Factors influencing access to agro-processing training for small-scale crop farmers in Gauteng province of South Africa

Abstract

Background: The agricultural economy has little room for emerging farmers and there is no strong support system available for the small-scale farmers venturing in agro-processing. In this study, “access to agro-processing training” refers to any processing training rendered to small-scale crop farmers to equip them when venturing in to agro-processing. Small-scale crop farmers trained with high knowledge in processing and skills are pre-disposed to adopting processing as a strategy of making their processed products penetrate the agro-processing market. Methodology: Data were collected from 307 small-scale crop farmers and STATA version 15 was used to perform fractional regression analyses to determine factors influencing access to training from the five types of agro-processing training (marketing training, processing training, record-keeping training, financial management training and business-plan training). Results: The results revealed that 26% of the small-scale crop farmers had no access to agro-processing training and 74% of the small-scale crop farmers had access to training. Farming experience had significant influence on the access to agro-processing training for small-scale farmers to function efficiently in the agro-processing industry at 5% level of significance and their coefficient was positive. Conclusion: Small-scale crop farmers with less farming experience should be encouraged to participate in the agro-processing sector as their participation can result in improved income and food security at the household levels. Furthermore, new agro-processing training programmes should be encouraged as trained farmers are more likely to participate in the value addition activities of agro-processing.