Assessing beneficiation of black emerging macadamia farmers from the statutory levy for transformation in Vhembe District, Limpopo Province, South Africa

Abstract

In 1996, under the Marketing of Agricultural Products Act (MAP Act No. 47 of 1996), the South African government implemented statutory measures in support of the MAP Act’s objective of promoting efficiency in the agricultural sector. In 2018, Macadamia South Africa NPC (SAMAC) were approved for a second term of statutory measures that enable applicable agricultural industries to collect levy funds for the expenditure on crucial generic functions: research, transformation, and information. The transformation function is enacted to fast-track rural development of previously disadvantaged farmers towards their advancing commercialisation by funding their much-needed resources to perform daily farm operations and for human capacity empowerment. With the aim to determine the objective of the MAP Act No. 47 enacted in 1996 is being realized, the study assessed the beneficiation of black emerging macadamia farmers from the transformation programme activities funded by the statutory levies in Vhembe District Municipality. The objectives of the study were to identify and describe the socio-economic characteristics of the farmers investigate factors influencing beneficiation from the transformation programme funded by the statutory levies, evaluate the impact of the transformation programme funded by the statutory levies on beneficiaries’ skills and enterprise development and explore the beneficiaries’ views, and challenges faced by the beneficiaries of the transformation programme funded by the statutory levies. The study was carried out in the Vhembe District Municipality, Limpopo Province where data was collected from 152 black emerging macadamia growers using structured questionnaires. SPSS version 27 and Stata version 14 were used to capture and analyze the data. A binary logistic regression model was used to investigate the influence of socio-economic factors on the beneficiation towards a transformation programme funded by statutory levies. PCA and Tobit regression model was used to evaluate the impact of the transformation programme funded by the statutory levies on farmer’s enterprise and skills development. Analysis of socio-economic factors showed amongst other things, that majority of the respondents were males, with the average age of the respondents being was 56 years having a farm size of 6.38 hectares. Respondents’ farming experience was 11 years, with an average of 11 years of schooling. Farming was the main source of income for most of the beneficiaries and the majority of the respondents had permission to occupy certificates from village chiefs revealing that they own the land. The binary regression model showed that socio-economic factors that influenced beneficiation were the location of the farmers, marital status, years of schooling, agricultural qualification, years of farming and membership association. The PCA and Tobit regression model found that the significant explanatory variables are farming qualification and membership association. The descriptive results of the extent to which the farmers are benefitted from the transformation programme funded by the statutory levies on farmers’ development (skills and enterprise) revealed that most of the farmers (69%) did receive assistance either for enterprise and or skills development activities. In terms of enterprise development over 75% of the respondents indicated that they have been assisted while over 76.3% of them indicated that they have received skills development assistance from the transformation programme. The study established the main constraints that the beneficiaries are facing were lack of machinery and infrastructure, high input costs and theft/mutilation of the macadamia nuts. the beneficiaries’ views of the transformation programme. The beneficiaries of the transformation programme also listed input subsidies, machinery and payment of staff as their major needs. Based on the findings, the study recommends that farmers be encouraged to continue schooling as far as acquiring agricultural qualifications because education could enhance farmers’ farming practices. Also, stakeholders such as agricultural extension officers and transformation managers of the industry bodies to offer the enterprise and skills development activities based on the farmer’s needs, regularly monitor and evaluate the progress of the farmers that benefitted from the programmes and mentor them before assisting more individuals.