Determinants of successful trading of outbound oranges produced in the Limpopo province, South Africa

Abstract

Success in international trade of oranges for the Limpopo province’s citrus farmers remains a difficult task as phytosanitary constraints and other cultural practices continue to pose serious threats within the citrus supply chain. Based on the said backdrop, a pragmatic study was conducted from September 2020 to September 2021 to identify the determinants of successful trading of outbound oranges produced from the citrus farms in the Limpopo province of South Africa. The study used the mixed methods research design which includes both quantitative and qualitative methods. The first part of the study employed the positivism philosophy, deductive approach, quantitative methodological choice, the survey strategy with cross-sectional time horizon to collect data from the respondents. A standardized questionnaire was administered to 215 sample of citrus producers who were randomly selected from the four production regions (Groblersdal, Hoedspruit, Letsitele and Vhembe) in the study area. The qualitative aspect was in the form of a workshop for further inputs from farmers in developing the framework for increased outbound orange export. The software computer programme used to analyse the data of the study was the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (Version 28.0.). The descriptive statistics, the Multinomial Logistics Regression Model, the Poisson Regression Model, and the Tobit Regression Model were used for the statistical analyses of the study. The study employed Descriptive Statistics to identify the general (demographic and socio-economic) characteristics of farms/farmers. The Poisson Regression Model was used to assess the determinants of orange losses with respect to cultural practices, the multinomial logistic regression model was used to analyse the determinants of modes of disease control used by the citrus farmers, and the Tobit regression model was used to analyse the main factors associated with the successfully traded export oranges produced from citrus farms in the study area. The results of the descriptive statistics of the respondents showed that gender, age group, and education were the most influential factors in the study area. The results of the multinomial regression model indicated that factors such as age group, education, and transport modes were statistically significant. The Poisson Regression Model results indicated that factors such as storage mode, transport mode, farm age and the type of labour used by the respondents were statistically significant. The results of the Tobit regression model showed that factors such as age group, farm ownership, type of labour and transport mode were statistically significant. Overall, the results of this study disagree with the hypothesis that the demographic and socio-economic characteristics of citrus farms do not influence the level of losses of orange outputs with respect to cultural practices. The study results also disagree with the notion that the demographic and socio-economic characteristics of farmers/farms and cultural modes do not significantly influence successful traded outbound oranges from farms in the Limpopo province. Based on the outcome of this study, a framework for the successful trade of export oranges has been developed to serve as a guide to export orange producers in the Limpopo province and provide the basis for informed policy decisions by the government and relevant stakeholders. Overall, this study recommends that the Limpopo province citrus industry can trade successfully if they can consider using the developed framework of this study.