South African agriculture is comprised of mainly two categories of farmers --the subsistence farmers in the former homeland areas and the large-scale commercial (mainly white) farmers. This is in contrast with the situation in many other countries in the world where one would find a whole range of farm sizes, ranging from the very small or subsistence farmer to the very large farmer/agribusiness. The paper highlights the situation of small-scale farmers in an international context and compares

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... t with the South African situation that is totally different. Within this context, this paper has as basic premise that in South Africa the concept of "small-scale farmer" is usually value-laden, creates wrong impressions and is often viewed in a negative light. "Small-scale" is often equated with a backward, nonproductive, non-commercial, subsistence agriculture that we find in parts of the former homeland areas. This paper endeavours to correct the negative perceptions towards smallscale farms by redefining the small-scale farmer and laying to rest the fallacy that small relates to land size only.