This paper evaluates the impact of institutional and governance factors on the performance of 10 smallholder agricultural cooperatives in KwaZulu-Natal (KZN). Five of the cooperatives grow and market vegetables, three produce and market poultry, one is a beef production cooperative and another...

This paper has two objectives: first, to identify the main contaminants responsible for high treatment costs in the Umgeni catchment area, and second, to predict treatment costs from observed levels of contaminants. A partial adjustment model of treatment costs is estimated for the DV Harris...

A survey was conducted in 1995 among 135 commercial farmers in KwaZulu-Natal to analyse labour remuneration and farmers' perceptions about the impact of labour legislation recently extended to agriculture. Farm labour remuneration normally includes cash wages and payments in kind (such as...

Agricultural cooperatives are often viewed as appropriate vehicles to facilitate vertical coordination with, or horizontal integration between, small farmers who would otherwise be excluded from value-adding opportunities and discerning markets. In South Africa, renewed interest in...

This paper estimates long-run price (wage) elasticities of demand for regular farm labour in South Africa using both Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regression and a Two-stage Least Squares (2SLS) simultaneous-equation model for the period 1960-2002. Both models include a piecewise interactive...

This study identifies different dimensions of poverty affecting the current and future well-being of households within a community of land reform beneficiaries in the Midlands of KwaZulu-Natal. A census survey of the beneficiary households was conducted in May 2002 to gather data on poverty...

This study tests the hypothesis that an efficient rental market for cropland is a significant determinant of agricultural investment in the communal areas of KwaZulu-Natal. An efficient rental market creates an opportunity cost for under-utilisation, which tends to transfer resources to more...

This study investigates possible causes of poverty afflicting a community of land reform beneficiaries in the Midlands of KwaZulu-Natal. The 38 beneficiary households had previously been clustered into four groups displaying different symptoms of poverty. Linear Discriminant Analysis was used...

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...