Browsing by Author "Baloyi, Raesetse Johanna."

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Value chains in rain-fed agriculture and rural youth entrepreneurial development: the case of Umzinyathi and Amajuba districts, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa.
(2020) Baloyi, Raesetse Johanna.; Zegeye, Edilegnaw Wale.; Chipfupa, Unity.
Unemployment has been relatively high in South Africa and continues to rise, especially among the youth, particularly those who reside in rural areas. This has resulted in various socio-economic challenges such as poverty, food insecurity, and multiple social ills (drug abuse, crime, social unrest, etc.). This is despite the implementation of various national policies and strategies from the government and different stakeholders that seek to reduce the level of unemployment in the country. In an attempt to fast-track job creation, the government has been promoting entrepreneurship as a potential solution to the youth unemployment challenge. Considering the exposure at the disposal of rural youth regarding agriculture, it is expedient for them to utilize these skills in opportunities that will potentially create them income through self-employment. The challenge is that empirical studies in the past (local and elsewhere) have shown that youth are not interested in agriculture as they perceive the sector to be of low status and dirty with no potential to create for them the luxurious lifestyles they aspire. However, most of this literature emanates from studies done mainly on primary agriculture. It largely ignores the possibility that, although youth might not be interested in primary agriculture, they might be interested and willing to engage in other available opportunities along the agricultural value chain. For the mentioned reasons, the study had two empirical objectives, namely, (i) the investigation of factors affecting rural youth’s interest to participate in different agricultural activities, and (ii) the examination of the impact of entrepreneurial spirit and managerial capabilities on rural youth’s potential participation in agricultural value-adding economic activities (AVAEAs). The study was conducted in two districts (Amajuba and Umzinyathi) in KwaZulu-Natal province, South Africa. Purposive, stratified, snowballing, and random samplings were employed to collect the required data. A total of 224 youth (152 being youth not engaged in agriculture while 72 were already engaged in agriculture) were interviewed. Descriptive statistics were run to compare the socio-economic status, resource endowment, and entrepreneurial spirit of the two types of youth. The factors affecting rural youths’ interest to engage in agricultural activities along the value chain were examined using the Multinomial Logistics Model. The results indicated similarities in the factors affecting rural youth’s interest to engage in different agricultural activities along the value chain relative to not engaging in any agriculture-related activity. Access to credit and formal education were found to decrease the likelihood of rural youth being interested to engage in all agricultural activities along the value chain while having at least one household member already engaged in agriculture (demonstration effect) increases this likelihood. Furthermore, the results found that the likelihood of rural youth being interested to engage only in primary agriculture increased as the youth aged and decreased with access to social media (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc). Similarly, the youth’s likelihood of being interested to engage only in AVAEAs decreased with access to social media and increased if the youth received some agriculture-related training, are endowed with positive psychological capital, and had access to primary ICT facilities. The likelihood of youth being interested to engage in the “whole value chain”, that is, to incorporate both primary agriculture and AVAEAs, increased if the youth received agriculture-related training, had access to agricultural land, and are endowed with positive psychological capital. It, however, decreased with an increase in the dependency ratio, and household wealth. The impact of entrepreneurial spirit and managerial capabilities of rural youth on their potential participation in AVAEAs was analyzed using the Fractional Logit Model. Two separate models were estimated. The first model used the proportion of time the youth were willing to spend on AVAEAs of their choice as a dependent variable while the second model used the proportion of money the youth were willing to contribute/invest, given they had the money, towards initiating AVAEAs of their choice. The results from both models indicated that endowment in business management skills, gender, positive psychological capital, and positive agricultural perception positively affect the potential participation of rural youth in AVAEAs. However, entrepreneurial spirit and household wealth negatively affected this potential participation. In general, the findings suggest that policymakers should focus on designing policies and intervention strategies that improve the resource endowment of rural youth. That is, the development of initiatives that improve the youth’s social capital and access to production credit; the development of transformative approaches to providing agriculture-related trainings; and cultural changes that will improve the youths’ access to agricultural land. Also, there is a need for a mindset shift from the youth themselves regarding their perceptions of the agricultural sector. Future research should aim at expanding the research to other provinces to assist in understanding if intervention strategies aiming at attracting rural youth are location-dependent or homogenous. Also, future research can investigate if the perceptions of rural youth getting jobs from other sectors is a significant factor in affecting their participation in agricultural activities. Since this study used the ex-ante approach to investigate interest, future studies can use the ex-post approach and examine factors affecting participation of rural youth in AVAEAs from the perspective of those who are already engaged.