Who Benefits from Statutory Levy-funded Agricultural Transformation? Evidence from Emerging Macadamia Farmers in Vhembe, South Africa

Access to agricultural finance, particularly for historically disadvantaged individuals within the South African agricultural sector, remains a challenge. To address this, statutory levies were introduced as a financial enabling mechanism intended to support agricultural activities. The levies collected from various agricultural industries are reinvested towards generic functions such as research and development, transformation initiatives, market access, and development well as collation of information. Within the five broad statutory levy-funded agricultural transformation initiatives, there are two broad measurable farmer-centric initiatives, namely enterprise and skills development, that provides direct support to emerging farmers. Enterprise development initiative encompasses access to inputs, infrastructure, funding for soil preparation and cost of accreditation, while skills development initiatives include training and mentorship for farmers and other production chain actors including processing staff and marketers. Together, these components of the initiatives aim to enable participate in the agricultural economy, redress past historical imbalances and contribute to inclusive growth while also alleviating poverty and promoting food security. However, despite this effort, many of black South African farmers are still unable to participate in initiatives related to skills and enterprise development. Therefore, this study, conducted in South Africa, specifically in Limpopo, within the Vhembe District Municipality, aimed to examine the socioeconomic factors that contribute to black emerging macadamia farmers benefiting from enterprise and skills development initiatives funded by statutory levies. Data were collected from a sample of 152 emerging macadamia farmers using a multistage systematic random sampling method. Descriptive statistics, alongside a binary logistic regression model, were used to address the two objectives, which are to identify the statutory levy-funded agricultural transformation initiatives that the black emerging farmers in the Vhembe district benefited from and to identify the socio-economic factors influencing benefiting from the statutory levy-funded agricultural transformation initiatives. From the data collected, 105 benefitted in the enterprise and skills development initiatives, while 45 did not benefit. The binary logistic results revealed that the location of the farmer (P=0.003), years of schooling (P=0.011), farming qualification (P=0.002), years of farming (P=0.009), and membership association (P=0.000) are statistically significant socio-economic factors influencing benefiting from the statutory levy-funded agricultural transformation initiatives. To improve the technical knowledge of farmers, this study recommends location-specific policies and programs that target farmers without formal agricultural qualifications. It is recommended that participation in cooperatives and farmer associations be encouraged, as membership in these organizations ensures better access to resources. Key words: Statutory levy, Macadamia, Agricultural transformation, South Africa, Emerging farmers