No abstract

No abstract

The study aimed to evaluate the levels of participation of smallholder farmers in the agroprocessing industries of Gauteng Province. The main objective was to determine the implications of participation or lack thereof for the extension services, using an exploratory mixed sequential design. Four focus group sessions were conducted to account for qualitative data collection, and the survey data was gathered from three regions of Gauteng Province (West Rand, Pretoria, and Germiston). A sample of smallholder farmers (n=78) was purposively selected across the three regions to select participants. The results revealed that factors such as institutional design, condition of participation, and collaboration were critical in influencing these farmers. However, the results also revealed that leadership did not affect either of the levels of participation of these farmers. Therefore, these results suggest that the level of participation in smallholder farming could be improved, should the influential factors be taken into consideration during the development planning of these farmers. It is recommended that strategic plans formulated by the supporting institutions consider these influential factors as the tools for the transformation of the agro-processing industries. These factors could stimulate participation by smallholder farmers in this sector.

This study aims at identifying factors that could be used as parameters to improve the smallholder farmers' participation in the agro-processing industries of Gauteng province in order to enhance job creation and self-employment. The study used both qualitative and quantitative research approaches. The focus sessions were used to exploit the respondents' views regarding their participation or lack thereof. On the other hand, the quantitative approaches were used to quantify the effect of the factors under consideration. A sample of (n = 78) smallholder farmers were purposively selected across ten (n=10) local municipalities. The data were analysed using a logistic regression model where non-participation and participation were coded 0 and 1, respectively. The effect of profit, access to advice, age of the farmers, and information flow to the participation of the smallholder farmers was tested. The study found that five identified parameters {information supply (beta = 0.315, p = 0.002), bonds (beta = 0.332, p = 0.000), mutual trust (beta = 0.410, p = 0.000), age (beta = 0.242, p = 0.004) and access to study group (beta = -0.416, p = 0.000)} have significant probabilities to improve the participation of smallholder farmers in the agro-processing sub-sector. The results imply that extension advisors and policymakers can use these parameters to improve the participation and representativeness of the smallholder farmers in the agro-processing industries. Keywords: agro-processing, smallholder, participation, sector, factors

Compared to other countries, the level of agricultural mechanization in Africa and South Africa is relatively low. Among the factors that influence agricultural mechanization, after-sales service of agricultural machinery is among the most significant. On the other hand, financial resources primarily impact on improvement and enhancement of after-sales service of farm equipment. In this paper, a questionnaire was employed as the method of quantitative data collection to assist in the analysis of data from 739 respondents in the Chinese context. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 (Mmbengwa & Qin, 2020), no questionnaires were collected from South Africa for the purposes of this paper. A standard multiple regression analysis (MRA) was utilized to analyze the data collected from the structured questionnaires. Evidence from this study suggests that combining these financial resource factors has a major effect (F2 = 0.802) on the after-sales service of farm equipment. The high scores obtained for economic factors and analyzed in this study mean that, to a large extent, these have a major impact on China’s after-sales service for agricultural machinery in South Africa.