The objective of the study was to outline the determinants of market awareness and participation in the Kaonafatso ya Dikgomo (KyD) scheme in South Africa. The study utilised a cross-sectional survey of a randomly selected sample of 116 KyD farmers in KwaZulu-Natal Province. A Logit model was used to analyse the data. The results show that more farmers are aware of farmgate market channels, but however, they tended to utilise auction market channels. Furthermore, gender, marital status, educational level, employment status, farm income, source of income, herd size, labour and training were significant variables in the awareness and use of butcheries, auctions and farm gate markets. The study concludes that the scheme is particularly effective in influencing commercialisation through utilisation of more lucrative market channels such as auctions
A decline in public sector extension services in developing countries has led to an increasing emphasis on alternative extension approaches that are participatory, demand-driven, client-oriented, and farmer centered. One such approach is the volunteer farmer-trainer (VFT) approach, a form of...
This paper asks: What have been the impacts of farmer- or community-led (informal) processes of research and development in agriculture and natural resource management in terms of food security, ecological sustainability, economic empowerment, gender relations, local capacity to innovate and...
The mobile phone technology is an important tool to enhance farmers’ to access better marketing services, agricultural extension services, health extension services and other mobile services. This study also tried to assess rural households’ mobile phone usage status for different...
This report provides a synthesis of all findings and information generated through a “stocktaking” process that involved a desk study of Prolinnova documents and evaluation reports, a questionnaire to 40 staff members of international organizations in agricultural research and development (ARD),...
Farmers’ experiments can be defined as the autonomous activities of farmers to try or introduce something new at the farm, and include evaluation of success or failure with farmers’ own methods. Experiments enable farmers to adapt their farms to changing...
