James F. Evans Collection; See C06647 for original, Avocado producer households were headed by reasonably well educated males, mainly in the productive age groups, two thirds of whom were in employment, with above average rural household incomes. The adoption of critical avocado growing cultural and management practices, as well as knowledge levels of avocado growing were considerably below optimum. There was inadequate contact with research based information sources. Suggestions are made for improving the producer knowledge base by improved communication and extension strategies reinforced by other institutional support (original).
James F. Evans Collection; Based on parts of an MSc (Agric) thesis by the senior author at the University of Pretoria, Farmers who are financially successful differ from their unsuccessful counterparts in management approach and decision making. Successful farmers use records for planning, they employ cash flow budgeting and analyse costs. They also avoid overtrading and are financially realistic. Unsuccessful farmers exhibit opposite traits. Successful farmers are also better decision-makers: They gather more information, use it better, re-evaluate decisions and are able to change these if necessary. Unsuccessful farmers evaluate decisions incompletely or not at all. There is not much difference in the implementation of decisions. Extensionists should concentrate in teaching farmers a frame of mind conducive to sound management (original).
15 pages., In the National Development Plan, cooperatives and agriculture development are identified as possible solutions for addressing rural poverty and unemployment, especially among the youth. However, according to most research/literature, agricultural cooperatives fail for many reasons, including but not limited to lack of capital, incompetent management and organizational deficiencies. This study applied a qualitative analysis to the qualitative data using a case study of Zanokhanyo Food Security Cooperative (ZFSC) in Ndabakazi, Butterworth. Interviews with the project members, ex-members, extension officers and youth were conducted through a semi-structured questionnaire administered in IsiXhosa. According to the results, lack of intensive production resulting in very low incomes is one of the reasons why projects such as ZFSC fail to attract young people and provide employment for rural people. Agricultural extension advisory services play a very limited role because of their generalist approach; they lack depth of knowledge about diverse agricultural subject areas. This study recommends that agricultural extension and the farmers’ support system be improved by employing or outsourcing specialists to cater to the needs of agricultural cooperatives in order to improve the productivity and income of agricultural cooperatives.
