Farm-level crop diversification in the Midlands region of Kwazulu-Natal, South Africa: patterns, microeconomic drivers, and policy implications

ABSTRACT

This study assesses the multiple cropping practices among small-scale farmers in KwaZulu-Natal Midlands, South Africa. Based on household survey data, a principal component analysis unveils some dominant crop combination practices such as planting maize and other food crops on the same field, growing sugarcane, vegetables, and potatoes, and combining trees with fodder production. The results of logit transformation models suggest that crop diversification is generally constrained by technological factors (land and labor), and mitigating income and production risks are key motivations among poorer farmers. These findings infer that crop diversification could be a major co-benefit of the ongoing land reform, but explicit strategies should focus on dryland farming areas.

KEYWORDS:

• Logit transformation model
• multiple cropping
• principal component analysis
• South Africa

Funding

The authors are grateful to the Applied Centre for Climate and Earth Systems Science (ACCESS) and the African Economic Research Consortium (AERC) for the awards of the bursary and research grants that made this study possible.

Notes

1. The survey data used in this study indicates that nearly 6% of interviewed farmers had planted only one crop.

2. As proposed by Cutler and Katz (1992), adult equivalents (ADULTS) is computed as , where N_A and N_C represent the number of adults and children in the household, respectively, c is a constant reflecting the resource cost of a child relative to that of an adult, and θ measures the overall economies of scale within the household. Following previous key empirical studies in South Africa (May, Carter, and Posel 1995; Woolard and Leibbrandt 2006), c was set to 0.5, and θ was set to 0.9 (Streak, Yu, and Der Berg 2009).

3. The results of the reduced form equations are presented in the Appendix. They show that off-farm occupation is driven by landholding, education, trust, and distance to the nearest road.

Additional information

Funding

The authors are grateful to the Applied Centre for Climate and Earth Systems Science (ACCESS) and the African Economic Research Consortium (AERC) for the awards of the bursary and research grants that made this study possible.