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Thank you @mikeschussler for opening this important discussion. I would like to make a few additions in support of the @AfricaCheck case about "farming units". 1/ https://twitter.com/mikeschussler/status/1320584213431754753
Many agricultural researchers & practitioners (myself included) often make a careless view that South Africa has 40 122 commercial farmers, which are down notably from pre-1994’s levels. But what they mean is that SA has 40 122 commercial farming units, not individual farmers. 2/
This number is, however only farming units registered for VAT in 2017. There are many commercial farmers not registered for VAT and generate revenue on a full-time and part-time basis. They are commercial farmers -- black and white -- and outside the SARS business register. 3/
We estimate (based on 2016 Community survey data) that around 214 800 farming households (black and white), who practice some form of commercial farming, were excluded from the agricultural census. 4/
Overall, we don’t have a clear sense of how many farmers there are out there in South Africa. The best data we have is of farming units, which is pat of Census of Commercial Agriculture, etc. done by colleagues at @StatsSA. 5/
The PhD thesis by the late Frikkie Liebenberg of the University of Pretoria’s Department of Agricultural Economics was supervised by Prof Johann Kirsten who is now with Stellenbosch University’s Department of Agricultural Economics, and also cited in the @AfricaCheck article. 6/
Importantly, the decline in farming units has not had a broader negative impact on South Africa’s agricultural output. In fact, the output has nearly doubled since 1994. I explain more in this linked article. 7/ https://wandilesihlobo.com/2019/08/07/25-years-since-democracy-how-has-south-africas-agricultural-sector-performed/
