A dissertation submitted to the School of Public Health, University of the Witwatersrand, in fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Medicine by research and dissertation. 07 June 2016 / Introduction: Migrant farm workers in South Africa are particularly vulnerable to HIV infection for a multitude of reasons, including a lack of access to health services and to health information. Social norms on the farms, including an acceptance of multiple concurrent sexual partners and transactional sex both for comfort and material gain, tend to worsen women's powerlessness to manage effectively their sexual reproductive health. High levels of stigma also mean that the risks of HIV infection cannot easily be spoken about, further increasing vulnerability. The Hlokomela project sought to use participatory communication processes to empower peer communicators on the farms to engage farm workers in regular, structured discussions on HIV /AIDS and other health and wellness related matters, including difficult conversations around gender inequity. The making of a collective identity for the project was one of these participatory processes. Its novelty in this setting warranted research to answer the question "How does (or does) the collective making of a project identity help to promote health on the farms of Hoedspruit?". Aim: The aim of the research was to describe and analyse the role of collective identitymaking in the Hlokomela project, an intervention to address vulnerability to HIV among migrant and seasonal farm workers in Hoedspruit, Limpopo province, South Africa. The study aimed also to propose and further develop, in the light of Findings, a conceptual framework which would help to explain the effects of the various elements of collective identity-making. Methods: The research is a qualitative study of the collective identity-making component of the Hlokomela health project. Elements of a grounded theory approach were adopted in the three successive data collection site visits, enabling progressive coding of the data as the collection occurred. Data was collected through two Focus Group Discussions (FGD) with Nompilos (farm worker volunteer peer communicators and care givers) and two FGDs with Gingirikani (farm worker volunteer peer communicators chosen by Nompilos and farm workers to be their deputies on the farms, to facilitate purposive dialogues and thus increase reach). There were also 10 individual in-depth interviews with other key stakeholders and three small group interviews (2-3 respondents) with Hlokomela managers and co-ordinators. All interviews were audio-taped, transcribed and where necessary translated into English from Xitsonga and Sepedi. The voices of those most directly affected by the intervention formed the basis for coding and analysis. Findings: The development of the collective identity through participatory processes was found to enhance engagement with and among farm workers. This was due to the project's perceived pertinence and local ownership. The collective identity was seen to be relevant and expressing a farm worker reality. Farm workers generally described feeling affirmed, seeing themselves projected into a public space that had hitherto not been open to them. And also in particular, the agents of the project – the Nompilos and their "deputies" the Gingirikani – described at length how being associated with Hlokomela gave them the authority and credentials to work with farm workers on sensitive matters, including establishing a set of values and norms which would be health-protective but which also involved a shift in what was considered possible and desirable. There was furthermore a sense of belonging to the project, not only on the part of the primary "beneficiaries" – farm workers – but also of other stakeholders, including farm owners/managers, municipal office bearers, and local health workers. This bridging social capital further augmented the project's capacity to reach farm workers by, for example, enabling access in working time on the farms, by donations in money and in kind by the local community, and by making visible and normal what hitherto had been hidden – particularly in terms of gender equity and a softening of hegemonic masculinities. Farm workers could take the lead, and women could take the lead also. Conclusions: The collective identity-making work of Hlokomela had aided the project's agents to nurture a new possible, founded in a slightly altered set of values and norms, which had the potential to reduce vulnerability to HIV infection. The elaboration of a social institution, largely in the symbolic space, had authorised the project's agents, in their own eyes as well as those of their peers, to carry out their often difficult work of facilitating regular dialogues on hitherto rarely broached topics, including gender relations and risky sexual behaviour. The findings indicate a need for further research into the cost effectiveness and replicability of this kind of identity work in similar projects, perhaps with the addition of quantitative assessments of the extent of projects' reach through collective identity work as well as the value of collateral beneficial effects to participants in resource poor settings. / MT2016

Thesis (MTech (Nature Conservation))--Cape Peninsula University of Technology, 2009 / Carnivore species globally are on the decline and population extinctions continue despite intensive conservation efforts. In Namibia, although 13.6 % of the country falls under the protection of national parks or game reserves, most of these protected areas are situated along the coastline and are desert habitat. The majority of Namibia's cheetah population (over 90 %), which is also the world's largest free-ranging population, occurs on privately owned farmland situated primarily in the north-central cattle-farming region of the country. Also occurring here are leopard, brown hyaena, caracal, and jackal and in some areas African wild dog, spotted hyaena and lion. Given the extensive nature of livestock and wildlife farming in Namibia, the low human density in rural areas and the persistence of wildlife outside protected areas, there is still considerable scope for carnivore conservation on the Namibian freehold farmlands, provided human-carnivore conflict can be managed. Great strides have been made in Namibia in developing strategies to address human carnivore conflict issues with formerly advantaged freehold farmers. However, since Namibia's independence in 1990, land reform has resulted in a new category of farmer entering the freehold farming sector, the emerging commercial farmer. No data has been gathered regarding emerging commercial farmers' attitudes and perceptions towards carnivores, the levels of camivore-conflict and livestock management practices in relation to livestock losses to carnivores.

Rural change and the ability of farming communities to respond and withstand change is a topic of ongoing concern in the current research agenda. ‘Rural community resilience’ is a concept that has become a core theme of academic, policy and lay discourses discussing dynamics of rural change, widely associated with community studies and allied to notions of social capital. This work reviews approaches to community relations developed within community studies and social capital scholarship, and suggests that the relational agency of the network ties might also be explored through the application of an assemblage approach. However, and unlike many previous approaches to community resilience that use the concept in a normative way and which understandably highlight agency of social relations, this research has been constructed in such a way that network ties established through day-to-day community practices are characterized both vital and far from passive. Developing this current line of thinking in rural studies, this project argues that more-than-social agency evoked by relations between human and non-human components of the rural assemblage is an important factor affecting community resilience. The empirical research feeds from two case studies and gathers evidence from two distinctive agricultural communities of Hungary and Wales, whilst also recognizing similarities in the context of globalization. It argues that rural community resilience lies in relations between the humans, the land and the agricultural commodities.

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Farmers’ markets are increasingly promoted as mechanisms for improving access to healthful foods for low-income households, as they are relatively inexpensive to establish and they can provide affordable food for low-income households by offering Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program Electronic Benefit Transfer (SNAP/EBT). SNAP/EBT at markets also expands revenue opportunities for participating farmers. Market mangers provide a critical role in overseeing SNAP/EBT at markets and influencing business opportunities for farmers. Using a mixed-method approach, this study aimed to evaluate how managers’ motivations influence SNAP/EBT availability and participation at markets and business opportunities for small- and moderate- sized farms. To develop a survey measuring managers’ attitudes and behaviors and farmers’ market outcomes, focus groups were conducted with farmers’ market managers (n=8) in Western North Carolina, East Tennessee, and Southwest Virginia, and interviews were conducted with farmers in the same region (n=8). Eight themes were identified in the manager focus groups, and 5 were identified in the farmer interviews. Qualitative data yielded insight on how managers influence market outcomes. A survey incorporating qualitative findings was distributed to 271 NC farmers’ market managers in May 2014. Multiple regression models were used to examine the influence of mangers’ motivations to improve access to healthful food and support business opportunities on SNAP/EBT availability and participation and indicators of market vitality. Sixty managers completed the survey. There was no significant association between food access motivation and SNAP/EBT participation. A significant, positive association was found between business motivation and customer count, total vendor count, and average weekly vendor count. More research is needed to understand how managers’ motivations interplay with environmental and organizational characteristics to influence food access for low-income households and business opportunities for farmers. Findings from this study offer a starting point for developing interventions that maximize managers’ impact on these outcomes.

The agriculture industry has high rates of injury and illness. Furthermore, the average age of US farmers is 58 years old. Chronic conditions are more common among older populations and often require management by a health professional. Farmers face barriers when seeking healthcare. These barriers include limited free time, shortage of providers in rural areas, limited funds, and poor health insurance. In addition, lack of quality health insurance and concerns about paying for healthcare are identified as barriers to healthcare-seeking behavior among farmers. More research is needed to examine the impact of type of health insurance on utilization of specific types of healthcare services among this high-risk population. The goal of this study was to examine the association between a farmer’s type of health insurance and their healthcare-seeking behaviors. A brief, in-person, self-administered survey was used to identify the types of health insurance Midwest farmers were using and how this affected what type of healthcare services they utilized, specifically looking at preventive healthcare services. A second survey, administered online, was used to identify pre-existing conditions farmers had and the specific healthcare preventive healthcare services they utilized. The online survey found that type of health insurance was significantly associated with usage of preventive services. Other associations were found in the in-person survey between type of health insurance and stress over health insurance as well as stress over injury on the farm. These results can be used to inform future health and safety programs about the impact of health insurance on farmer’s healthcare-seeking behavior. However, additional research should be done with a larger sample.

Thesis (M.Sc. (Agriculture)) --University of Limpopo (Turfloop Campus), 2008 / A large number of emerging farmers in South Africa is involved in subsistence agriculture as a result of poor resource endowment or due to other constraints. Relatively few agricultural products from emerging farmers reach the formal agricultural market. Livestock production is common among emerging farmers and a large proportion of the national livestock is in the hands of the rural poor. Horticultural crops are generally perishable and require immediate disposal, thus implying that the farmers who produce horticultural crops do so with intention to sell their products. Most studies tend to group farmers regardless of their line of production. Only few studies have attempted to investigate the socioeconomic characteristics of farmers, differentiating the commodities that they produce. The objective of this study is to identify and compare the socioeconomic characteristics that determine the farm income of the emerging livestock farmers and horticultural farmers in South Africa. Such an analysis would allow more targeted policy responses for different groups of emerging farmers. The data used in this study consisted of 202 livestock farmers and 126 horticultural farmers selected through quota sample covering all nine provinces in South Africa. The data were collected by the Development Bank of Southern Africa in 2005. Descriptive Analysis and Discriminant Analysis are applied to determine the factors that matter the most in determining incomes of livestock and horticultural farmers. Farm iv income is used as the dependent variable, and fourteen independent variables were identified. The factors that matter the most in determining livestock farmers’ income are, namely access to finance, farm size, age of the household head, membership to farmer organizations and government support. The factors that matter most in determining horticultural farmer’s income are namely farm size, age of the household head, land type (land ownership), and extension services. The results of this study showed that access to land and age of the household head matter the most to both livestock and horticultural farmers. The study found that poor access to land is one of the major constraints facing emerging farmers in South Africa. Land is also one of the factors that may determine the amount of credit the emerging farmers can obtain and, if farmers produce on communal land, it becomes harder to obtain credit. Memberships to farmer’s organisations, government support and access to finance are characteristics that matter the most to livestock and do not seem to matter that much to horticultural farmers. Farmer organisations often lobby for collective provision of appropriate and needed services for their membership. The services that are often lobbied for are services such as extension, marketing and provision of training to empower women and young people so as to enable them to participate fully in farming activities. The results of this study show that there are differences in socio-economic characteristics that matter the most in determining farm income for livestock and horticulture farmers. v Horticulture farmers should be given much support to improve access to get enough land and training while in livestock farming assistance focus should be on access to finance and support services. vi

Thesis (M.Sc. (Agricultural economics)) --University of Limpopo, 2011 / The cattle (especially beef) industry in Botswana has traditionally played an important role in the country’s economy, with significant contributions to Gross Domestic Product (GDP), exports, and employment, as well as playing an important role in social and cultural spheres. Agriculture contributes about 2.3 % of GDP, out of which 70% - 80% is attributable to cattle production. By 2004, beef exports amounted to P284m, approximately 1.7% of total exports of P16.2 billion. In recent years, however, there have been signs of decline and stagnation, especially in the beef export subsector, with adverse implications for the viability of cattle farming in the country, and more generally for rural livelihoods. Botswana’s beef subsector has not fulfilled its potential as a contributor to economic growth and development, especially in the rural areas. The BMC has never been able to meet its quota of 19 000 tonnes of beef to the European Union (EU), despite being cushioned by the Continuo agreement against price competition from more efficient beef producers like Brazil. With the above background, the study was undertaken to examine the supply response of beef farmers in Botswana to various economic (e.g. prices) and non-economic [e.g. rainfall, technology and inventory (cattle population)] factors. This study used historical data on Botswana’s beef subsector for the period 1993 to 2005, and Nerlove’s partial adjustment model was used for the empirical analysis of the data. The results of the study revealed that Botswana beef farmers respond positively to price incentives and time trend (proxy for technology), and negatively to all other variables. Elasticities of supply showed that cattle supply is elastic with respect to variations in producer price and almost unit elastic to changes in cattle inventory. However, the response to shocks in other variables included in the model was inelastic. Short run price elasticity of supply is 1.511 whereas long run price elasticity is 10.57, a clear sign that pricing can be employed as a strategy to enhance beef production in Botswana. The speed of adjustment however, was relatively very low at 14% per period. This slow adjustment perhaps tells us that Botswana farmers, who are predominantly subsistence farmers, may not be having enough capacity (in terms of resources and technology) to immediately increase production when economic environment improves in their favour. Based on the results it is recommended that price increase be adopted as a strategy for improving cattle supply. Extension services need to be strengthened with a view of promoting cattle farming as a commercial activity. Current technology of using communal grazing and indigenous breeds need to be improved. It is also recommended that studies be conducted to determine the suitability of technology that is at the disposal of the farmers. Lastly Botswana government needs to come up with a strategy by which farmers can change from their attitude of oxen production to weaner production.

Thesis (M.Dev.) --University of Limpopo, 2013 / Small-scale farmers in the land reform programme are faced with many challenges which affect their operations adversely that they cannot maintain a sustainable farming momentum and grow into competitive farming enterprises. Instead they are failing and recently some are already selling the land back. Some of the challenges facing them include lack of access to the markets, lack of finance, poor business planning and lack of business know-how. This study assesses the business management competencies among the small-scale farmers on the land reform programme. The central desire of this study is to establish whether or not small scale farmers have the necessary business management competencies to drive and grow their farms into competitive commercial farms that can contribute to employment creation, rural poverty alleviation, rural food security and economic growth. Outcomes from this study reflect that small-scale farmers do not have capacity on the critical functional areas of business management and as a result their business operations are on the brink of collapsing, and thus directly failing the intentions of land reform programme. With all other factors held constant, this study has revealed that business management competency is a huge vacuum amongst the small-scale farmers, and if business oriented training is not prioritized as a post-settlement support, the land reform’s small-scale farming performance is heading towards a complete collapse.