Farmer typology formulation accounting for psychological capital: implications for on-farm entrepreneurial development

ABSTRACT

Understanding and accounting for the heterogeneity of small farmers is critical for informing development pathways to improve the performance of smallholder irrigation. Using multivariate analysis, this study sought to develop farmer typologies in and around irrigation schemes and used these to inform strategies for on-farm entrepreneurship development. The research uniquely integrates psychological capital in defining farmer typologies, to capture individual features of each farmer, otherwise missed by the generic sustainable livelihoods framework literature. The study affirms the need to focus on psychological capital and concludes that heterogeneity among small-scale irrigators should be accounted for in future agricultural and rural development programmes.

KEYWORDS:

• Environment (built and natural) – Agriculture
• Aid – Development policies
• Labour and livelihoods – Poverty reduction
• Methods
• Sub-Saharan Africa

Acknowledgements

The study was undertaken as part of a project (K5/2278/4) funded by the Water Research Commission (WRC). The project summary is accessible at www.wrc.org.za as “WRC (2014) Knowledge Review for 2013/14, WRC, Pretoria”. The first author would like to acknowledge the WRC for financial support of his PhD through this project, and the publication training received through the Young Water Professionals – South Africa.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Unity Chipfupa is a doctoral agricultural economics student at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. He has considerable experience in development consultancy, particularly in programme monitoring and evaluation, and programme design.

Edilegnaw Wale is an Associate Professor at the University of KwaZulu-Natal.

Notes

1. Please contact the corresponding author for technical details on the empirical approach.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Water Research Commission [grant number: K5/2278/4], 2014–2017.