Determinants of herd productivity in Botswana : a focus on land tenure and land policy.
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Date
2006
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Abstract
This study attempts to identify factors responsible for determining differences in the
productivity of cattle managed by communal and private livestock farmers in the
southern region of Botswana during 1999/2000. It is hypothesised that herd
productivity and investment in southern Botswana are higher on private ranches than
on open access communal grazing land.
This study is important because livestock, especially cattle, contribute significantly to
the livelihood of farmers in Botswana. Cattle are a major source of meat, milk and
draught power, and provide a store of wealth that protects against inflation and which
can easily be converted into cash. Cattle production is also an important source of
employment in the rural economy of Botswana. Furthermore, the export of beef is a
major source of foreign exchange earnings, and cattle account for 80 percent of
agriculture's contribution to Botswana's gross domestic product.
A stratified random sample survey of communal and private livestock farmers was
conducted in the southern region of Botswana from August 1999 to May 2000 with the
assistance of four enumerators. The sample survey data were used to compute
descriptive statistics and to estimate the parameters of a block recursive regression
model. The model postulated relationships between agricultural credit, investment in
fixed improvement, investment in operating inputs and herd productivity. Some of the
equations are estimated with Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) and some with Two-Stage
Least Squares (2SLS) to account for likely correlation between endogenous
explanatory variables and the error term.
Descriptive statistics show that levels of investment and herd productivity are higher
on private farms than on open-access communal grazing. Private farmers are also better
educated, more liquid, and have larger herd sizes, but do not differ from their
communal counterparts in terms of age, gender, race or household size. The regression
results show that (a) respondents with secure tenure and larger herds use more
agricultural credit than those who rely on open access communal grazing land to raise
cattle; (b) secure land tenure, higher levels of liquidity and use of long-term credit
promote investment in fixed improvements to land; (c) liquidity from short-term credit
and wage remittances supports expenditure on operating inputs; and (d) herd
productivity increases with greater investment in fixed improvement and operating
inputs. Herd productivity is therefore positively (but indirectly) influenced by secure
land tenure.
It can therefore be inferred that government should (a) uphold private property rights to
land where they already exists; (b) privatise open access grazing to individual owner operators
where this is politically, socially, and economically feasible; and (c) where
privatisation to individuals is not feasible, government should encourage users to
convert the grazing into common property by subsidising the costs of defining user
groups and the boundaries of their resources, and enforcing rules limiting individual
use of common property. This first-step in a gradual shift towards more secure tenure
should be followed by the conversion of user groups to non-user groups organized
along the lines of investor-owned firms where members exchange use rights for benefit
and voting rights in a joint venture managed by an expert.
Description
Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2006.
Keywords
Livestock productivity--Botswana., Beef cattle--Economic aspects--Botswana., Beef industry--Botswana., Cattle--Botswana., Cattle--Economic aspects--Botswana, Agriculture--Economic aspects--Botswana., Land tenure--Botswana., Farmers--Botswana., Agriculture and state--Botswana., Theses--Agricultural economics.