Smallholder agriculture is not achieving its pivotal role of attaining food security in
developing countries like South Africa. In rural areas, smallholder farmer’s efficiencies have
always been hindered mostly by some factors beyond their control such Agro-ecological
factors. The challenge is how agriculture can be a key component of the drivers of rural
economic development. This article presents a scenario simulation of small farms’ production
efficiencies in the Eastern Cape Province, South Africa in three major agro-ecological zones
namely; Grassland, Savannah and Karoo. A combination of pedo-climatic and socioeconomic
data in the selected villages were collected from 223 respondents in the three major
agro-ecological zones: 77 in the Grassland zone, 73 in the Savannah and Karoo zones
respectively. The Stochastic Frontier Analysis (SFA) in the Cobb-Douglas functional form
was used to model technical efficiency of the integrated small farms under different
productive scenarios. The stochastic frontier analysis revealed a declining impact of soil
fertility status but improved efficiency under climate variability. Overall, integrated small
farms in the study areas are inefficient in their production exercise but comparatively, they
are efficient under climate condition than other productive environments. There is potential
for smallholder farmers to increase efficiency levels and thus total output by raising yields
per hectare. In the short-term, the use of more intensive land-augmenting inputs such as
fertiliser and irrigation in medium and low soil fertility agro-ecological zones can enhance
productivity. In the long run, output can rely on improvements in technical efficiency.