Marketing challenges and opportunities faced by the Nguni cattle project beneficiaries in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa - Institutional Constraints to Small Farmer Development in Southern Africa - page 112

6.5.11 Household size
Household size, according to Montshwe (2006), is a useful unit of analysis given the
assumptions that within the household resources are pooled, income is shared, and decisions
are made jointly by responsible household members. Household requirements are many
and one person in most cases cannot handle them alone. Marketing of livestock is in most
cases one of the least prioritized activities in a household. It is therefore expected that the
smaller the household size the less the cattle sales will be because of fewer household needs
that require substantial cash. Household size was coded as continuous variables.
6.5.12 Gender of household head
The sex of the household head is expected to influence cattle sales. Men are expected to sell
more than women as they are able to have better access to information through their much
wider networks, on average, than women. Women are also involved in more domestic chores
than men and are therefore not able to access market information relevant to cattle sales
as readily as men. Gender was coded as a dummy variable (male = 1 and zero otherwise).
6.5.13 Age of household head
Musemwa et al. (2007) argues that the higher the age of the head of household, the more
stable the economy of the farm household, because older people relatively have richer
experiences of social and physical environments as well as greater experience of farming
activity. However these older people cannot walk long distances hence cannot sell their cattle
in far away markets and have limited access to information since most of them are illiterate.
Most of the older people view cattle farming not as a business but for prestige and social
purposes (Chimonyo, 2000). It is therefore expected that the older the household head the
less frequent the cattle sales. Age of the household head was treated as a categorical variable.
6.5.14 Level of education of household herd
Another important factor to consider is the level of education of the heads of households
since they are the decision makers in matters concerning the farming activities and other
family income earning activities. According to Nkhori (2004), education increases the ability
of farmers to use their resources efficiently and the allocative effect of education enhances
farmers` ability to obtain, analyse and interpret information. The more the farmer is educated
the more she/he sells cattle at the market. Education was treated as a categorical variable.