Determinants of Small-Scale Farmers’ Participation in Social Capital Networks to Enhance Adoption of Climate Change Adaptation Strategies in OR Tambo District, South Africa

Abstract

Globally, climate change remains one of the most pressing challenges, and it is also an obstacle to the fundamental achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals. The purpose of the study was to examine the determinants of small-scale farmers’ participation in social capital networks to enhance adoption of climate change adaptation strategies. Multistage and purposive sampling were used to carry out the study. A cross-sectional research design was used to carry out the study and structured questionnaires were used as a data collection tool. The data collected were analyzed using descriptive statistics, the Binary Logit model, and the Ordered Logit model. The findings of the study show that gender, household size, age, marital status, education, and employment status affect a farmer’s participation in social capital networks. The results also show that household size, employment status, and income level affect the extent of participation in social networks. As the paper is the first to look at the determinants of the participation of farmers in social capital networks in Eastern Cape, the results are of paramount importance to policy formulators in order to formulate policies that will encourage farmers to join localized farmer-based social capital networks to adopt climate change adaption measures.