Abstract:
This paper informs government policy insofar as it relates to the agricultural and rural de-
velopment sectors and infrastructure investment within these sectors. The paper first quantifies
the role of agriculture in the South African economy. This is done within the context of, inter
alia, food security, agriculture's contribution to gross domestic product (GDP), economic linkages and multipliers with respect to the agricultural sector, as well as agriculture's employment
creation and external stabilisation capacity. Investment in the agricultural and rural sectors are
then analysed with a view of supporting the argument that agriculture's role in the economy is
sufficiently important to warrant regenerative strategies, including renewed emphasis on agricultural and rural infrastructure investment by South African policy makers. The quantification
of the agricultural sector in relation to the total economy and that of agricultural and rural
infrastructure investment are investigated against the backdrop of declining government support, increasing production risks due to a variety of exogenous events like climate change, and
increasing dynamic trade impacts. In this paper, the authors offer both supporting arguments
in terms of current economic policy and recommendations for more decisive policy measures
aimed at agricultural regeneration and rural infrastructure investment.
