The impact of electrification on rural women's participation in agriculture and their welfare.

Abstract

South Africa’s National Development Plan highlights support to smallholder farmers and rural electrification as strategic interventions aimed at fostering economic growth. The government has assigned significant financial investments toward smallholder support programmes and multibillion rand projects have spent on electrification on the premise that electrification will alleviate poverty. Development strategies that lack empirical research to guide policy can result resource misallocation, and adverse consequences for intended beneficiaries and growth sectors. Electrification is a time-saving technologies that can free up farmers' time, especially women's, enabling them to increase their participation in agriculture. There are very few studies that analyse the impact of electrification on agriculture in South Africa. The few studies from South Africa and other countries show mixed results on the effect of rural electrification on time allocated to agriculture by women and the impact on their welfare. This study analysed the relationship between access to electricity and smallholder farmers' participation in agriculture using data from a sample of 243 households in Ward 14 in Msinga Local Municipality of KwaZulu-Natal Province of South Africa. The data from the sample was also used to analyse the impact of electrification on female-headed household's income. The relationship between access to electricity and smallholder farmers' participation in agriculture was assessed using descriptive analysis, Categorical Principal Component Analysis and Principal Component Regression. The study results show a negative relationship between participation in agriculture and access to electricity, high household income per capita, household head employment in fulltime off-farm employment, household ownership of television, and radio ownership. Households that spend more time collecting firewood and cooking allocate more time to agriculture despite the time demands of their home-based chores. Young and elderly smallholder farmers participate more in agriculture compared to middle-aged smallholder farmers. Entrepreneurial smallholder farmers with small plots participate less in agriculture compared to non-entrepreneurial smallholder farmers. Ordinary Least Squares regression was used to analyse the impact of electricity and other household attributes on households' welfare. The econometric results show that female-headed households have higher income per capita than male-headed households. The results suggest that the income advantage is from smaller family sizes and access to electricity. The study also found that access to electricity, age, education, time spent in off-farm employment, and occupation of household head impact household income. The results suggest that most households are engaging in subsistence farming out of necessity. Therefore, policies that seek to improve agricultural participation and productivity in rural areas must focus on creating awareness amongst households on the benefits of farming as a business. Trends in the sample that contradict findings at the municipal level also show that agricultural programmes and assessments need to consider microdata for more effective implementation and evaluation. The pivotal role of women in the study area emphasises the importance of a gender-sensitive approach in rural development policies and strategies.