Faculty of Science and Agriculture

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Browsing Faculty of Science and Agriculture by Subject "Agricultural systems -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape"

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    Characterisation of goat production systems in selected coastal areas of the Eastern Cape Province, South Africa
    (University of Fort Hare, 2015) Dube, Kululeko
    The main objective of the study was to characterise goat production systems by resource limited farmers in coastal areas of the Eastern Cape Province, South Africa. A household survey followed by monitoring of goat flocks was conducted among 100 communal farmers in Port St Johns and Umquma Municipalities. All data was analysed using SAS and simulation models were developed using the DynaMod model. The male household heads (75 percent) owned most of the goats, followed by female de-jure (16 percent) and de-facto (6 percent) heads. Goats were mainly used for ceremonies (38 percent) and generation of income (37 percent). The farmers kept mostly indigenous goats together with Boer breed and their crosses. Most farmers controlled internal parasites through regular dosing. The control of external parasites was through dipping. The goat housing was made of wooden poles without any roofing and the kids were kept together with the mature goats in these structures. The goats were marketed through informal channels at an average price of R1500 per goat. Most farmers preferred selling castrated male goats (57 percent) with peak sales in winter and late summer. Generally, the reproductive performance was low across all villages. Majola village had the lowest fecundity (68 percent) and prolificacy (111 percent) while the other villages showed higher fertility rates (Prolificacy 120-124 percent; Fecundity 80-88 percent). Low kid survivability was associated with multiple births as villages with higher fertility rates had the highest infant mortality (31-38 percent). The villages of Port St Johns Municipality had high goat populations in both current and improved production simulations. Inadequate nutrition supply however restricted the growth potential of the Majola flock while genetic unfitness limited that of Izibityolo, Mission and Klanisi villages. iii Goat class distribution was characterised by a few bucks and high doe proportions across all the villages. Breeding ratio per village was above the recommended 0.04 in all villages despite lack of buck ownership by most households. The effective population sizes were all below 50 hence endangering the existence of indigenous Xhosa lob-eared goats in these populations. The failure to control breeding resulted in high inbreeding rates that surpassed the acceptable threshold level of 0.063 in all villages except Majola. The negative relationship between effective population size and fertility indicators revealed the deleterious effect of inbreeding to flock productivity. This was also further evidenced by the positive relationship between fecundity and kid mortality. These results revealed that there were high levels of genetic unfitness resulting in offspring adaptation failure as shown by high kid mortalities in the flocks. In conclusion, goat production was characterised by ineffective management strategies which led to lower reproductive performance as there were high inbreeding levels across the villages.
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    Factors affecting participation rates in farming in the rural areas of South Africa. case of Amathole District Municipality
    (University of Fort Hare, 2015) Zamxaka, Xolisa
    South Africa and the rest of developing countries are faced with poverty and poor rural development. Rural participation in agricultural activities is one of the components that can be used to address the poverty challenge facing the people residing in rural areas. The broad objective of this research is to determine factors affecting participation rate in farming in the rural areas of Amathole District Municipality of Eastern Cape. In this study stratified random sampling method was applied in order to choose a sample out of 30 households that were interviewed 13 people belonged to Participants and 17 people belonged to non-Participants. The results from this study show that women participate a lot in farming activities. The multiple regression model was used to test the participation rates of the people in Amathole region specifically Phumlani area. A number of variables were considered in this study to assess the impact of different variables on participation in farming activities. The results showed that about 57% of the respondents are not participating in farming while 43% of the respondents participate. The farming participants that were interviewed all claim that there is a lack in farming support in the area. When there is no support of any kind, rural people would not be motivated to start development projects on their own. Consequently, this lack of farming support in the Phumlani area may have an influence on the number of farming participants. Therefore, the lack of support in the area may serve as a motivation for non-participants not to be influenced to farm. Rural farming needs to be promoted amongst the youth so as to protect and sustain agricultural growth in rural areas. The study has discovered that the youth of Phumlani is not actively involved in farming activities. Government can provide community members with farming resources so as to promote farming in the area. It would be wiser for the government to provide physical farming resources and implements rather than cash grants.