Entrepreneurial Social Capital Support on the Growth of Small Holder Rural Farmers: Augmenting Livelihoods in Honde Valley, Zimbabwe

Abstract

This research presents specific insights on entrepreneurial social capital support on the growth of rural small holder farmers to augment livelihoods in Zimbabwe. The smallholder farmers continue to employ every season of the year. The study sought to investigate the impact of entrepreneurial social capital support on small holder rural farmers’ growth in Honde Valley, Zimbabwe. This was motivated by the need to fillup the academic gap on the entrepreneurial social capital support on the growth of agrarian small holder rural farmers. In order to achieve the study objective, a crosssectional survey was carried out using questionnaires and a purposive random sampling technique of 50 rural small holder farmers was considered reliable. The data was collected and analyzed using the statistical packages for social sciences software (SPSS). The findings were presented using both tabular and graphical presentations. Statistics in the study demonstrate that entrepreneurial social capital support augment Livelihoods in Zimbabwe and it’s a means of raising small holder farmer working capital and contribute to their growth. The main reason for entrepreneurial social capital support was for expansion and growth of small holder farmer businesses. This method explains why most rural small holder farmers do not rely on formal borrowing. Finally the businesses that received social capital reported growth .The study recommended that government should set a policy to promote entrepreneurial social capital support systems. From research, it is clear that there exists a large unexploited method of social capital mobilization and its utilization is potential for the growth of agrarian Small Holder rural Farmers.