A direct elicitation of utility approach is used to measure risk preferences of commercial sugar cane farmers in the Mzimkulu, Sezela and Eston sugarmill areas of KwaZulu-Natal. Arrow- Pratt absolute risk aversion coefficients are elicited, adjusted for both range and scale of the data, to allow...

Technological information is used to assess KwaZulu-Natal commercial sugarcane farmers' intra-plot (panel) soil conservation relative to requirements of the Conservation of Natural Resources Act of 1983. Findings indicate that farmers consider enforcement of the Act to be unlikely and that 28...

A Principal components analysis and multiple regression techniques are used to analyse heterogeneity in 53 KwaZulu-Natal sugarcane farmers soil conservation decisions. Minimum tillage and construction of water carrying terraces are the most common methods used, whereas trash mulching is least...

Butare, where this study was conducted, exhibits one of the highest population densities in Rwanda. As a direct result of population growth, most peasants have small fields and land fragmentation is common. The purpose of this article is to examine the effect of land fragmentation on economic...

This paper extends a previous study in South Africa aimed at developing methodology for assessing the performance of equity-share schemes. The previous study proposed four broad criteria to measure performance: poverty alleviation; empowerment and participation; institutional arrangements and...

The new Cooperatives Act 14 of 2005 was promulgated in August 2005 to promote the development of sustainable cooperatives in South Africa and their use as a vehicle to develop small enterprises. This paper uses the new institutional economics (NIE) to highlight problems created by the Act. Case...

This study aims to develop a robust methodology for measuring financial performance of equity-share schemes. Several studies have investigated various aspects of performance of these schemes but no single study has yet measured their performance using an objective set of criteria. Four...

Census surveys of land transactions show that 203,300 hectares of KwaZulu-Natal's commercial farmland transferred to previously disadvantaged South Africans over the period 1997-2003. This represents 3.8 per cent of the farmland originally available for redistribution in 1994. The annual rate of...