This paper endeavours to investigate agricultural productivity growth of table grapes in South Africa as there is a paucity of literature on the subject. Using panel data from five table grape growing regions in South Africa for the years 2009 to 2017, we estimate the constituents of total factor productivity (TFP) using the Malmquist index through the application of Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) method with distance function approach. The results show that the industry experienced a decline in TFP for a large part of the reference period, but made some progress in 2015 and 2017. Initially, the decline was due to regression in technical change (TC) and efficiency change (TE), but the latter improvement was due to good progress in TC and excellent weather conditions. This shows that policies in table grape industry should focus on adoption of new technology and climate change solutions to improve TFP.

Keywords: Total factor productivity, Table grapes, Regions, South Africa