Balancing Democracy with Service Delivery: Power Relations, Politics and Accountability in Cooperatives Supporting Emergent Livestock Farmers in South Africa

Gwiriri, Lovemore Christopher; Bennett, James E.

doi:10.5334/ijc.973

Cited by 10 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 32 publications

(58 reference statements)

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“…Regarding social relations and dividends, results from interviews show that in ZFSC, like many cooperatives, there were conflicts among members about management of funds, sharing of profits and task allocation. This finding resonates with the noted lack of transparency, poor governance and democratic rule in agricultural cooperatives that betray the imbalanced power relations reported by Gwiriri and Bennett (2020). The youth and the majority of the exmembers of ZFSC complained that they received very little money from the project.…”

Section: Damsupporting

confidence: 54%

“…Table 1 below summarises some of the commonly cited reasons for agricultural cooperative failure in South Africa. Gwiriri & Bennett, 2020 Source: Author's synthesis of literature Aliber (2019b) has described most of the project approaches to the smallholder development that plays a part in agricultural cooperatives as problematic and dysfunctional. He alludes that, in some instances, people group themselves for the sake of attracting funding rather than because they are interested in the projects.…”

Section: 4mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Agricultural extension is defined as 'all the different activities that provide the information and advisory services that are needed and demanded by farmers and other actors in agri-food systems and rural development' (Christoplos, 2010: 2). Agricultural extension has an important role in farmer and agricultural cooperative development (Gwiriri & Bennett, 2020). This is especially true for smallholder farmers in South Africa, particularly in the Eastern Cape, where a majority of smallholders rely on public agricultural extension (Aliber et al, 2017).…”

Section: Role Of Agricultural Extension In Cooperative Developmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Many studies have focused on specific cases (e.g. Magano et al, 2013;Dyaluvane, 2015;Gwiriri & Bennett, 2020), in this way limiting the scope of knowledge about the performance of agricultural cooperatives. Nevertheless, each specific case, though only making a small contribution individually, adds to the existing body of knowledge.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Why do agricultural co-operatives fail to attract youth and create rural employment? Evidence from a case study of Zanokhanyo in Butterworth, Eastern Cape

Zantsi¹

2021

S Afr. Jnl. Agric. Ext.

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In the National Development Plan, cooperatives and agriculture development are identified as possible solutions for addressing rural poverty and unemployment, especially among the youth. However, according to most research/literature, agricultural cooperatives fail for many reasons, including but not limited to lack of capital, incompetent management and organizational deficiencies. This study applied a qualitative analysis to the qualitative data using a case study of Zanokhanyo Food Security Cooperative (ZFSC) in Ndabakazi, Butterworth. Interviews with the project members, ex-members, extension officers and youth were conducted through a semi-structured questionnaire administered in IsiXhosa. According to the results, lack of intensive production resulting in very low incomes is one of the reasons why projects such as ZFSC fail to attract young people and provide employment for rural people. Agricultural extension advisory services play a very limited role because of their generalist approach; they lack depth of knowledge about diverse agricultural subject areas. This study recommends that agricultural extension and the farmers’ support system be improved by employing or outsourcing specialists to cater to the needs of agricultural cooperatives in order to improve the productivity and income of agricultural cooperatives.

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Section: Damsupporting

confidence: 54%

Section: 4mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Role Of Agricultural Extension In Cooperative Developmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Why do agricultural co-operatives fail to attract youth and create rural employment? Evidence from a case study of Zanokhanyo in Butterworth, Eastern Cape

Zantsi¹

2021

S Afr. Jnl. Agric. Ext.

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“…They have been found to promote the development of social capital in the farming community (Vo, 2016), by facilitating information exchange and trust building (Tregear and Cooper, 2016). They are also known for their democratic decision-making procedures, which provide participants an opportunity to practice democracy (Gwiriri and Bennett, 2020), which then benefits the community as a whole (Burchi and Vicari, 2014).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Adoption of food safety measures: The role of bargaining and processing producer organizations

Mwambi

Bijman

Mshenga

et al. 2020

NJAS: Wageningen Journal of Life Sciences

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Increasing demand for safe food in developing countries entails meeting stringent food safety requirements. Food retailers and regulatory bodies impose food safety measures related to production and handling of farm produce. For smallholders to remain competitive in such a system, institutional arrangements are necessary. We examine the role of producer organizations (POs) in influencing safe food production behaviours among farmers. Using data from 11 expert interviews and a quantitative survey involving 595 smallholder dairy farmers in Kenya, a propensity score matching estimation is employed to assess membership effects. We show that membership in POs positively and significantly influences smallholders' adoption of food safety measures related to milk storage and the milking area. We highlight the importance of social incentives in improving food safety adoption among farmers even when price incentives are absent. Our recommendation is that PO policies that alleviate barriers to food safety adoption among farmers will be helpful in scaling up adoption.

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‘The ghost of environmental history’: Analysing the evolving governance of communal rangeland resources in Machubeni, South Africa

2022

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Over the past three decades, there has been a growing realisation that communal rangelands are experiencing massive transformation (Mairomi & Kimengsi, 2021;Palmer & Bennett, 2013;Shackleton & Gambiza, 2008), due to the myriad of drivers interacting at different scales (Bennett & Barrett, 2007). Environmental challenges such as increased soil erosion, increases in bush encroachment, climate change and variability have been widely reported to be affecting communal rangeland conditions across Africa (Bolo et al., 2019;Falayi et al., 2021;Palmer & Bennett, 2013). Furthermore, high overgrazing, population growth, unsustainable land management and weak institutional arrangements have also been identified as key drivers causing rangeland degradation (Bolo et al., 2019;Mani

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Balancing Democracy with Service Delivery: Power Relations, Politics and Accountability in Cooperatives Supporting Emergent Livestock Farmers in South Africa

Cited by 10 publications

References 32 publications

Why do agricultural co-operatives fail to attract youth and create rural employment? Evidence from a case study of Zanokhanyo in Butterworth, Eastern Cape

Why do agricultural co-operatives fail to attract youth and create rural employment? Evidence from a case study of Zanokhanyo in Butterworth, Eastern Cape

Adoption of food safety measures: The role of bargaining and processing producer organizations

‘The ghost of environmental history’: Analysing the evolving governance of communal rangeland resources in Machubeni, South Africa

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