Agriculture is an important employer in the rural areas of South Africa, especially of low-skilled and semi-skilled workers. Supporting the growth of the sector is a focus of national policy, including the New Development Plan (NDP) and the National Growth Path (NGP), and agriculture remains the key to promoting rural development, food security and combatting rural poverty alleviation.

Improved productivity of smallholder agriculture will enable higher value and superior quality of agricultural output, and improved competitiveness. More competitive smallholder farms are more likely to create and sustain employment and reduces levels of rural poverty. Therefore, there is a growing urgency to provide support to smallholder agriculture, as a mechanism of promoting sustainable employment in the sector.

Therefore, there is urgency to assess the models of commodity-based associations and institutions and their support programme towards small agricultural producers and also to determine the socio-economic impact of their programmes on small producers, and beneficiaries at household level. This work is critical as the success of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) will depend on country-programme that leaves no one behind. Therefore, supporting emerging and subsistence farmers is critical to ensure that ‘no one is left behind’.

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in supporting the DALRRD in its mission to achieve NDP and SDG Goals would like to solicit expertise of a suitably qualified organizations to undertake policy research to assess the support programme provided by commodity association and institutions towards subsistence and emerging farmers.