Determinants of herd size among small-scale cattle farmers: the case of selected villages at the Mhinga Traditional Authority in Limpopo, South Africa

N.P. Sikhweni and R. Hassan

Agrekon, 2014, vol. 53, issue 4, 106-122

Abstract: This study employed a negative binomial model to analyse determinants of herd size among smallholder cattle farmers in the villages of the Mhinga Traditional Authority (TA) in Limpopo province. Contrary to the popular belief that rural households in developing countries generally own large herds of livestock for social reasons, communal livestock farmers in the study area who kept livestock for social reasons were found to own smaller herd sizes of cattle. This particular finding indicates that economic reasons for livestock ownership are more important than social reasons among smallholder livestock farmers in this study area. Access to markets and the ability to sell cattle were found to be the strongest influencing factors compared to socio-economic attributes such as marital status, social grants and off-farm employment. Losses due to theft and death were associated significantly with herd size. Recommended policy interventions aimed at increasing the herd size and income of smallholder livestock farmers include government introducing appropriate livestock subsidy programmes that could potentially assist farmers in expanding their herds, investments in efficient protection against wildlife intrusion from game parks, the establishment of well-functioning markets, improved access to roads and market information, and investments in farmers' education to create awareness of new innovations and practices in breeding and veterinary services.

Date: 2014
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/03031853.2014.974945 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:ragrxx:v:53:y:2014:i:4:p:106-122

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/ragr20

DOI: 10.1080/03031853.2014.974945

Access Statistics for this article

Agrekon is currently edited by A. Jooste, National Agricultural Marketing Council

More articles in Agrekon from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().