Optimizing Resource Use and Economics of Crop-Livestock Integration Among Small Farmers in Semiarid Regions of South Africa

Abstract

The adoption of crop-livestock integration (CLI) among smallholder farmers in the developing countries is no doubt one of the solutions to food security, risk management, and poverty alleviation in sub-Saharan Africa. However, adequate assessment on the current status of CLI becomes necessary for the development and its evolution among smallholder farmers. This article presents a basic and multi-objective linear programming (LP) model to determine enterprise combinations of crop and livestock activities that maximize total gross margin (TGM) among small farms in the Eastern Cape Province. Optimization modeling results and trade-off analysis showed 122.61% increase and 58% decreases, respectively, compared with the average TGM per livestock unit (LU). Smallholder CLI farmers can optimally maximized profit, but fail to optimally maximize home consumption with profit maximization objectives at present resource level. The results further revealed that resources such as land, livestock enterprises were (loose resources) not efficiently used. Efficient and capital use and compact arrangement of crop-livestock integration are suggested instead of free access grazing practice in the study area.

Productivity and constraints of small-scale crop farming in the summer rainfall region of South Africa

“…An example is the compact arrangement of crop-livestock integration (Hosu & Mushunje, 2013) also known as mixed farming. While there is ample research at field scale, there is a lack of research at regional scale.…”

Livelihood strategies and diversification amongst the poor: Evidence from South African household surveys

“…The study obtained the results that showed households who generate income from wage employment in non-farm and farm activities are better off than other households. The findings by Hosu and Mushunje (2013) on livelihood diversification showed that on-farm diversification can increase income and also reduce risks, whereas the study by Carter and May (1999) showed that even though households can derive their livelihood from different activities, wage income earners are better off than households depending on agriculture for income. In the case of Eastern Cape, South Africa, Toyin and Mushunje (2016) found that households do not diversify their livelihoods and that they rely upon government cash transfers.…”

Optimising the Spatial and Production Input Features to Improve Efficiency of Hill Farm Production Systems

“…This study constructs a deterministic, single period LP model that maximises the AGM of farm businesses in the LFAs of England (Benoit and Laignel, 2010;Hosu and Mushunje, 2013;Olaizola et al, 2015). Environmental backgrounds are incorporated in the approach by constraining the optimisation according to environmental conservation objectives (appropriate stocking densities) and physical (spatial) barriers (land availability).…”