1,720,992 research outputs found
The nexus of crop and income diversification, commercialisation and household welfare: empirical evidence from Ethiopia.
Get PDFDoctoral Degree. University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg.Abstract available in pdf
The impact of smallholder irrigation and water security on household welfare : the case of Tugela Ferry irrigation scheme in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa.
Get PDFThesis (M.Sc.Agric.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2013.Smallholder irrigation has been promoted across the developing world as a means of poverty reduction and rural development. The potential of smallholder irrigated agriculture in alleviating rural poverty has led the South African government to prioritise and invest in irrigation establishment, rehabilitation and revitalisation. However, the extent to which smallholder irrigation has been able to reduce poverty in the rural areas of South Africa is not well understood. This study, therefore, aimed to contribute to smallholder irrigation literature in two ways. The first objective of this study was to conduct an in-depth impact evaluation of the Tugela Ferry smallholder irrigation scheme on household welfare using the treatment effect and propensity score matching (PSM) methods. Secondly, the study sought to investigate the determinants of household water security, and how the level of water security subsequently affects the farmers’ household welfare. A stratified random sampling technique was used to obtain a sample of 186 irrigators and 70 non-irrigators in the Tugela Ferry area. Descriptive analysis highlighted that although the demographic characteristics of the farmers were not significantly different, the irrigators were characterized by better welfare indicators compared to non-irrigators. The Foster Greer Thorbecke (FGT) poverty indices also indicated that poverty incidence was more pronounced among non-irrigators than among irrigators. The results from the econometric models indicated that irrigation access plays an important role in the welfare of rural households, with irrigators consuming about R2,000 per adult equivalent per year more than the non-irrigators. While irrigation access is important, this study concluded that the poverty reduction effectiveness of smallholder irrigation can further be enhanced by ensuring that the irrigators are water secure. Factors such as age, off-farm income, duration of scheme membership, occurrence of conflicts, method of pumping water, location in the scheme and access to agricultural training influenced household water security. The study recommends that investments in smallholder irrigation should continue for poverty reduction, and that priority should be in ensuring water security not just irrigation participation. The study also recommends the introduction of small motorised pumps among the gravity-reliant irrigators and farmer training on water conservation techniques to improve the farmers’ water security in the smallholder irrigation schemes. Although the study highlighted how perceptions of irrigators could be used to generate the water security index, the water security concept needs further investigation
The values rural households attach to forest resources and their participation in community-based forest management : the case of three communities in KwaZulu-Natal.
Get PDFThesis (M.Sc.Agric)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2012.Community-based forest management (CBFM) offers a better strategy for controlling forest resource degradation while at the same time benefiting local communities. With few exceptions, CBFM had been largely neglected in South Africa in the past. Lately, community forestry has, however, gained impetus through changes in the programs of the Department of Water and Forestry. Despite such efforts, a preliminary survey in some districts of KwaZulu-Natal showed that only a small proportion of households were participating in CBFM. The reason behind the lack of household participation could be that the objectives of most CBFM programs were not in line with the values rural communities attach to forest resources. Some authors have recommended that understanding the values households attach to forest resources is crucial for framing strategies on implementing CBFM. This study, therefore, investigates the values households in KwaSobabili, New Reserve B and Gudwini rural communities of KwaZulu-Natal, in aggregate, attach to forest resources and the factors influencing households to participate in CBFM.
The social choice approach was used to measure the values households attach to forest resources. Hundred and fifty-one (151) household heads were asked to give scores of relative importance to 21 forest products and services on a 5-point Likert scale. Principal Component Analysis was used to generate composite indices or factors representing the values households attach to forest products and services. Ordinary Least Squares regression was then employed to determine the factors influencing such valuation of forests. The Multinomial Logit model was used to estimate the determinants of household position/status on participation in CBFM.
The results showed that households in the three communities, on aggregate, overwhelmingly attach anthropocentric values to forest products and services. This was interpreted to be due to the high levels of household poverty that is rampant among many rural households of South Africa. However, in addition to the anthropocentric values, rural households also attach cultural/moral/spiritual and non-use/option values to forests. No differences existed across the three communities in terms of the anthropocentric and cultural values households attach to forest. However, households in Gudwini (who were managing a natural forest) significantly attached more non-use/option values to forest. This was attributed to the fact that households in this community believed that the natural forests were their heritage and were obliged to pass them to their future generations. It was also found that the anthropocentric and cultural/moral/spiritual values households attach to forest resources influence the decision to participate in CBFM programs. Other socio-economic factors (especially those that influence household‟s dependency on forests and the opportunity cost of their time in managing those forests) such as gender of household head, household size, levels of household income, total amount of social grants, perception of forest degradation, access to electricity, and distance to the forests have also been found to influence the household‟s decision to participate in CBFM. The study recommended that, since poorer societies have more materialistic orientation towards forests, CBFM programs should target poverty alleviation/income generation as the central theme to enhance participation in CBFM. Moreover, local people who depend more on forests and those with a lower opportunity cost of their time in managing forests could be targeted to ensure sustainable CBFM programs
Spatial prioritisation of conservation areas on the fringes of KwaZulu-Natal protected areas : application of the characteristics framework using tourism competitiveness.
Get PDFM. Sc. Agric. University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg 2014.Prioritisation of conservation areas has become a major area of study over the last few decades as a result of greatly increased rates of biodiversity loss and extinction with the rapidly expanding human population and development. These extinctions are most commonly associated with habitat loss, the prevention of which is part of the mandate of Ezemvelo KwaZulu-Natal Wildlife (EKZNW). Prioritisation has historically been aimed at areas of predominantly biological importance. Currently, EKZNW faces requests from the South African government to provide jobs, develop communities, and conserve biodiversity. This study proposes that right from the outset of the identification of potential conservation areas in KZN, the tourism potential should be a factor considered by decision makers in prioritisation. In order to present such a case, the dissertation considers the role of competitive advantage within tourism. Multiple linear regression is used to quantify the competitive advantage gained by KZN nature-based tourism destinations by virtue of macro environmental and locational factors. The results of the analyses of competitiveness are used to predict the relative advantage of a number of potential conservation sites currently being considered by EKZNW staff.
The thesis is the first, to the author’s knowledge, to consider the prioritisation of conservation areas using tourism competitive advantage at a macro-level as a tool for decision making. This tool could save costs of in-depth tourism feasibility studies at destinations that could potentially be shown to have low potential competitive advantage. Funds could then rather be focused on further feasibility studies at destinations already shown to have some form of competitive advantage.
The study analyses secondary financial data, collected from a variety of EKZNW protected areas with different accommodation types. The sources of primary data on the marketed attributes of the destinations are pamphlets and EKZNW internet sites. Panel data are analysed using Tobit regression to identify the effects of changes in attributes of destinations on competitiveness. Three variables identified in the literature are used as proxies for competitiveness: price, occupancy percentage and revenue per available room. The Tobit analyses are supported by estimations using Generalised Least Squares (GLS) regression and the results were found to be relatively robust to changes in estimation techniques. Marginal effects from the Tobit regression analyses are used to rank the relative competitiveness and order priority of conservation for a number of potential sites under consideration by EKZNW.
With regard to prioritisation, the Tobit models estimated that the most influential macro-environmental factors influencing the competitive advantage of destinations are:
Their location beside the ocean,
The presence of the Big Five (lion, leopard, elephant, rhino and buffalo),
The size of the destination protected area, and
The distance from Johannesburg.
With regard to competitiveness, important management or destination factors affecting the competitiveness of destinations were:
Star rating (i.e. Quality of resort), (star-rated destinations had increased competitiveness),
Provision of breakfast within accommodation fee, (competitiveness was lower at destinations that included breakfast in accommodation fees),
Facilities inside the accommodation for self-catering, (such facilities are preferred), and
Pricing strategies that reflect the relative demand.
The thesis results suggest that it is vital to consider the competitive advantage of a site when assessing the site for conservation. A number of the recommendations can be drawn from the study regarding the marketing and management of current EKZNW tourism destinations: the incomes and annual Rand turn-over of these sites could be significantly improved by focussing on the variety of potential tourists and targeting specific niche markets, such as birders and visitors interested in historic or cultural sites. An important future focus for EKZNW could be to set competitive pricing relative to the experience offered in order to improve their overall performance. This is especially necessary when there are large discrepancies between the value placed on an attribute by EKZNW (e.g. high prices for birding) and the behaviour displayed by tourists using that attribute (e.g. low occupancy levels in birding destinations)
A study on financial opportunity costs of growing local varieties of sorghum in Ethiopia: Implications for on-farm conservation policy
No full textEvaluating farmers' and consumers' acceptance of new cooking banana hybrids in Uganda : micro-economic analysis and policy implications.
Get PDFPh. D. University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg 2014.Banana is an important world food crop supporting the food security and livelihoods of millions of smallholders in tropical countries of Africa, including Uganda. Despite the crop‟s importance in Uganda, its productivity has been declining over time due to pests (banana weevils and nematodes), diseases (black Sigatoka, banana bacterial wilt), soil fertility decline, and socio-economic constraints (high costs of managing the crop, competition for labour with other enterprises, marketing difficulties and low genetic diversity, among others). The decline in banana yields has resulted in food shortages, thus putting consumers heavily dependent on banana at risk of food insecurity, particularly in most rural areas of Uganda where the crop is regarded a staple food.
In response to this trend, the National Banana Research Programme (NBRP) in Uganda initiated a breeding programme in 1994 using a participatory plant breeding approach. The programme has so far developed four new banana 'matooke' hybrid varieties (M2, M9, M14, and M17). These varieties have been under evaluation in different agro-ecological regions of Uganda since 2008 with Mbwazirume (a traditional variety) as a local check. Despite the research and extension efforts to popularise these hybrids in Uganda, to date, no attempt had been made to document consumer acceptance and the likelihood of farmer adoption of these hybrid bananas. Little is known about the socioeconomic factors that influence farmers‟ early-stage adoption of the banana hybrids, farmers‟ preferences of the varieties, consumers‟ willingness to purchase the bananas of the hybrids when found on the market, and the likelihood of these hybrid varieties contributing to solving rural household food insecurity and low incomes.
Given this context, the objectives of this study were to: (i) analyse farmers‟ preferences regarding varietal attributes and assess how these preferences, along with farm and farmer specific characteristics, determine the variations in the levels of early stage adoption of hybrid banana varieties in Uganda with the application of factor analysis and a Zero-Inflated Poisson (ZIP) regression model; (ii) analyse the effects of farmer characteristics, variety attributes and agro-ecological conditions on banana variety choice in Uganda, with the application of a multinomial logit model; and (iii) determine the consumption characteristics and sensory attributes that are most important in predicting the likelihood of consumers‟
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purchase of hybrid banana varieties using binary logit models. The research focused on four regions of Uganda (namely, Mid-Western, Central, Western and Eastern) representing six major agro-ecological zones, including the Lake Albert crescent area, Lake Victoria crescent, Western highlands, Southern highlands, South-east and Eastern agro-ecologies where the National Banana Research Programme of the National Agricultural Research Organisation is evaluating the new hybrid banana varieties. The data were collected from 454 farmers that included participating (149) and non-participating (305) respondents, and 908 consumers that participated in farmer field days to evaluate various hybrid banana varieties from across the four regions of Uganda.
The results show that, compared to Mbwazirume, four of the hybrids (M2,M9,M14 and M17) are preferred in terms of production characteristics (resistance to Sigatoka, weevils, nematodes, tolerance to poor soils, good bunch size, and sucker production) but are regarded as inferior in terms of consumption characteristics (taste, colour when cooked, and flavour). Field observations suggest that farmers‟ preferences for production attributes dominate in their variety choice decisions. The hybrid M9 is regarded as having a relatively good performance with respect to most of the production and consumption characteristics.
The results suggest that land constraint, taste and regional location (central region compared with eastern region) were negatively associated with hybrid variety choice while perceptions that hybrid bananas could reduce food insecurity and enhance tolerance to pests and diseases were positively associated with probabilities of hybrid variety choice. Probabilities of choosing hybrids for food security increase in favour of M2 (by 0.06) and M9 (by 0.28), and decrease for M2 (by 0.23), M9 (by 0.07) and M14 (by 0.09) due to unfavourable taste relative to Mbwazirume. Among the consumers, the study suggests that hybrids M2 and M9 were not significantly (P>0.05) different in terms of taste, flavour, texture and colour, while differences were observed between M14 and M17 when introduced on the market. Hybrid M14 is regarded as better than M17 in terms of taste, flavour and texture.
The results show that the Eastern region would pay significantly higher prices for the hybrid varieties compared to other regions of Uganda. This result could be attributed to the limited availability of cooking banana varieties in this region. The results suggest that age, education, good taste, flavour and texture were the most important factors that are likely to positively influence the purchase of most of the hybrid banana varieties
The economics of smallholder irrigation water management : institutions, water-use values and farmer participation in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa.
Get PDFPh. D. University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg 2014.In recognition of the role of smallholder irrigation farming in ensuring better rural
livelihoods, the South African government has made substantial public investment in
irrigation infrastructure. The most important perceived problems of communally-managed
irrigation schemes in South Africa are the provision of an assured water supply and
institutional support relating to water and land allocation, appropriate management, managing
local conflicts and farmer participation and collective action in managing water resources.
However, if one is to consider international standards as a yardstick, most communallymanaged
irrigation schemes in South Africa are undergoing Irrigation Management Transfer
(IMT), where the responsibility of managing, operating and maintaining irrigation schemes
becomes that of the farmers instead of the state.
The most critical issue, given the history of poor performance of smallholder farmers in
South Africa, is the extent of users' involvement in irrigation water management. While user
participation in water resource management is a South African and international principle, the
question is whether smallholder farmers appreciate the importance of and possible benefits to
be accrued from the participation. The objectives of the study were: to assess water
governance and institutional arrangements and their effects on irrigation management in the
Mooi River Irrigation Scheme (MRIS) in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa; to assess the
implication of institutional and management systems on water-use security; to assess the level
of farmer participation in collective agricultural water management and the factors affecting
users' willingness to do so; and, lastly, to estimate and explain the variation in average
irrigation water values as a basis to understand the water management challenges at
smallholder farm level. The study used a number of data collection and analytical techniques
to achieve the specific objectives. Participatory rural appraisals, which included focus group
discussions and key informant interviews, and three household surveys comprising of 60, 71
and 307 respondents were conducted to answer the specific questions. Water governance and institutional arrangements are critical in shaping the long-term
sustainability of smallholder irrigation schemes. The Institutional Analysis and Development
(IAD) framework and Ostrom's eight institutional design principles were applied for
assessing the linkages and effectiveness of institutions governing the management and use of
irrigation water resources in the Mooi River Irrigation Scheme. The study found that water user participation was hindered by farmers' lack of understanding of water policies that are
driving the formalisation of local water management systems, which include the registration
of water user associations and the requirement for farmers to contribute towards the
sustainability of such associations. The role and relevance of water-user associations as
formal local water governing institutions and their linkages to informal management
structures like local irrigation committees and traditional leadership are weak and require
farmer training to enhance coherent institutional linkages at local level. Weak regulatory
instruments characterised by poor rule enforcement mechanisms, lack of secured property
rights (especially for land) and lack of water security impact irrigation water management
among smallholder farmers negatively.
Irrigators in community-managed schemes have varying levels of water access. However, the
greatest challenge in these schemes is lack of understanding of the level of water-use security
and the influence of local management systems. As such, the study assessed the implications
of institutional arrangements on agricultural water-use security. The study recognised the
multifaceted nature of agricultural water-use security and therefore applied the Lancaster-
Maler model in the conceptualisation of water use at farm level. After applying Principal
Component Analysis (PCA) to construct water-use security indices based on the desired
attributes of irrigation water, the Ordinary Least Square (OLS) regression technique was
applied to identify factors affecting water use at farm level. The results show that agricultural
water-use security can be grouped into three main dimensions, namely: physical on-farm
availability of irrigation water, existence of effective enforcement mechanisms pertaining to
water appropriation, and effective involvement of water users in decision-making processes.
The study points to the fact that water-use security at farm level is relative and therefore no
absolute measures can be applied. Furthermore, the three dimensions of agricultural water-use
security are affected by, among other things, farmers' experience in irrigation, household
income, effectiveness of irrigation committees to enforce appropriation rules, membership of
an irrigation scheme, membership of a water user association, as well as resource and cost
sharing. To ensure improvement in agricultural water-use security among small-scale
irrigation farmers, institutional arrangements that promote the effective participation of
farmers in decision-making and conflict management mechanisms are recommended. This
can be augmented by creating mechanisms that ensure equitable sharing of resources and
costs among common pool resource users. Improving the capacity of local institutions and management structures to minimise unsanctioned access to common pool resources (CPRs)
may also improve water-use security.
In line with current focus by most developing countries, including South Africa, to transfer
management of communal irrigation schemes from state to farmers, an understanding of the
determinants of farmer participation in collective activities forms the basis for improving the
management of previously government-funded schemes. Empirical results of Tobit and the
Ordered Probit models, estimated using cross-sectional data from 307 randomly selected
smallholder irrigators, suggest that collective activities are negatively affected by low farmer-literacy
levels. Furthermore, the number of consecutive days per week that farmers go
without access to irrigation water was used as a proxy for water scarcity, and was a
significant determinant of farmer participation. The existing incentives for water-users in the
Mooi River Irrigation Scheme were weak and need to be improved to encourage farmer
participation in collective water management. This calls for strengthening of local water
management systems and institutional policies to ensure maximum benefits from
participating in collective activities.
In a bid to understand on-farm water utilisation and management processes, water valuation
was performed using irrigation data collected from 60 farmers over a single production cycle
spanning the time from planting to harvesting. Furthermore, the SAPWAT 3 model was used
to generate secondary data on irrigation water requirements for selected crops predominantly
grown by farmers in MRIS. The residual value method was applied to both primary and
secondary data to estimate water values and understand the factors affecting the magnitude of
the values across irrigation plots.
The results indicated that most farmers in the Mooi River Irrigation Scheme applied less
water (average of 61.4%) to their potato crop, ranging between 14% and 174%, when
compared to the irrigation water requirements. Crops with relatively low gross margins like
maize and dry beans yielded lower average water values of ZAR1.31/m3 and ZAR1.09/m3 respectively, while tomatoes yielded ZAR11.78/m3. Based on primary data gathered over the
entire production cycle, the average water value for potatoes was ZAR0.50/m3, ranging from
negative ZAR17.57/m3 to +ZAR12.66/m3, which were lower than that imputed from
secondary provincial budget estimates, i.e. ZAR2.10/m3. This suggests poor performance by
farmers in the study area. The variability of water value was significantly influenced by the location of the irrigated plot along the main canal, which accounted for 12.5% of the
variation. The number of irrigation cycles and education level of the farmer explained 5.8%
and 5.9%, respectively, of the variation in average water values. The study illustrates that
where water is provided free of charge to a large group of users, unequal distribution, poor
management and inefficient use are the challenges commonly encountered. Negative water
values also revealed under-performance and the potential high level of indirect government
subsidisation of smallholder farmers, mainly through provision of irrigation infrastructure.
In sum, the study has shown the complexity of managing common pool resources at a
localized level, and pointed to the need to further understand the institutional dynamics in
which smallholder irrigation farmers operate. In view of the parallel arrangements between
formal and informal water management structures in communally managed schemes, it is
recommended that the traditional authorities be incorporated in the water-user associations as
ex-officio members and be the custodians of rule enforcement at community level. This might
improve compliance to appropriation rules, where the traditional courts can be used
concurrently with water user associations to settle local water disputes at community level.
Furthermore, communally-managed irrigation schemes still lack capacity for self-management
and the negative water values signify poor performance. It is therefore
recommended that both human and financial resources as well as technical backup still need
to be provided through government support programmes to avoid the widespread collapse of
communally-managed irrigation schemes in South Africa. However, such support should
mainly be through capacity building, training and provision of expertise in irrigation
management to enable the users to manage the scheme on their own, while putting
mechanisms in place to ensure that irrigators pay for the maintenance of the infrastructure using returns from irrigation farming
Smallholder farmers' satisfaction with the content of agricultural information, and their preferences among the sources: Empirical evidence from Kwazulu-Natal, South Africa
Get PDFPotentially, smallholder agriculture remains a significant sector in the South African economy because of its central role in developing a healthy economy in terms of improving poor people's earnings, employment opportunities, and protecting natural resources. However, access to agricultural information that informs smallholder farmers’ decisions remains important bottleneck to this sub-sector. There is scant knowledge on smallholders’ demand for agricultural information. This study seeks to assess farmers’ satisfaction with the content of agricultural information and their preferences among the various sources. Ordered probit model was employed to examine this issue using data from 458 smallholder irrigation farmers around four irrigation schemes in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. The results revealed that the decision to use different information channels is affected by institutional factors and farmers’ socio-economic attributes. The key factors behind their satisfaction with the content of agricultural information include gender, occupation, group membership, access to credit, community meetings, and influence from fellow farmers. It is recommended that government, non-governmental organizations, and other stakeholders should make concerted efforts to improve the delivery, access, and use of up to date and relevant agricultural information and knowledge. Also, farmers should be encouraged to be members of local informal groups as this is likely toenhance their access to information . Finally, policies, strategies, programs and projects for smallholders should be designed accounting for their information needs and preferences, considering developments such as the use of ICT
An attribute-based index of coffee diversity and implications for on-farm conservation in Ethiopia
No full textExplaining smallholder aspirations to expand irrigation crop production in Makhathini and Ndumo-B, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa
Get PDFThis paper explores the factors influencing aspirations of smallholders to expand irrigation farming activities. It demonstrates the importance of aspirations to informing agricultural policies and understanding the behaviour of farmers and their vision regarding their farms. The Heckman two-step regression model was used to determine factors affecting aspirations/willingness of farmers to expand in the first stage and their ability to achieve or realise those aspirations in the second stage. The paper identifies five key factors that influence farmer aspirations (willingness to expand), i.e., positive psychological capital, access to markets, access to credit, land tenure security, and membership in other social groups. Gender, asset ownership, access to markets and local resource use conflicts were significant in determining farmers’ ability to achieve those aspirations. The study reveals the importance of developing positive psychological capital among smallholders and affirms the need for affordable production credit. To better make use of irrigation schemes, there is a need to build the capacity of smallholders to achieve their aspirations through empowering women and improving access to physical assets and markets. Land tenure security concerns need addressing while supporting institutions that promote social interaction and learning remain vital for the growth of the smallholder irrigation sector
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