Various institutions have offered a range of training to smallholder farmers. These trainings have been geared towards improving farming skills to improve yields and management of their farms. However, despite the training, smallholder farmers are reported to produce below the potential of their farms. Such information is paramount to enable the creation and design of effective capacity-building interventions. A skills audit was carried out on 179 smallholder farmers to evaluate socio-economic factors that drive the existing skills of smallholder farmers in the North West province. The North West province was purposively chosen because it had the highest percentage of beneficiaries from state land allocation projects, accounting for 65% of the total. Chi-square tests and discriminant analysis were performed to analyse data. Research findings revealed that 2% of the farmers rated their planting and crop maintenance proficiency above average. Few (39.3%) farmers indicated average to excellent animal reproduction and health care skills. Gender, tertiary education, age, and fluency in speaking English and Afrikaans were socio-economic factors that drove farmers’ choice of skills. It is recommended that a comprehensive training plan for each allocated farm be developed for viable and thriving enterprises geared towards building sustainable, inclusive, resilient agri-food systems, including technical support, mentorship, and coaching. Participation of youth in training and offering training in languages that farmers can speak fluently is recommended.