New South African Review 4. Devan Pillay

(and class position) of ‘smallholder’ producers as sited in Greenberg 2013. A wide range of descriptions may be used to categorise smallholder producers, which are obscured by the term, particularly the amalgamation of subsistence producers with commercial producers. Nevertheless, the term broadly refers to small-scale producers (either by income, land holdings, or type of production). Greenberg suggests 60-80 hectares as the maximum land holding (Greenberg 2013:3).

      13 The National Development Plan outlines what it sees to be the importance of smallholder farmers to rural development through job creation and food security in terms of integration into supply chains (see Chapter 6, National Planning Commission 2011).

      14 See Strategic Plan for Smallholder Producers, DAFF.

      15 The regulated control of marketing and pricing of food products characterised the apartheid period. ‘More than 75 per cent of agricultural products in South Africa were sold under controlled marketing schemes in 1990’ (Greenberg 2010:4).

      16 Most South African retailers require EurepGAP standards at farm level and HACCP (Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point) at pack-house/processing level from fresh produce suppliers. Through the Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI), seven major South African retailers have agreed to the four GFSI benchmarked food safety schemes: the British Retail Consortium Global Food Standard; the International Food Standard; the Safe Quality Food Scheme (2000); and the Dutch HACCP Scheme (Option B). The International Committee of Food Retail Chains co-ordinates the GFSI (Greenberg 2010:8-9).

      17 A non-representative, qualitative questionnaire was administered to 109 workers and focus group interviews conducted in 6 branches of Cambridge through access provided by Saccawu. The project was funded by UNI Global. Project researchers included Bongani Xezwi, Ntsiki Mackay, Lesego Ndala, Matlhako Mahapa, Zakhele Dlamini, Tlaleng Letsheleha and Zivai Sunungukai.

      18 Compare these retail workers’ wages to the latest farm workers’ minimum wages of R105/day (raised to this – itself a 35 per cent increase – in the latest Sectoral Determination following militant and violent strikes on farms where workers contested their poverty conditions). This works out to about R2 200 per month, a figure that mainstream economists from Stellenbosch and Pretoria have reported as unable to provide enough to meet the nutritional needs of their households (BFAP 2012). Farmworkers had demanded R150/day in the strikes. The report summarises, ‘The real problem is that even at what seems to be an unaffordable minimum wage of R150 per day, most households cannot provide the nutrition that is needed to make them food secure’ (BFAP 2012:vi).