- Title
- Assessment of the Department of Rural Development and Agrarian Reform's maize cropping programme in the Eastern Cape
- Creator
- Mqamelo, Luvolwethu
- Subject
- Cropping systems Crops and climate Crop yields
- Date Issued
- 2017
- Date
- 2017
- Type
- Thesis
- Type
- Masters
- Type
- MSc
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/10353/9165
- Identifier
- vital:34288
- Description
- The Department of Rural Development and Agrarian Reform maize cropping programme is one of the flagship projects that has been entrusted by the provincial government to tackle the social ills faced by the rural communities of the Eastern Cape Province. The programme is in line with a number of policies that strive to unlock the agricultural potential in inducing the much talked about radical economic transformation. This study was aimed at establishing if the outlay of the implementation processes and the outcomes of the maize cropping programme in Eastern Cape are sufficient to achieve the stated objectives. The study adopted a triangulation method to get comprehensive understanding of the programme and for accuracy and verification of the data collected. A pre-tested semistructured questionnaire was used to collect the demographics and socio-economic status of the respondents; technical skills and capabilities; implementation processes of the programme and the perceptions of the participants and key strategic role players in the maize cropping programme. A total of 120 respondents from DRDAR’s 2016/2017 financial year supported list and 9 key informants were sampled for the study. Furthermore, a gross margin analysis was used to establish the viability and the sustainability of the programme with and without DRDAR’s subsidies. For purposes of determining if there was any relation between the maize enterprise income and 13 independent variables, a multiple regression model was employed. The results of the study show that the programme is dominated by old and uneducated individuals with an average age of 60 years. The implementation processes are proving to be fairly progressed however, at a very limited scale. This includes provision of production inputs and mechanization services on time, formation of self-serving legal entities and unlocking the private sector investment. The gross margins generated from the programme have been observed to be non-viable and unsustainable. As a result, only 31% of the respondents were able to attain a gross margin equal or greater than the allocable costs of producing maize both under irrigation and dry land. The results of the regression model indicated that, only 5 of the 13 independent variables (household gender, marital status, years of participation, area planted and yield) were found to have a significant effect to the maize enterprise income. Overall, the DRDAR’s maize cropping programme has failed to meet its intended objectives. In addition, more than 70 percent of the programme participants produced for subsistence purposes and showed no desire to fully commercialise their operations.
- Format
- 153 leaves
- Format
- Publisher
- University of Fort Hare
- Publisher
- Faculty of Science and Agriculture
- Language
- English
- Rights
- University of Fort Hare
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UFH Department of Agricultural Economics and Extension
| Thumbnail | File | Description | Size | Format | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| View Details Download | SOURCE1 | MSc Agric (Agric Economics) MQAMELO - May 2018.pdf | 2 MB | Adobe Acrobat PDF | View Details Download |