Determinants of Agricultural Employment and Wages in South Africa

The main objective of this paper is to analyze the agricultural sector and identify the major factors impacting it's performance. This paper contains a situational analysis of the agricultural sector, a review of factors that contribute to the growth of the agricultural sector and the relative significance of factors impacting on output, employment, wages and investments of the sector. The situational analysis involves a discussion of general trends, regional differences and possible commodity specific differences with comparison to other sectors of the economy. A qualitative analysis of the factors affecting the sector is also provided. The paper looks at both the supply and demand side factors impacting on the contributions of the agricultural sector to the economy with particular emphasis on employment and wages. Specification and econometric estimation of output, employment, investment, import and export equations are undertaken for the agricultural sector.