Factors influencing access to produce markets for smallholder irrigators in South Africa

Litha Magingxa, Zerihun Alemu and Herman van Schalkwyk

Development Southern Africa, 2009, vol. 26, issue 1, 47-58

Abstract: The objective of this paper was to determine the factors influencing access to produce markets for South African smallholder irrigators. Market access was measured according to whether all of the produce that was meant to be sold the previous season was sold or not. Data were collected from six smallholder irrigation schemes in three provinces: the Eastern Cape, Limpopo and Mpumalanga. A principal component analysis was performed to deal with the problem of multicollinearity, yielding six principal components from 14 original explanatory variables: physical access to the market, farmer skills, nature of access to the market, inventory of support services, ability to respond to opportunities, and off-farm income. A logit regression analysis was then performed, with the principal components as explanatory variables. The results show that physical access to the market, farmer skills and nature of access to the market are highly significant factors in influencing market access for these smallholders.

Date: 2009
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DOI: 10.1080/03768350802640081

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