Smallholder farmers’ awareness of biofuel crops in the Eastern Cape Province, South Africa

Priviledge Cheteni

doi:10.21511/ee.07(3).2016.09

Abstract

In this study, 157 smallholder farmers from the OR Tambo and Chris Hani district municipality in South Africa were purposively sampled to participate in a survey. The objective was to identify the factors that influence smallholder farmers’ awareness of biofuel crops. Using a binary logistic model, it was found that the variables: gender, household income, membership in association, land utilization and qualification were statistically significant in influencing farmers’ awareness of biofuel crops. Therefore, it is recommended that the South African government should identify the smallholder farmers targeted for the biofuel program by their social status, as pointed in this study. Keywords: awareness, binary model, biofuel industrial policy, energy, shared growth initiative, smallholder farmers. JEL Classification: Q1, Q2, Q4, Q5

Highlights

Biofuels are described as solid, liquid, or gaseous fuel consisting of, or derived from biomass
Factors that were identified to be influencing farmers to be aware of biofuel crops were gender, household income, membership in association, land utilization, and qualification
Evidence from literature pointed that smallholder farmers usually struggle to increase their productivity partly because of the lack of awareness to certain agricultural innovations that can improve their production

Summary

Introduction

Biofuels are described as solid, liquid, or gaseous fuel consisting of, or derived from biomass. Many countries have embraced the idea of creating a biofuel industry. This has seen the booming of biofuel production worldwide, with ethanol production quintupled since 2000 and biodiesel production increasing 25 times (Wiggins et al, 2011). One of the reason is that energy demand has increased and it will continue to rise, especially in the developing world. In response to this challenge, a number of countries have drafted policies that are envisaged to create the biofuel industry. South Africa is one of the countries that launched a Biofuel Industrial Strategy Policy (BIS) to create a conducive environment for the biofuels market. The strategy was developed with a specific mandate of stimulating rural development leading to a contribution in the Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative (AsgiSA), and reducing poverty through income-earning opportunities (BIS, 2007)

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Conclusion