Analysis of socio-economic impact of comprehensive agricultural support programme on agrarian reform farmers of Sedibeng disrict municipality in Gauteng province South Africa

Abstract

This study examined the impact of the Comprehensive Agricultural Support Programme (CASP) on the livelihood of land and agrarian reform farmers in Sedibeng District Municipality of Gauteng Province, South Africa. The programme serves as a post settlement support to agricultural projects. Post settlement support is very critical to achieving many projects of South Africa and other neighbouring countries. The study diagnosed the key variables that could be used in reforming, correcting and tightening in order to have a sustainable agricultural project. The study also indicated the variables that could have positive and negative contributions on the effects of obtaining the socio-economic deliverables of the CASP agrarian reform farmers. A comprehensive structured questionnaire was designed and used to collect data from 300 agrarian reform farmers in Sedibeng District Municipality. The study employed Probit Regression model and Propensity Score Matching to estimate the impact of CASP on farmers’ income. The key findings were that CASP promoted the livelihood of the rural economy by increasing farmers’ incomes. CASP had a high impact on the income of agrarian reform farmers who benefited on it than non-benefited. Socio-economic and institutional factors were found to influence participation in CASP. The survey data indicate that the majority of respondents who participate in CASP (74.4%) were males while 25.6% were female. About (32%) of CASP participants had attained primary school education, 28.3% had secondary school education, and 23.3% had education at the college level while 16.4% acquired high school education. For non- CASP participant, 71.6% was male and 28.4% was female. About (32.1%) of non-CASP participants had acquired primary education, 23.5% had secondary school education, 25.9% had education at the college level while 18.5% acquired high school education About 53.9% representing the CASP participants was married while only 6.8% was single, 19.2 was divorced and 20.1 are widowed. The percentage of non-CASP participant that were married was about 51.9% and 8.6% are single, 23.5% are divorced while 16.0 are widowed. About 22.8% of the CASP participant indicated that their household heads were employed while 77.8% are unemployed. About16.9% of CASP participants had obtained qualification in agriculture while the majority (83.1%) did not have any qualification in agriculture. Only 18.5% of non-CASP participant obtained qualification in agriculture while 81.5% have not obtained any qualification in agriculture. The study recommended that CASP be extended to more agrarian reform farmers and it will promote food security and sustainable strategy to achieve the post 2015 development agenda (2030 agenda-succeed the Millennium Development Goals) for sustainable development goals targets ending poverty and hunger. In order to achieve more participation, factors identified to influence CASP participation needed to be given more attention critical in policy formulation.