Where is subsistence farming practiced

The sample size was subsistence farmers from Nyandeni Local Municipality. The selected farmers were practicing both crop and vegetable farming in their land for. Primary data was collected for this study through face-to-face interviews. Following that, a semi-structured questionnaire was designed by the researchers based on the review from the literature. The semi-structured questionnaire was first pre-tested and was overseen to the interviewees with the help of highly skilled enumerators who speaks the local languages IsiXhosa fluently.

The final version of the questionnaire was later administered to the farmers' head and in the absence of the head, the oldest member of the farm was chosen. The information on the semi-structured questionnaire includes farmers' demographic features, asset endowments, production and farming information, reasons for practicing subsistence farming, challenges and factors influencing subsistence farming in the study are.

After collecting the data, data was entered on Excel. Data cleaning, and management of missing data was also done. The study used descriptive statistics and multiple regression analysis. The study made use of multiple linear regression model to examine factors affecting subsistence farming in rural areas of Nyandeni Local Municipality. The goal is to estimate and model the relationship between the set of hypothesized causal variables to understand their influence over subsistence farming.

Explanatory variables that were estimated include gender, age, marital status, educational level, household size, production sold, amount per product sold, access to extension services, member of farm organization and social status. The multiple regression model that was used in this study can be described as follows:.

The empirical model was specified as in equation 2 :. This section represents data which was collected from subsistence farmers in the Nyandeni Local Municipality. Table 1. This refers to the gender of the household head. Most homesteads are headed by females. That may be true because males tend to be migrant labourers in urban area or cities.

Women are assumed to be participating more in agricultural activities because they are always taking care of home activities in most cases.

Age is influential especially when it comes to agricultural activities. However, the literature reveals that many individuals that are participating in farming are old people that may be caused by the fact that they grew up farming and that was the only livelihood strategy that is cheaper to them.

Therefore, the expected outcome of the study regarding age is that old people are more involved in subsistence farming. Farming experience gives household an opportunity of conquering poverty.

The more the household head has more experience in farming, the more the household will practice subsistence farming. Family size is essentially the total number of persons residing in one household. The literature reveals that family size tends to influence food consumption in the household. This simply means that large family size results to a high level of food consumption and vice versa.

Therefore, it is expected that household with large family size are more involved in subsistence farming with the intent of increasing food availability. Education determines the literacy rate.

People who are educated have diverse ways of acquiring information from various sources. Therefore, it is anticipated that educated people will not participate in subsistence production instead they will invest in off-farm activities.

Household income sometimes can be used to indicate the welfare of the household. Income also determines the monthly household expenditure.

Therefore, it is assumed that households with high income will invest their income with non-farm activities. It is anticipated that households that have high income will not practice subsistence farming. This displays that subsistence farming households were males, which may be credited to the comprehensive labour obligation.

The average age of the household heads was 60 years with an average family size of 6 individuals per household. The average age of the household head among smallholder irrigators is 60 years. This means that agriculture in the study areas is dominated by elderly people, probably because of mass retrenchments at the mines in the wake of mechanization of mining operations that began in Kibirige, The majority of the farming households have primary education, having spent approximately 10 years in school only a handful of respondents did not have any kind of education.

This means that subsistence farmers were able to understand farming information and market information. Subsistence farmers had a farm size of 2 Ha which they were using to practice crop and vegetable farming. Family size averaged 6 persons. Benefits of subsistence farming in rural area. Table 2 illustrates benefits of subsistence farming to rural areas of NLM.

The study results revealed that the main benefit and reason for subsistence farming was strictly to provide food for home consumption with The results agree with literature that many farmers practice farming to derive livelihood as these results has indicated.

Additionally, so, these farmers do not have any form of employment as farming is their solely occupation for living. Lastly, they do employ laborers during harvesting period for assistance in harvesting with 8. The results display that subsistence farming had a significant role in rural areas of Nyandeni Local Municipality. The literature review revealed that subsistence farming in Nyandeni Local Municipality is decline in with several factors. Table 4 below is displaying challenges which are fundamental to the reduction of subsistence farming in the study area.

Farmers were choosing more than one challenge they were facing in farming. This is crucial challenge because farmers in the study area had no source of funding which would have assisted them in purchasing modern farming inputs instead of using traditional and obsolete farming technique. The lack of knowledge is contributing to decline of farming as these farmers had only primary education which is just basic education which do not contribute much in farming and which was the reason of using indigenous knowledge for farming.

This had contributed to decline in subsistence farming due to changing climate which led to prolong dry spells as result of drought, making it very hard for farmers to have water available for farming. This is the main cause because households in the study area they just farm using indigenous knowledge not being assisted.

They lack pesticides and herbicides for diseases, lack improved seeds which withstand climate variability and knowledge in terms of farming, such factors contributed vastly to decline in subsistence farming.

Lastly, lack of farming equipment is one the challenges that subsistence farmers agreed that it contributed to decline in farming. The multiple regression results for factors affecting subsistence farming are presented in Table 5. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Submit Comment. What Is Subsistence Farming?

Submit a Comment Cancel reply Your email address will not be published. Comment Name Email Website Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Trending news. Top Bay Leaf Benefits. Florida Plant Identification for Beginners. Identifying the 27 Most Common Vegetable Plants.

Top 10 Flowers to Grow for a Winter Garden. Top Lemon Balm Uses. We focus on these three major types of hazards, though we understand that other changes are also expected to occur due to climate change. Farmers attribute this decrease to a combination of the drought, flood and rain variability experienced in the previous 12 months. Maize, the staple crop in the region, followed similar production trends Table 2. Due to the climate-related hazards experienced in the to season, households reported experiencing intense periods of hunger.

Average duration of hunger periods for households were 4. A hunger period, as defined by farmers, is a time when the household had severe difficulties obtaining enough food to feed all household members. During periods of hunger, the most common coping strategy reported was to reduce food consumption through restricting the size, diversity and number of meals taken each day.

Households that were involved in off-farm activities intensified their work in these areas and others engaged in casual farm labor. See Table 3 for a list of common coping strategies. Farmers were also forced to use more detrimental coping strategies to cope with the reduced productivity in to From discussions with farmers, we defined detrimental coping strategies as those that have harmful long-term impacts on household productivity.

Farmers reported selling oxen reserved for plowing during periods of drought, leading to lower farm productivity the following season as people then had to plow by hand. This consumption had negative repercussions, as many farmers were forced to plant fewer seeds the following season due to the depletion of their personal seed stores and constraints in capital.

Some Middle Nyando farmers reported being forced to lease part of their farms for 2 years to wealthy farmers in the area in order to feed their families. This coping mechanism is especially detrimental as it prevents farmers from accessing their main source of livelihood, their land, for 2 years. According to some farmers, engaging in casual labor during periods of hunger also represents a detrimental coping strategy as it delays the planting in their own farms.

Farmers involved in an agroforestry development project typically used fewer detrimental coping strategies during hunger periods. Farmers with mature trees on their land were able to sell seedlings, timber and firewood and consume fruit from their trees during periods of hunger. Farmers reported that this diversification of coping strategies allowed them to rely less on other traditional coping strategies.

See Table 3 for a comparison across groups. The most effective way farmers found to reduce their vulnerability to these climate-related hazards was to diversify income to include off-farm activities.

Farmers who engaged in off-farm activities, such as wage-earning jobs or owning small shops, reported being better able to cope with climate-related hazards than their farming neighbors. Farmers with higher average farm productivity also reported fairing better during rainfall variations as they had more stores to draw on when current production was low.

We discussed with farmers how they believed they could improve their overall standard of living when exposed to the hazards described above. Food security, as defined by farmers, is the ability to obtain an adequate diet for all household members throughout the year, without being forced to use long-term savings to purchase food. To achieve food security, farmers reported being interested in opportunities to start small business ventures or obtaining credit to purchase farm implements to improve their farm productivity.

Farmers also expressed interest in opportunities to improve their agricultural knowledge and to learn about alternative income opportunities as other indirect pathways to improve food security. It is only after a household reaches relatively food security that they begin investing in long-term processes for improving other components of their well-being. Farmers also reported that they have begun to put more emphasis on the environmental conservation of their land.

Both treatment and control focus groups concluded that their well-being had significantly declined due to soil erosion on their farms. A number of community groups had recently been formed to focus on environmental issues and soil conservation practices in the area, suggesting that environmental conservation is perceived as a key way through which communities believe they can improve their well-being.

Constraints to achieving well-being are summarized in Table 4. Most farmers agreed that unpredictable weather and lack of access to capital are the two largest constraints to improving their lives, but environmental degradation was also cited as a major concern. In addition to food security, most farmers also cited an ability to cope with shocks and stresses as a key characteristic of a successful household. During times of stress, successful households are food secure for 2 to 3 months longer, often giving support to their neighbors and family.

Successful households are not forced to sell livestock or belongings, take their children out of school, or significantly reduce meal portions during exposure to outside shocks. Currently, households feel unable to deal with the unexpected problems that arise from extreme weather events, sicknesses, job loss, low cash crop market prices, and so on. Farmers continuously reiterated their need to find better ways in which to deal with exposure to outside shocks, particularly rainfall variability and drought, which frequently disrupt their lives.

Farmers were most interested in improving their off-farm incomes, diversifying income sources and improving general farm productivity to reduce their sensitivity to climate-related hazards.

During interviews, farmers also emphasized their desire to remain autonomous in deciding what type of specific adaptation measures they choose to employ. Many farmers complained that some specific climate-change adaptation measures suggested by agricultural extension workers or non-profit organizations, such as planting drought-resistant maize, were actually detrimental to their farm yields during normal or heavy rains.

With the uncertainties farmers face in weather patterns from year to year, they were unwilling to invest in strategies that were less productive under certain weather conditions. Farmers reported being interested in receiving information and advice on potential adaptation strategies, as long as outside constituents did not decide what activities would take place in their communities without their consent.

When interpreting these results, it is important to note that the agroforestry project assessed has only been in operation for 2 to 4 years and thus the long-term effects of agroforestry involvement are not captured in our analysis. Our results suggest that agroforestry improves farm productivity and household wealth. Farmers found trees improved their farm productivity by decreasing soil erosion and increasing soil fertility.

Farmers who reported no change in farm productivity explained either they had not planted nitrogen-fixing trees in their fields or the trees were not yet mature enough to assess the effects.

Many farmers expressed concern that planting trees in their fields would reduce productivity of their crops and were unwilling to take such a risk. All farmers who have begun intercropping trees reported significant improvements to their productivity after incorporating nitrogen rich leaves into their soil. For farms using agroforestry techniques, our quantitative data suggests a slight improvement in farm yields in both Lower and Middle Nyando when compared with the control group.

The high uncertainty in the quantitative results of the study was likely in part due to the small sample size, short duration of agroforestry participation and the non-randomized selection of households. During focus group discussions, farmers ranked the potential income benefits from trees as the most helpful aspect of the trees on their land. The excitement farmers expressed in the income benefits from tree products stemmed in part from the limited opportunities for income generation in the area.

Among the farmers in Lower Nyando who have had trees for 4 years, Benefits were reported from the sale of fuel wood, timber, fruit and seedlings and through savings in food purchases due to an increase in farm productivity. Farmers who had not seen improvement in their income after planting trees explained that their trees were still too young to provide any benefits. In our quantitative analysis we used livestock holding as a surrogate for household income as it is difficult to measure wealth in real terms among small-scale farmers.

Household wealth, as measured by current livestock holdings, improved for Lower Nyando participants involved in an agroforestry project. It is not surprising that Middle Nyando farmers have not improved their wealth through agroforestry involvement, as these farmers planted their trees only 2 years ago and do not yet have mature trees that can provide timber, fruit or fuel wood for sale.

Due to their remote location, Middle Nyando farmers have also had less success selling tree seedlings to neighboring communities so have been unable to receive substantial income benefits from this source.

Lower Nyando farmers, however, reported selling fruit, timber, fuel wood and seedlings on a regular basis to local markets. From discussions with farmers in the area, it appears that the inconclusive results on wealth in Middle Nyando are in part due to a lack of infrastructure in the area, that is currently acting as a barrier to access markets for their tree crops. Involvement in agroforestry practices also provides a number of other general improvements that helped farmers increase the environmental sustainability of their farms.

Soil erosion was particularly detrimental to people affected by the floods in Lower Nyando, with many farmers complaining of decreased soil fertility due to the intense soil erosion during the heavy rains.

Farmers considered tree planting to be the most effective method of soil erosion control. Tree biomass was estimated using Kuyah et al. Involvement in agroforestry also provides substantial labor savings to women household members by reducing time spent on fuel wood collection. Some women reported walking over 20 km to purchase fuel wood in neighboring districts.

Women in low-tree-density areas also reported being threatened by their neighbors in a struggle over fuel wood resources. Our research shows that agroforestry involvement leads to substantial reductions in fuel wood purchased and the time that households use to collect fuel wood Table 6.

Fuel wood was the second most commonly cited use of trees on the farm. Women with mature trees on their land felt that they now have access to a safer and more stable supply of fuel wood.

These women reported devoting more time to income-generating activities and farm care now that fuel wood stocks are nearby. It also appears that there is an opportunity in low-tree-density areas to increase off-farm incomes of women through local fuel wood sales.

There is a substantial demand for purchased fuel wood in these areas, yet only two farmers reported having enough excess fuel wood on their land to sell fuel wood at the market. In addition to the general benefits listed above, agroforestry also provides specific coping options to farmers during exposure to floods and droughts. Some farmers reported having fruit from their trees as their only steady source of sustenance during the floods, as other crops were underwater or had been washed away.

During the drought, many farmers reported selling fuel wood and timber to produce additional income for food purchases.

Tree roots prevented extensive soil erosion and ensuing soil fertility loss for farmers in Lower Nyando during the floods. The alternate coping strategies provided by trees allowed farmers additional flexibility in their management of the climate stresses they faced. Achieving well-being or a similarly acceptable quality of life is a fundamental goal in most development projects focused on poverty alleviation [ 29 ].

Our findings also showed that farmers expressed an interest in improving their well-being, but with a particular emphasis on the need to reduce vulnerability when exposed to outside shocks and stresses. This finding agrees with those of Place et al. Using these ideas expressed by farmers, we modified, for the use of our analysis, the definitions of well-being discussed in the literature [ 30 — 32 ]. This definition is unique because it takes into account the need to achieve well-being improvements while exposed to climate-related hazards and it specifically stresses the importance of food security and other tangible changes.

Plantations also tend to import workers and provide food, water, and shelter necessities for workers to live there year-round. Geographers are concerned with understanding why things happen in geographical spaces. Because he was a keen observer of the landscape around him, he noticed that similar plots of land in different locations were often used for very different purposes.

He concluded that these differences in land use between plots with similar physical characteristics might be the result of differences in location relative to the market. Thus, he went about trying to determine the role that distance from markets plays in creating rural land-use patterns. He was interested in finding laws that govern the interactions between agricultural prices, distance, and land use as farmers sought to make the greatest profit possible.

The dot represents a city, and the first ring white is dedicated to market gardening and fresh milk production. That is because of milk products and garden crops, such as lettuce, spoil quickly. Because of this, producers of perishable crops were willing to outbid producers of less perishable crops to gain access to the land closest to the market.

This means that land close to the community created a higher level of economic rent. This was because, in the early 19th century, people used wood for building, cooking, and heating.

Wood is bulky and heavy and therefore difficult to transport. Still, it is not nearly as perishable as milk or fresh vegetables. In his time, rye was the most important cash grain crop.

Because the cost of gaining access to the land rent drops with distance from the city, those farming at the other edges of the ring would find that lower rents would offset increased transportation costs.

Therefore, they would not farm as intensely as those working land closer to the urban center. The fourth ring would be dedicated to livestock ranching. Additionally, products such as wool, hide, horn, and so on could be transported easily without concern about spoilage. These lands, he argued, would eventually develop rent value, as the population of the state increased. Thus, in this fundamental theory, the only variable was the distance from the market.

He developed it as an analytical tool that could be manipulated to explain rural land-use patterns in a world of multiple variables. He knew that this did not represent reality because already in his time, some roads were better than others, railways existed, and navigable water routes significantly reduced the friction of distance between the places they served. Therefore, he introduced a navigable waterway into his model, and found that because produce would be hauled to docks on the stream for transport, each zone of production would elongate along the stream.

Eventually, as he worked with his model, he began to consider the effects of differences in climates, topography, soils, and labor.

Each of these could serve to benefit or restrict production in a given place. For example, lower wages might offset the advantages realized by being near a market. The difference in the soil might also offset the advances of being close to the market. Thus, a farmer located some distance from the market with access to well-drained, well-watered land with excellent soil, and low-cost labor nearby, might be willing to pay higher rent for the property in question even if it were a bit further from the market than another piece of land that did not have such amenities.

Once real-world influences are allowed to invade the model, the concentric land-use pattern does not remain in place. Modern technology, such as advances in transportation systems, increasingly complicates the basic concentric circle model.

Recent changes, like the demand for agricultural products, also influence land-use patterns. Changes in demand for farm products often have dramatic impacts on land uses. For example, when fuel production companies demanded dramatically increased quantities of corn to produce ethanol, and the price of corn rose accordingly, farmers responded by shifting from other food crops to ethanol-producing corn.

Currently, there is little extra farmland available upon which an expansion might take place.