A Typology of Smallholder Farmers Based on Agricultural Water Management Practices in Limpopo and Gauteng Provinces, South Africa

Smallholder agriculture plays a crucial role in semi-arid regions such as South Africa, where farmers are often constrained by rainfall variability and limited water availability. In this context, agricultural water management (AWM) plays an important role in supporting smallholder farmers to sustain crop production. Despite the significance of AWM, existing typologies do not adequately capture the diversity of these farmers across different AWM pathways. To capture this diversity, the study aimed to identify a typology of smallholder farmers based on AWM practices across four predefined AWM pathways: rain-fed farming, farmer-led irrigation, smallholder irrigation schemes and wastewater irrigation in the Limpopo and Gauteng provinces. Using a multistage sampling approach supplemented by snowball sampling in Gauteng, primary data were collected from 264 smallholder farmers through face-to-face interviews using a structured questionnaire. Descriptive statistics and agglomerative hierarchical clustering with average linkage were employed for data analysis. Three distinct farmer types were identified: rainfall-dependent farmer type (42.80%), surface water-based irrigation farmer type (23.11%) and groundwater-based irrigation farmer type (34.09%). The results also revealed an association between the identified farmer types and the four AWM pathways. Rain-fed farmers were concentrated in the rainfall-dependent farmer type. All smallholder irrigation scheme farmers and the majority of wastewater irrigators belonged to the surface water-based irrigation farmer type, whereas most farmer-led irrigators belonged to the groundwater-based irrigation farmer type. Overall, the study provides an empirical basis for understanding diversity in AWM practices and informing the design of context-specific interventions aimed at improving water use efficiency and strengthening agricultural sustainability.