Trade is an essential component of modern society, with nations signing bilateral trade agreements to engage in various forms of economic integration. Developing countries in southern Africa are also involved in economic integration to underpin development. The Southern African Development Community (SADC) became a free trade area in 2008 for the economic integration of its members. This study evaluates the impact of the SADC Free Trade Agreement (SADC FTA) on South African agricultural trade using the Poisson Pseudo-Maximum Likelihood (PPML) specification of gravity model to determine the significance of variables within the model. Bilateral trade data were obtained from the United Nations Commodity Trade Statistics (UN Comtrade) database and the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (DAFF), while data on gross domestic product and population were sourced from the World Bank Development Indicators (WDI) database. The results show that there has been a net trade-creating effect and increasing intra-SADC bloc trade in beef. Intra-regional trade in maize has also been stimulated by the implementation of the agreement.
The aim of this article was to assess and identify social vulnerability of communal farmers to drought in the O.R. Tambo district in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa using a survey data and social vulnerability index (SoVI). Eleven social vulnerability indicators were identified using Bogardi, Birkman and Cardona conceptual framework. The result found that an SoVI estimated for O.R. Tambo district was very high with a Likert scale of 5 for cultural values and practices, security or safety, social networks, social dependence, preparedness strategies and psychological stress attributed for the high value of social vulnerability to drought. Indigenous knowledge and education had an SoVI value of 2, which was of low vulnerability, contributing positively to resilience to drought. The study also found that government involvement in drought risk reduction is limited; as a result, the study recommends that a national, provincial and district municipalities policy on drought risk reduction and mitigation should be developed.
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