Abstract
The study is aimed at establishing the impact of access to capital, access to markets, access to information and access to technology on competitiveness of smallholder farmers on the market in Ethekwini Metropolitan in South Africa. A questionnaire is used as a research instrument. A total of 100 participants was sampled from a population of 485 smallholder farmers in Ethekwini Metropolitan. From the sample, 21% were male and 79% were female. All respondents were all from the African race. The study reveales that access to funding, access to markets, access to information and access to technology not only influenced viability of the smallholder farmers in Ethekwini Metropolitan, but also that the smallholder farmers were not getting enough access to all four stated variables. Of the 100 farmers, 66% of the smallholder farmers had plots with less than 0.5 acres under cultivation. Another finding was that even though the farmers had basic tools to work with, they required funding to acquire irrigation, water storage facilities, transport and tractors. As far as passing information to farmers is concerned, the farmers mostly preferred extension visits.The study recommends that well equipped agricultural resource centres be established in all the agricultural hubs. It is also recommended that the government employs an asset based community development approach when funding smallholder farmers and that the smallholder farmers and other stakeholders be conscientized on the concept of sustainable farming
Highlights
Literature reviewBerdegue and Fuentealba (2011), criticized the size based definition, as they claim that it does not show the farm’s labor arrangement, efficiency and productivity
Data collected from respondents by means of questionnaires are presented in the form of graphs and tables
Van Schalkwyk et al (2012) suggest that, smallholder farmers in South Africa were given access to land, no title deeds were issued to the same farmers for the pieces of land they are farming
Summary
Berdegue and Fuentealba (2011), criticized the size based definition, as they claim that it does not show the farm’s labor arrangement, efficiency and productivity. Berdegue and Fuentealba (2011) described smallholder agriculture as comprising of farms which are operated by farm families and whose labor is mainly from these families. The first and coincidentally the larger subgroup is referred to as “subsistence farmers”. These farmers derive a large fraction of their household income from nonfarm sources, which include providing labor for non-farming activities, remittances, as well as social support services. The second subgroup is the commercial family farmers, which, at times, hire a handful of permanent labor to work on the farm. This study will not distinguish between subsistence farmers and commercial family farmers
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
