Determinants of On-Farm Diversification Strategies: A Case Study of Smallholder Farmers in Mpumalanga Province, South Africa

Promoting resilience, increasing productivity and sustainability, and profit maximization remain key challenges facing farmers globally. These are exacerbated by factors such as climate change, low to no access to technological advancement, financial constraints, poor technical and management skills, inadequate government support, and limited access to resources. However, there are diverse strategies that abound, including on-farm diversification, that farmers could leverage on to address these numerous and complex challenges. This study investigated the determinants of on-farm diversification strategies among smallholders in Mpumalanga Province. The study employed a quantitative approach using closed-ended survey questionnaires to elicit information from a total of 465 farmers who were randomly sampled from a total population of 14,411. The data gathered were analysed using descriptive statistics to determine the on-farm diversification strategies employed by farmers and the factors influencing the use of these strategies. A binary logistic regression model was employed to establish the relationship between on-farm diversification strategies and the determining factors. More than half of the farmers were female (51.8%), with only 48.2% male. The majority (59.1%) of the farmers were between the ages of 36 and 60, with only 20.2% youth participation in farming. Slightly more than half (50.8%) of the farmers practise mixed farming as their on-farm diversification strategy, while only 4.3% of the farmers practise mono-cropping. The study identified significant variables such as level of education (p = 0.001), secondary source of income (p = 0.057), farmland size (p = 0.022), number of farm assistants (p = 0.016), and on-farm diversification awareness as key determinants of on-farm diversification among smallholder farmers in Mpumalanga Province. Therefore, it is recommended that policies within the agricultural sector be revised to encourage on-farm diversification in order to motivate farmers to transition to agripreneurship for poverty alleviation, food security and rural economic development (RED).