household food security, rural economic stimulation and the development of a new generation of commercially viable agricultural entrepreneurs. In a country still contending with stubborn unemployment and deep economic inequality, few sectors offer a more direct or cost-effective pathway to inclusive growth.
Recognising the vegetable sector as a strategic national asset and backing that recognition with real resources must form a central part of South Africa’s economic renewal agenda.
The land is productive. The farmers are capable and committed.
The opportunity is not on the horizon. It is already here.
The only question is whether South Africa’s institutions have the resolve to invest in it.
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of African Farming.
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