Roles and functions of households along the inland fisheries value chain in the Vhembe District Municipality, Limpopo Province

Abstract

This paper investigated the roles and functions performed by rural households along the inland fishery value chain in the Vhembe District Municipality in Limpopo Province. Primary data was collected from 151 fishing and non-fishing households. Descriptive statistics was employed to profile the socio-economic characteristics of households. Pearson Chi-square and Pearson Product Moment Correlation were used to examine the relationship between socio-economic characteristics (gender and age) of households and their function along the inland fisheries value chain. The study found a positive relationship between gender and function of consumer at 1% probability level. In addition, the correlation between age and function of input supplier and consumer were 0.293 and 0.080 respectively. Consequently, the results show that households play the role of input supplier, fishers, processor, trader and consumer. Therefore, the study calls on the government to create an enabling environment that will encourage households to partake in the value chain of inland fisheries to promote rural livelihoods and to encourage women to participate in inland fisheries.

Keywords:

• inland fisheries
• value chain
• correlation coefficient

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to acknowledge the National Research Foundation (NRF) in South Africa for sponsoring the study.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Research Foundation.

Notes on contributors

Jenny Potsiso Mokhaukhau

Jenny Potsiso Mokhaukhau is a PhD (Agricultural Economics) candidate at the University of Limpopo in South Africa. Born and raised in the Mpumalanga Province, South Africa, Mokhaukhau obtained both her BSc and MSc Agricultural Economics at her current registered university. Her research interests include food security, agricultural risk, rural development.

Abenet Belete

Abenet Belete is a Full Professor (in the field of Agricultural Economics.) at the University of Limpopo. His research interest is Agricultural production, risk analysis in agricultural production and Rural development

Johannes Jan Hlongwane

Johannes Jan Hlongwane is currently serving as Associate Professor and Head of Department of Agricultural Economics and Animal Production at the University of Limpopo, South Africa. He is a PhD holder from the University of Limpopo and have 19 years’ experience as academics in the institution of higher learning teaching various modules at undergraduates and postgraduate level in Agricultural Economics (i.e. Microeconomics, Macroeconomics, Agricultural International Economics, Production Economics, Agribusiness, Agricultural Marketing, Agricultural Economic Development, Farm Management, Mathematical Economics, Rural finance, Price Analysis, Managerial Economics and Econometrics) which serves as the research interest.