Determinants of challenges of smallholder and emerging sheep and goat farmers in Thabo Mofutsanyana district municipality, Free State Province

Abstract

Developing countries rely heavily on smallholder and emerging farmers to ensure food security but despite this, farmers face many challenges that hinder them from producing efficiently, forcing them to focus on home consumption over market-driven farming, to ensure a sustainable and self-reliant farming practice. Smallholder farmers remain with challenges in securing capital to purchase agricultural inputs, pay for transport to sell agricultural outputs, and to invest in agricultural machinery. Sometimes farmers find themselves in difficult situations where they are forced to get credit from illegal moneylenders, at high interest rates or sell their produce at a reduced price to receive cash, and they still need to cover their expenditure for survival. Amongst others, farming resources, land as well as comprehensive agricultural support restrict smallholder and emerging farmers' access to valuable markets. The aim of this study was to identify and analyse the determinants of challenges of smallholder and emerging sheep and goat farmers in the study area by highlighting key factors in order to create an enabling environment for the farmers to improve livestock management, production, income and valuable markets. A stratified random sampling technique was used to select 145 participants from a pool sampling frame of 251 participants. A semi-structured questionnaire was used to collect the data by interviewing 145 selected smallholder farmers. The Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS), version 28.0, was used to analyse the data. Descriptive statistics and the probit regression model were used to analyse the determinants of the managerial, production, marketing and financial challenges for smallholder and emerging sheep and goat farmers. The results of the study show that only 19% of the participants had business plans and the absence of business plans impacted on farm and livestock management negatively. The probit results indicated that the age of the respondents, off-farm activities and access to market information had a positive and significant association with managerial challenges. This implies that the older a farm owner gets the more they will likely experience managerial challenges. It is recommended that youth and women must be encouraged to engage in sheep and goat farming for better management and that farmers must focus their attention on livestock farming instead of off-farm income-generating activities. The Department of Agriculture and municipalities should initiate extension programme that focus on farm and livestock management as well as access to market information. Furthermore, the results indicate that 89% of farmers aspire to increase production, however challenges such as size of land (29%), distance to the market (21%) and no access to the market (17%) are some of the factors that hinder farmers from achieving their goal of increasing scale of production. The results also indicate that 42% of farmers do not receive veterinary services while about 63.4% do not access feed in times of drought. Additionally, the results indicate that age, size of household, level of education, role of respondent, farm management records, cost per trip to the market, total number of sheep sold in 2019 have a positive and significant association with production challenges, with all other factors held constant. This implies that the older a farm owner gets the more likely they will experience production challenges. To manage production challenges, farmers need the support of younger people i.e., youth in the farm and must hire farm managers and utilise farm management records effectively. The more a farmer spends on trips to the market, they are more likely they will experience marketing challenges. An increasing size of household negatively impacts on farmers’ finances and time as a farmer will dedicate the two to the family instead of on farm production. Farmer must not sell sheep in high numbers so that they do not compromise the breeding herd. The study’s results indicate that only 28% of participants have received financial support from the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development (DARD), while 17.12% of participants applied for loans and about 8% of loan applications were rejected. The results revealed that access to financial support impacts negatively on the farm and livestock business. Furthermore, the probit results indicated that gender, age, level of education, engage in off-farm income generating activity, have farm business plan, access to agricultural information, size of land, cost per single trip to the market, total number of sheep sold have a positive and significant association with financial challenges. It is therefore recommended that farmers be encouraged to have business plan, sell more sheep, and focus on the farm instead of off-farm income generating activities for better financial management. DARD and municipalities should initiate funding programmes that focus on farm, sheep, and goat livestock as well as production. The results also show that 59% of respondents indicated that there are other markets closer to the farm than where they are currently selling livestock and 63% of farmers have access to market information. Distance to the market, being unable to supply required quantities and not having contracts with markets are amongst the reasons for farmers not being able to supply other markets closer to their farm. The results indicate that from the challenges experienced, of respondents have a challenge with the size of land (15%), lack of transport (12%) and lack of finance (3%). Therefore, the results suggests that amongst others, farmers who are involved in day-to-day operations of the farm and have access to market information have a negative and significant association with marketing challenges, with all other factors held constant. The results indicate that the respondents have identified markets that are closer to their farms than where they are currently selling; however, majority of the respondents are selling their produce at the local market and around the community to avoid spending a lot of money per trip to the market. The findings also show that access to market information can improve farmers’ marketing challenge if used effectively.