Smallholder livestock farmers coping and adaptation strategies to agricultural drought

Abstract

This study focused on the coping strategies that smallholder livestock farmers used in the event of agricultural drought in South Africa. The result revealed that the majority of smallholder farmers sold their livestock, as a coping strategy. Results from the multinomial probit model revealed that the socio-economic and institutional variables influenced smallholder livestock farmers’ choice of coping strategies. The study recommends that government and different stakeholders should enhance the resilience of smallholder livestock farmers by improving the efficiency of cooperatives, enhancing government involvement in drought and resilience activities, improve social-network and community involvement in policy implementation and planning, and strengthen communication to disseminate policies and relevant information.