Management information sources and communication strategies for commercially oriented smallholder beef cattle producers in Limpopo Province, South Africa

Abstract

A survey was conducted to identify management information sources and communication channels used by commercially oriented smallholder beef cattle producers (n=62) in Limpopo province, South Africa. A total of 62 commercially oriented smallholder farmers under the Limpopo Industrial Development Corporation (IDC)-Nguni cattle project were interviewed using a structured questionnaire to collect data. Descriptive statistics were used to analyse data on farmers’ demographic and farm characteristics, sources of information and communication channels used. A multinomial logistic regression (MNL) model was used to evaluate factors that influenced farmers’ choices of information sources and communications channels used. Findings show that government extension (53% of the respondents) and other farmers (30%) were the major sources of management information for the farmers. Based on the logistic regression results, the decision to choose government extension as the main source of information was mainly influenced by respondents’ gender (p=0.001) and access to training (p=0.023). Communication was mainly through farm-to-farm visits (56%) and the use of mobile phones (30%). Based on current findings, the infusion of modern information communication technologies such as mobile phone-based innovations with the existing government extension service could further strengthen the capacity of farmers to share information amongst themselves as well as providing feedback to extension agents. Furthermore, it is essential to take cognizance of farmers’ socio-economic factors when identifying and characterising their management information sources and communication strategies.