Constraints to the sustainability of a ‘systematised’ approach to livestock marketing amongst smallholder cattle producers in South Africa

ABSTRACT

Commercialization of smallholder agriculture in South Africa is underpinned by reforms to improve livestock off-take in communal areas and engage smallholder farmers with formal markets. To achieve this, Custom Feeding Programmes (CFPs) were established to improve the condition of communal cattle prior to their sale into formal markets and to ‘systematise’ the informal marketing of cattle in communal areas by enabling participants to achieve higher informal market prices. We evaluate the sustainability of eight CFPs located in Eastern Cape Province in terms of their ability to add value to smallholder cattle production and encourage market participation. Communities with CFPs achieved a 16.6% mean cattle off-take rate, substantially higher than in most communal systems. Furthermore, cattle sold through CFPs attained a 17% higher mean selling price than those sold through other marketing channels. However, these benefits were mainly realized by better-off farmers with larger cattle herds and greater ability to transport animals to and from CFPs. More marginalized farmers, particularly women, had low participation. CFPs also face challenges to their sustainability, including inconsistent feed and water supplies, poor infrastructure and high staff turnover. Key to enhancing participation in CFPs, will be improving the way they are supported and embedded within communities.

KEYWORDS:

• Smallholder livestock marketing
• sustainability
• livelihoods
• custom feeding programme
• South Africa

Acknowledgements

The authors gratefully acknowledge the DRDAR, DRDLR, NAMC and IASC. We are thankful for the participation of farmers in the studied CFPs.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Lovemore C. Gwiriri http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6913-3683

James Bennett http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7233-6203

Cletos Mapiye http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1474-8648

Tawanda Marandure http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7340-9697

Sara Burbi http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9035-7374

Notes

1 ZAR is the official South African currency, the South African Rand. The current official exchange rate (as at 01 September 2018) of 1 South African Rand equivalent to 0.077 United States Dollars was used to convert ZAR to US$.

2 Middlemen are people who purchase livestock from farmers and sell them to traders, retailers or consumers, ‘linking farmers to traders and final markets’ (Abebe, Bijman & Royer, 2016).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by a PhD scholarship funded through the Centre for Agroecology, Water and Resilience, Coventry University, United Kingdom.