Socio-economic factors influencing marketing practices and opportunities for the smallholder pig farming enterprise in the Cape Metropole District, South Africa

Abstract

Urban smallholder pig production is one of the farming systems that dominate urban agriculture in South Africa. However, the challenges of urban smallholder pig farmers in adopting sustainable marketing practices have not been identified. Therefore, a survey was conducted amongst 160 pig farmers from five suburbs of the Cape Metropole District in South Africa to determine the impact of socio-economic factors on marketing practices and the accompanying challenges for urban smallholder farms. Data was collected using a convenience sampling technique and subjected to descriptive statistics, analysis of variance, and binomial logistic regression. The main challenges experienced by farmers were a slow growth rate in pigs (54% of respondents), scarcity of production inputs (25%), and difficulty in finding marketing information (20%). The main sustainable marketing practices adopted by smallholder pig farmers included the use of a farmgate marketing channel (82% of respondents), the sale of live pigs (52%), and affiliation with marketing organisations (16%). Logistic regression marginal effects revealed that farmers who were women, older, African traditional religion adherents, and had less farming experience, education, training, and access to extension services, relied on paid labour and one source of income, farmed extensively and off-plot, and owned small farms, one livestock type, indigenous breeds and small pig herds, were more likely to face challenges and fail to adopt sustainable marketing practices (P ≤ 0.05). In conclusion, the identified socioeconomic factors have a significant impact on farmers' decision-making and should be incorporated in devising sustainable marketing strategies and policies to enhance market access and pig sales on smallholder urban farms in developing countries.