Alternatively, information providers can strategize with farmers on how to deal with inevitable trade-offs.Additionally, information providers that find it challenging to generate feedback from farmers based on their mode of WIS delivery may consider using a selection strategy that enables different categories of farmers to be selected across the district to give their opinion about the WIS.Furthermore, we found that the origin of WIS played an essential role in WIS usability in the study district.The origin of WIS as defined by farmers was not about the physical space per se; instead, it was more about information providers and establishing personal bonds with farmers.As a result, farmers had some sense of security in the reception of WIS because they knew who to contact if the information ‘failed’.This finding resonates with other studies,blueberry grow pot which indicated farmers’ preferences for informal means of interacting with information providers located in the farming communities.Findings on the unmet need of information providers originating from the farming communities are similar to other studies which have also reported that the disconnection between information producers and farmers is a constraining factor for the uptake of climate information.In this instance, we observed preferential choices in WIS usability.It can be trusted and applied if WIS comes from the farmer/farming community, the private weather forecaster, AEAs, and Radio Ada.
Based on the finding on the origin of WIS, it can be inferred that, in the study district, if an information provider can position themselves as a trusted person, it enhances WIS usability.This approach can be a positive characteristic, but it can equally pose a challenge when the provision of WIS is associated with an individual.This is because associating WIS usability with an individual bears the risk of creating dependencies that can destabilise information delivery in that person’s absence.The private weather forecaster’s WIS may not be sustainable in the long run because the providers’ absence will bring an end to the delivery of this information.Similarly, the sustainability of AEAs’ WIS could be affected by a change in extension staff.Farmer-to-farmer WIS may gradually disappear when experienced farmers are no longer present, given that their information is rarely documented but rather exists as tacit knowledge.Regarding this finding, we propose that information providers build farmers’ trust towards a WIS rather than focusing on building personal bonds.Poverty and hunger continue to be the most pressing issues facing the development of many nations around the world, particularly in the less developed regions such as Sub-Saharan Africa.SSA remains the world’s most food-insecure region, with nearly a quarter of the population , suffering from malnutrition.
As a global goal, the 2030 agenda for Sustainable Development has recognized the significant consequences of rising food poverty which requires urgent attention.According to the World Bank , poverty is defined as a multifaceted notion that includes low income and consumption, poor educational accomplishment, poor health and nutritional results, a lack of basic services, and a hazardous living environment.To categorize households based on the different levels of poverty, a poverty line of US$1.90 per day is used as an indicator of extreme poverty.Many of the extremely poor households live in rural areas and rely on agricultural production for a living .To improve long-term food security and alleviate poverty, agricultural production systems are expected to be more productive and reduce output variability in the face of climate extremes such as land degradation.Farmers’ productivity stability is linked to the adoption of a resilient food production system that can withstand disruptive events.Irrigated farming has been identified as a viable means of increasing agricultural productivity, farmers’ revenue, and household consumption as a mitigation strategy.Irrigation aids in the stabilization of food production by shielding it from the unpredictability of rainfall.Irrigation farming systems are a critical policy strategy for eradicating poverty and increasing food security.In addition, irrigation participation is especially crucial in import-dependent developing countries, where agriculture employs the bulk of the population.Irrigation projects and existing schemes, despite their importance in economic growth and investment, are still under-performing in terms of realizing their full potential, particularly in a semi-arid country like South Africa.
In South Africa, farmers’ participation in irrigation farming is generally low, with smallholder irrigation land area accounting for around 0.1 million hectares of the aggregate irrigated land.Despite the importance of smallholder farmers to the South African economic development as they possess potential for improving the rural livelihoods, farmers participating in different irrigation schemes perform below sub-optimal levels.Water management, financing access, market access, poor infrastructure maintenance, and the farmers’ age have been found to contribute to low participation in irrigation farming in many developing countries.Christian et al.observed that irrigation participation in South Africa is influenced by farmers’ age, family size, financial availability, extension contact, and membership of farmer groups.While factors determining participation in irrigation farming has gained some attention in South Africa, the impact of irrigation participation on household welfare, poverty and vulnerability to poverty has been inadequately explored.As a result, any untapped potential to enhance household welfare and reduce household poverty level and vulnerability to poverty through smallholder irrigation participation in South Africa is critical.Many pieces of literature have reported that participation in irrigation farming could serve as a way to create new job opportunities, both on and off the farm, and boost rural incomes, improve livelihoods, improve food security and alleviate poverty, through improvement in farm productivity.However, while there is evidence that irrigation development reduces poverty in several countries, the impact is determined by farm, irrigated technology and household variables.For the reasons stated above, it is vital to investigate whether irrigation users are significantly better off than non-users in terms of not only poverty status but poverty incidence, depth, and severity, as well as the impact irrigation has on consumption levels.Moreover, plethora of empirical studies on poverty has one major shortcoming: the failure to estimate treatment on vulnerability to poverty.
It is critical to recognize the differences between poverty and vulnerability.The former is more concerned with one’s immediate well-being, whilst the latter is concerned with one’s long-term well-being.Thus, assessing poverty without considering vulnerability to poverty may result in insufficient information for future agricultural-related program design and implementation.Thus, there is little empirical literature on the impact of irrigation participation on an extended outcome such as household welfare and household poverty, as well as vulnerability to poverty.As a consequence, the study hypothesized that smallholder farmers who participate in irrigation farming have higher consumption expenditure per capita, a lower poverty level, and are less vulnerable to poverty than non-participants.This study brings out novelty in poverty-related studies in the following ways.First, we estimate the contribution of irrigation usage on not only poverty reduction but the incidence and severity of poverty as well as the vulnerability to poverty among farming households in rural South Africa.Knowing who is poor, the intensity of poverty and who is at risk of becoming poor is critical to inform farm-level policy initiatives and executions.Second, the study followed rigorous technique used by World Bank to measure poverty.Third, the study takes into consideration both observed and unobservable factors of irrigation participation through the use of the endogenous switching regression to account for selection bias and the potential endogeneity of participation in irrigation farming.Prior researches in the country are sparse in this regard, making it difficult to make conclusions.Changing social-cultural, political, and economic factors entail the need for up-to-date research findings on which to base the formulation and implementation of various programs to improve livelihoods.Through the provision of new empirical evidence,hydroponic bucket the study thus contributes to the efforts of government, international development organizations , and other stakeholders to strengthen and better understand the impact of irrigation sector reforms on poverty reduction and household welfare.This study was conducted in the King Sabata Dalinyebo and Nyandeni local municipalities which fall under the OR Tambo District Municipality, representing the local municipalities in the Mthatha River basin in Eastern Cape province.
The district is functionally rural, characterized by low educational levels and predominantly an agricultural producing area.The Mthatha River catchment has a dimension of approximately 100 km long and 50 km wide, with a total area of 5 520 km3.The Mthatha River, which is 250 km long and has two big tributaries, flows north of Coffee Bay.The Mthatha and Corana Dam, both on the Mthatha River’s Corana branch, are major water storage reservoirs in the Mthatha basin.The Mthatha Dam has an 886 km catchment area and can store up to 254 million cubic meters of water while producing 14.5 million cubics of water per year.A multi-stage sampling technique was employed for data collection.A purposively sampling technique was used to divide the catchment into four regions in relation to the source of the Mthatha River.These are the upper region, peri-township region, the lower region and the coastal region.In each of the areas, ten villages were chosen at random, of which 11 respondents were randomly chosen in each village based on their desire to participate in the survey.In total, 440 households were interviewed but only 400 were considered credible for analysis due to some uncompleted questionnaires.The study employed a quantitative method for the collection of data using a survey questionnaire.The survey questionnaire was prepared in English and then translated to a local language , as it is assumed that people feel more at ease speaking to others in their language, which improves the accuracy of information obtained and survey’s dependability.Following Dubbert, the quantitative method was used to compare responses between the participants and non-participants of irrigation farming because all respondents were asked identical questions in the same order to allow for significant comparison.The important sections of the questionnaire focus on respondents’ use of irrigation, farm activities, source of finance, water access and challenges associated with household food security.The questionnaire’s other major component was designed to find out about households’ demographic profiles and consumption patterns.The proportion of male-headed households in the participant and non-participant groups is 0.70 and 0.65, respectively.Farmers had an average age of 45 years, which is within the age range of the working population.The average age of participant and non-participant households was 46 and 45 years, respectively.This is similar to the average age of 52 years for Eastern Cape province found in the study of Akinyemi and Mushunje.As indicated in Table 1, the household size for the participants of irrigation farming is lower than the non-participants.A higher proportion of the participants of irrigation farming experienced flooded farms over the last 12 months preceding the survey compared with the non-irrigation participants.Furthermore, the statistics show that more respondents under the participants of irrigation farming category obtained income from livestock sales and also incur lesser expenses on education.This is similar to the study of Mwangi and Crewett who found that participation in irrigation farming was driven by years of education of the farmers.Participants in irrigation farming receive more financial support through remittances than the non-participants, with many of the participants preferring to engage in seasonal farming.The majority of the farmers who practiced crop diversification are irrigation participants, with most of the participants having more education years than the non-participants in the study area.The statistics result shows that leased and communal land were important variables for assessing irrigation farming participation, given that land tenure system, especially the communal land, prohibits the purchase/sale in South Africa, for instance, the case of KwaZulu-Natal.The treatment variable used in the study was irrigation farming and the result shows that about 45% of the households participated in irrigation farming while the remainder represents the non-participants.The information in Table 2 presents the summary statistics and description of the outcome variables, which are the household consumption per capita expenditure, poverty levels and poverty vulnerability.The food consumption per capita expenditure of households that participated in irrigation farming is significantly higher than households that did not participate in irrigation farming.This implies that households that participated in irrigation farming are more likely to increase their consumption per capita expenditure.Findings from the literature confirm that irrigation participants have greater potentials for more farm yields and income, which increases the level of household consumption.The poverty gap index variables show that participants in irrigation farming have a lower poverty gap index, indicating that households who practice irrigation farming have lower poverty status than the non-participants.In line with our findings, Beshir has found that participation in irrigation farming reduces poverty and increase food security in Ethiopia.