The Development of a Strategic Partnership Framework to Facilitate Increased Financial Inclusion of Emerging Farmers in South Africa
- Authors: Magida, Phiwokuhle Thulani
- Date: 2022-04
- Subjects: Agricultural industries , Farmers' markets
- Language: English
- Type: Master's theses , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10948/57760 , vital:58232
- Description: Twenty seven years into democracy, emerging farmers are still considered not to be participating meaningfully in the lucrative agricultural markets. There are many academic research studies that examined the challenges faced by emerging farmers in South Africa. These studies attribute those challenges to the inability of emerging farmers to participate meaningfully in the markets. Agriculture in South Africa, though not the largest, remains one of the largest employing sectors and a source of raw material for the growth of South African economy. Therefore, the agenda of creating successful emerging farmers remains a pertinent issue in the context of South African agriculture and its growing economy. Since 1990 the government has taken on the responsibility of land redistribution and the creation of successful emerging farmers. Evidence shows that there has been little to no success in the latter which has led to remodelling of old policies and implementing them as anew. The reality is that market integration (creating successful emerging farmers) of emerging farmers is a complex problem and requires complex solutions. Literature suggests that multi-stakeholder partnerships are an ideal solution to complex societal problems. Nonetheless, the success of multi-stakeholder partnerships depends on how well the stakeholders involved engage. The study assumes that if the stakeholders involved in the development of emerging farmers engage optimally, the business problem of financial exclusion (lack of access to finance) of emerging farmers can be resolved. This would result in increased market participation by emerging farmers. Hence, the primary research objective of this study is to investigate the factors that influence optimum engagement of multi-stakeholder partnerships between the private, public and non-profit sectors involved in the financing of emerging farmers in South Africa, and subsequently to develop a strategic partnership framework to guide these strategic conversations and financing decisions. This study was based on the positivistic paradigm and utilised a non-probability sampling method called snowball sampling to draw the sample. The sample was comprised of farmers, technical people, managers, and executive managers from the role players involved in the development of emerging farmers. A self-administered questionnaire was utilised as the method to solicit responses from the respondents vi which was sent via an online platform. The data was analysed through a statistical software programme, STATISTICA. Using Cronbach Alpha co-efficient and Exploratory Factor Analysis, the reliability and validity of the instrument was tested. Where sufficient evidence could not be given, variables were removed and not considered for further statistical analysis. The significance, strength, and direction of relationships between variables were determined using the correlation and multiple regression analysis. The significant findings saw a strong positive relationship between optimum engagement of financing stakeholders and perceived increased levels of market participation by emerging farmers. Furthermore, risk management had a significant and positive relationship with optimum engagement of financing stakeholders. Stakeholders involved in encouraging emerging farmers to participate meaningfully in the markets must engage optimally to devise innovative models for the financial inclusion of these farmers. , Thesis (MA) -- Faculty of Business and Economic science , 2022
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- Date Issued: 2022-04
A socio-economic impact assessment (SEIA) of the Idutywa agripark project on project beneficiaries in Mbashe local municipality of the Eastern Cape Province
- Authors: Magida, Phiwokuhle Thulani
- Date: 2014
- Subjects: Rural poor -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape , Agricultural development projects -- South Africa , Sustainable development -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MSc Agric (Agricultural Economics)
- Identifier: vital:11211 , http://hdl.handle.net/10353/d1016195 , Rural poor -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape , Agricultural development projects -- South Africa , Sustainable development -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape
- Description: Poverty, inequality and unemployment have always been challenging first in South Africa with special reference to rural South Africa. These persistent challenges with severe impacts on black population are believed to be the results of the previous governance in South Africa. Policies have been formulated, reformulated and others implemented in a form of development projects which have achieved little success in pursuit of combating these challenges. However, in the process of achieving rural development through developmental projects, a fundamental stage in the life cycle of these projects is often omitted or given little attention. This stage is the monitoring and evaluation stage which is critical to ascertain potential impacts (both positive and negative) especially if the project is to be replicated and achieve its objectives as postulated in the millennium development goals. This thesis attempted to carry out a Socio-Economic Impact Assessment (SEIA) of the Agripark project implemented at Dutywa on the livelihoods of communities directly affected by this project. The Agripark project is a project that comprises three linked components, a seedling nursery, an agro-processing facility and a sizeable feeder plot and has been implemented to benefit four villages. This project has been implemented as the second Agripark project by the University of Fort Hare in partnership with the province’s Department of Agriculture. To track change after the implementation of the project, data were collected from the same respondents that were interviewed for the baseline study, therefore, the same sample size that was used in the baseline study was also used for this study. As a tool for data collection, a questionnaire was developed to elicit the required information and was interviewer administered during data collection. The results of the study revealed that Agripark project has impact on both social and economic wellbeing of the households. The processing unit of the project was not yet functioning therefore the project was not fully effective thus the impact was not as intended by the project when the study was carried out. Skills transferred were only on production but only a small number of people could receive them. These households largely relied on external sources of income mainly on social grants and their contribution to total household income had increased to 88% in 2011 compared to 80% in 2008. As much as the increase in incomes cannot be entirely be because of the project but Agripark had a positive impact on household incomes through wages of those employed there and through increased profitability of hawking vegetables. The proportion of household earning incomes less than the Poverty line fell from 85% in 2008 to approximately 79% in 2011. The household complemented their staples with a variety of vegetables and the main source of these vegetables was Agripark even though own production was declining. Even though food was still the main item of these households expenditure, the proportion of income spent on food fell from 64% in 2008 to 48% in 2011. There were no environmental impacts found. From the descriptive analysis, the project had impact on the livelihoods of these households because it brought change on the household expenditure as a result of the income earned by those who are working in the Agripark. There was an improvement on risk of food insecurity through cheaper vegetable that both physically and financially attainable. However, as much as the project had positive impact, there were also concerns raised by the respondents that the employment was only biased to certain individuals which cased stress to some households. Furthermore, the empirical analysis of the selected variables showed that participation in Agripark had an impact on economic wellbeing of the beneficiaries. Thus, funding must be made available to the project so that it can upgrade their electricity and have the processing plant running as it may be the major source of employment, skills development and achievement of its objectives.
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- Date Issued: 2014