ABSTRACT
‘South Africans rightly regard the land and its potential development as the most important economic feature of their country’. Many reasons, chief among them the expansion of the population and the growth of agriculturally non-productive urban centres, have made it imperative to expand the national food supply. Farms vary greatly in size, from the vast 10,000-acre ranches in northwestern Cape Province to farms of less than 100 acres in areas of intensive agriculture near towns or on irrigated land. Arising from the limitations of the environment, and, in particular, low rainfall, pastoral farming has always been the most characteristic form of land-use and has always provided a major share of the agricultural income. It is reckoned that 80 per cent of South Africa is suited only to pastoralism, and in many parts pastoralism of a very limited nature.
