1. Introduction
Despite past efforts made by agricultural researchers, extension services and government institutions, crop production in South African smallholder farms remains lower than the potential for the land [
1,
2,
3]. The low yields obtained are attributed to prolonged droughts, longer dry spells, limited water and nutrient availability, degraded soils and inefficient farming practices [
4,
5,
6]. The predicted increase in incidences of floods, droughts, longer dry spells, rainfall variability and elevated air temperatures posed by climate change threaten the sustainability of rainfed crop production [
7,
8,
9]. Consequently, climate change will potentially affect food security and the livelihoods of the majority of South African smallholder farmers, who are primarily dependent on rainfed agricultural production and have a narrow adaptation capacity [
8,
9].
According to Goldblatt [
10], the population of South Africa is expected to grow from 57 million to 82 million by the year 2035. In order to feed this rapidly increasing population under social, climate and land use change, food production must be based on sustainable agricultural productivity [
10]. This is a viable approach of improving crop yields from the existing land through optimized external inputs and efficient use of available resources while reducing adverse environmental impacts and building resilience, natural capital and the flow of environmental services [
11,
12,
13]. Therefore, Sustainable Agricultural Practices (SAPs), such as minimum tillage, planting in pits, mulching, intercropping, crop rotation, use of crop cover, green and animal manure, rainwater harvesting and planting on contour and ridges, have been recommended to enhance the productivity and resilience of agricultural production of smallholder farming systems, while conserving the natural resources [
6,
14,
15,
16]. However, the impact of SAPs will only be recognized if most smallholder farmers accept and adopt those practices [
17]. In recent years, huge efforts were made by various African research agencies, non-governmental organizations, international organizations and donors to validate, implement and promote these SAPs across the African regions. Despite the well documented yield improvements, nitrogen and water-use efficiency, economic and environmental benefits attributed to these SAPs, adoption levels by South African smallholder farmers are still very low [
2,
6,
16,
17]
Previous studies across the African continent indicated that socio-economic factors, farm characteristics and agro-climatic zone characteristics were the main factors influencing adoption of SAPs by smallholder farmers [
18,
19,
20,
21]. Therefore, factors influencing adoption of SAPs varies with countries and regions as a result of differences in cultural and political ideologies, natural resources community access to education, adequate information on the technical details of the SAPs, extension services, credits and infrastructure [
13,
22,
23]. Given the wide diversity of South African regions, understanding the barriers that influence or hinder adoption of SAPs across the country is essential in order to develop interventions to enhance the adoption process, as targeting those barriers can improve the adoption of SAPs, not only in the study area but also in other regions that face the same barriers. A few studies have been conducted to identify the barriers and major constraints limiting the adoption of the most promising SAPs across South Africa [
3,
17,
24]. However, these studies have only focused on conservation agriculture as one of the SAPs. Consequently, the challenges hindering smallholder farmers from adopting other SAPs have not been investigated in detail in this country. Therefore, the main aim of this study was to identify the barriers affecting sustainable agricultural productivity of smallholder farmers in the eastern Free State, South Africa. Firstly, we describe the effects of demographic and socio-economic characteristics on agricultural productivity of smallholder farmers in the study area. Secondly, we determine the knowledge and extent of adoption of SAPs by those farmers. Thirdly, we determine the key barriers to their adoption of SAPs. Finally, we suggest relevant strategies to increase the sustainable agricultural productivity of the smallholder farmers in the study area.
2. Study Site Description
The study was conducted at Harrismith and Phuthaditjhaba, within the Maluti-a-Phofung municipality, located in the eastern parts of Thabo Mofutsanyana district in the Free State Province of South Africa (
Figure 1). Free State is the third-largest province in the country, situated between latitudes 26.6° S and 30.7° S and between longitudes 24.3° E and 29.8° E [
25,
26]. According to Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries [
25], the main economic activities contributing significantly towards the gross domestic product of the province are community service (24.7%), agriculture (20.1%), trade (10.7%) and mining (9.6%). About 30% of the national maize production is produced in the Free State, thus contributing significantly to the agricultural economy of the country [
6]. Most of the agricultural production in the province is under rainfed conditions, with less than 10% of the arable land being under irrigation [
5,
26,
27,
28].
The climate in the Maluti-a-Phofung municipality is characterized by hot, humid summers and cold winters [
29]. The municipality experiences frequent snowfalls during winter, especially on the higher mountain ranges [
29]. Rainfall in this area occurs mainly in summer as brief afternoon thunderstorms [
30]. Moeletsi and Walker [
5] reported the high spatial rainfall variability which is influenced by orographic patterns this region. According to Moeletsi and Walker [
5], there are early onset (before the second dekad of November) and relatively late cessation (after the second dekad of May) of rains at Thabo Mofutsanyana and the rest of eastern Free State compared to western parts of the province. Annual rainfall in the western and southern parts of the province often remains below 400 mm, whereas much of the eastern parts receives between 500 and 600 mm of rainfall per annum [
5]. Therefore, eastern parts of Free State are highly suitable for dryland crop production compared to dry areas in the western and southern parts of the province [
5]. Longer dry spells and droughts which often occur during summer months (December to February) are amongst the major agro-climatological hazards which affect agricultural production in Free State [
26,
31]. This makes soil-water conservation and efficient use of soil moisture very important for sustainable agricultural production in this region. According to Moeletsi et al. [
31], eastern, northern and south-eastern parts have a shorter growing period of less than 240 days as a result of early onset (mid-March) and late cessation (mid-October) of frost in these regions. Therefore, early and ultra-early cultivars are recommended in the eastern, northern and south-eastern parts of this province to reduce vulnerability to the frosts [
21].
5. Conclusions and Recommendations
The main aim of this study was to identify the barriers affecting sustainable agricultural productivity of smallholder farmers in the eastern Free State, South Africa. The study indicated that although farmers knew about Sustainable Agricultural Practices (SAPs), the level of adoption is still low. The results further highlighted the contracting factors affecting traditional SAPs and new SAPs. Results indicated that traditional SAPs such as intercropping, mulching and crop rotation were more likely to be adopted by farmers with access to land yet without access to credit (and had low levels of education, although this finding was not significant). In contrast, new SAPs such as cover cropping, minimum-tillage, tied ridging and planting pits were more knowledge (education), capital and labor intensive. Therefore, extension strategies should take these differences into consideration when promoting both the adoption of traditional SAPs and new SAPs. Targeting resource-constrained farmers (in terms of access to credit and education) through raising awareness and building capacity is essential to ensure the adoption of traditional SAPs. In turn, promoting the adoption of new SAPs not only needs awareness raising and capacity building but also must fundamentally address resource constraints of South African smallholder farmers such as knowledge, capital and labor.
The findings of this study suggested that extension services have a crucial role to play in sustainable agricultural productivity through awareness raising, capacity building and the provision of up-to-date information on SAPs, input supply, early warnings on droughts, climate change adaptation strategies, weather forecasts, access to markets and credits. Therefore, there is a significant need to improve the quality and outreach of extension services. Most of the information used by South African smallholder farmers, who are generally illiterate and lack skills, is through verbal and personal experience. Consequently, they need to be exposed to field demonstration trials and training. Therefore, it is recommended that future interventions on promoting SAPs should demonstrate the economic, social and environmental benefits of adopting SAPs at the local level. Moreover, it is recommended that extension services should conduct farmer-led trials for meaningful farmer involvement, learning, adoption and adaptation of the SAPs at local level.
Access to extension services is the vehicle through which sustainable agricultural productivity can be achieved. Therefore, it is recommended that government should provide resources and infrastructure to improve the quality of extension services accessed by smallholder farmers in the study area. It is also suggested that government policies should encourage farmers groups to ease the outreach of extension services for wider dissemination of information to ensure agricultural sustainability. Land ownership provides collateral and enables farmers to acquire loans which they could use to invest on their farms and adopt SAPs. Therefore, it is also suggested that government policies should address the issue of land redistribution and ownership to enable poverty alleviation and rural development through sustainable agricultural productivity.