Rural non-farm enterprises: a vehicle for rural development in South Africa?

Abstract

There is a need to determine the extent to which the development and promotion of small-scale rural non-farm enterprises can be a vehicle to promote rural development and alleviate poverty. As a first step in developing an analytical framework to study the link between rural development and the rural non-farm sector in South Africa, this paper provides an analysis of the diversity and behaviour of non-farm enterprises in the rural areas of the Northern and Northwest provinces. From the analysis it seems that there is a lack of diversity in the rural non-farm economy with a complete domination by trading and service related enterprises and a virtual absence of small-scale rural industries.