Relationships Between Psychological Attributes and Farm Business Performance of South Africa's Smallholder Farmers

Most research into factors associated with farm business performance has only focused on economic, environmental and demographic factors. The study departs from this traditional approach to examine the relationship between psychological factors or attributes and cattle farm business performance. Two hundred and seventy study participants were randomly sampled from seven provinces of South Africa. They completed a self-administered questionnaire through the assistance of trained enumerators. The questionnaire employed a 10-item measure for theory of planned behaviour-related constructs - attitudes, subjective norms and perceived behavioural control, an 11-item measure for self-efficacy, a 10-item measure for personality traits - openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism and a 21-item measure for time perspective - present time and future time. The item measures were assessed on a 5-point Likert-type scale, where 1= strongly disagree/ very untrue and 5=strongly agree strongly/very true and their internal consistency was assessed by Cronbach’s alpha. Items in each scale were averaged to compute composite scores for final variables of psychological attributes, with high scores indicating positive endorsement of psychological attributes towards cattle farming. Market participation was analysed using binary logistic regression and a Cobb-Douglass stochastic frontier model was used to assess farm business performance measured by traditional indicators, market participation and technical efficiency, respectively. The overall findings showed that on average farmers were neutral on attitudes, self-efficacy and three related personality traits - extraversion, neuroticism and agreeableness; “agree” on subjective norms, perceived behavioural control, openness to experience and conscientiousness. The correlational analysis showed that high perceived behaviour control is likely to reduce overstocking and total costs, thereby improving profitability. More conscientious farmers are less likely to sell, and highly neurotic farmers are also less likely to sell their cattle. Farmers who tend to look for short-term benefits or immediate gratification are more likely to sell their cattle. Extensive social interaction and networking by farmers was associated with increased technical efficiency. An increase of farmers’ perception of their ability to farm with cattle was also associated with increased technical efficiency. The result further show that an increase of farmers’ favourable or unfavourable evaluation of cattle farming is more likely to reduce technical efficiency. Increased farmers’ belief of their ability to farm with cattle was associated with decreased technical efficiency. Future studies need to be cautious of data quality, appropriateness of measurement scales, nature and choice of variable indicators, cultural context and literacy level of participants