Report on Polytechnic visits to Vasdraai Resettlement Farm This research was funded through the C... more Report on Polytechnic visits to Vasdraai Resettlement Farm This research was funded through the Country Pilot Partnership programme (CCP)
Journal of economics and sustainable development, 2016
Farmer’s attitude towards disease outbreak was investigated with the aim of determining whether t... more Farmer’s attitude towards disease outbreak was investigated with the aim of determining whether they can be classified as being reactionary or precautionary. They are more reactionary than precautionary if the level of mortality triggers more rapid positive reaction than the level of vaccine and vice versa. Using an aggregate clinical veterinary record from 2009 to 2015, the farmers’ response to diseases were classified as “poor”, “fair” and “good” and an ordered logit outcome model was fit. The result shows that the threat of mortality and the level of vaccine do not increase the likelihood of reporting on time. Farmers who vaccinated their livestock are less likely to report disease incidence on time compared to those who did not vaccinate. This is because their decision is influenced by the level of precaution they have previously embarked on. Consequently, they tend to embark on a wait-and-see attitude hoping the livestock will recover. On average, there is 28.74% probability th...
Journal of Development and Agricultural Economics, 2013
The primary objective of this study is to identify alternative export markets for Namibian meat a... more The primary objective of this study is to identify alternative export markets for Namibian meat and meat products. This study applied the Extended Gravity Model to a cross-sectional dataset of global trade for fresh beef and frozen beef, as well as sheep and goat meat, based on 2009 trade data to identify key determinants of the above-mentioned products trade flows in a regional perspective. The variables used in this study include the impact of income, per capita income, distance, and exchange rates, as well as dummy variables, for regional blocs' supply to the specific region or country partners. The results of this study have two significant policy implications for Namibia. Firstly, trade agreementswhether implemented unilaterally or bilaterallywill enhance potential trade flows between Namibia and other countries or regions. Equally, it is also important to protect and advocate productivity growth within the context of these trade arrangements. Secondly, GDP per capita was found to be positively related and significant in Southern and West Africa for fresh beef. Fresh beef was found significant in all cases, while goat and sheep meat was only significant in East Africa. The study revealed that a higher income per capita is a major indicator of potential export opportunity. Denser populated nations may have higher demand for protein commodities such as meat, but a higher population either increase or decrease trade, depending on GDP per capita. In Asian markets, per capita income was found to be significant at 1 % and highly elastic, making these markets attractive export destinations. As far as Namibia's ability to compete with Oceania and North America is concerned, Namibia has a good opportunity to acquire a share of the Asian market.
The global literature widely uses Revealed Comparative Advantage (RCA), Lafay Index (LFI), Export... more The global literature widely uses Revealed Comparative Advantage (RCA), Lafay Index (LFI), Export Diversification (EDI), Hirschman (HI), and Major Export Category (MEC) to analyze international trade flows, though agricultural trade, specifically agri-food commodities consisting of food and feed commodities, is neglected in empirical works. Furthermore, the determinants of Revealed Comparative Advantages and the Lafay Index have received little attention, with little focus on the relationships between food insecurity as measured by the Household Food Insecurity Access Scale (HFIAS) and the aforementioned factors, including the RCA and LFI indices as explanatory variables with other macroeconomic variables. The purpose of this study was to ascertain the competitiveness of Namibia’s agri-food products, the factors that influence it, and their implication for food security. This study attempts to answer which factors affect agri-food comparative advantage, which agri-food commodities h...
The objective of this paper is to analyse sheep producer’s supply response under price risk and v... more The objective of this paper is to analyse sheep producer’s supply response under price risk and volatility using data from January 2000 to December 2013. Different Autoregressive Conditional Heteroscedastic (ARCH) processes were compared and TGARCH (1, 1) model was selected and used to estimate expected price and price volatility effects. The study found positive inelastic short-run supply price elasticity of 0.2184 for the Namibian sheep industry. The long-run own-price supply elasticity is more elastic than in the short-run (0.6817). The findings also show that the expected price volatility (-0.1385) has a negative and statistically significant effect on producer’s supply response, this implies that sheep supply declines as the price volatility increases. The volatility effects were found to be negatively asymmetric and persistent which implies that producers tend to respond more intensely in the case of a negative shock that reduces their margin than a positive shock. Sheep produ...
The problem of trust, non-transparency, and dysfunctionality has been ascribed to the character a... more The problem of trust, non-transparency, and dysfunctionality has been ascribed to the character and the nature of the agricultural cooperative system in Namibia. Perhaps the true characterisation of the problem is not known with certainty albeit, the concern about the role of the institution, government intervention and member laxity. Further insight from the institutional economics suggests that organisational behaviour has a much larger role to play. Using a survey of 340 livestock farmers in six regions of the Southern Communal Areas of Namibia and adopting a logistic probability outcome model, the study examines the relevance of agricultural cooperatives with regards to the extent members are willing to participate with due cognisance to these concerns. The result shows that the probability that a farmer will join a cooperative is 29.5%. Education and technical constraints such as lack of adequate market information and training negatively affect willingness to participate. Part...
The problem of trust, non-transparency, and dysfunctionality has been ascribed to the character a... more The problem of trust, non-transparency, and dysfunctionality has been ascribed to the character and the nature of the agricultural cooperative system in Namibia. Perhaps the true characterisation of the problem is not known with certainty albeit, the concern about the role of the institution, government intervention and member laxity. Further insight from the institutional economics suggests that organisational behaviour has a much larger role to play. Using a survey of 340 livestock farmers in six regions of the Southern Communal Areas of Namibia this book examines the relevance of agricultural cooperatives with regards to the extent members are willing to participate with due cognisance to these aforementioned concerns. Their behavioural attribute was further accessed through their willingness to pay for an alternative equity share business entity proposed to them. The findings show that there is a general lack of knowledge of the benefit of livestock cooperative and that farmers ...
This study fits a stochastic Cobb-Douglas production frontier of the pearl millet smallholder far... more This study fits a stochastic Cobb-Douglas production frontier of the pearl millet smallholder farmers and examined their technical efficiency comparing Conservation and Traditional Agriculture practices. The data was collected using a structured questionnaire administrated to 100 randomly selected smallholder farmers in Omusati, Ohangwena, Oshikoto, Oshana and Kavango regions during the 2014-2015 planting season. The estimated parameter of the model shows that land availability, the level of fertilizer use and tractor power explains variations in the production of pearl millet. The efficiency analysis result shows there is no statistically significant difference in the technical efficiency of farmers who were exposed to conservation agriculture compared to their traditional method of agriculture. The inefficiency model indicates that farm experience, farm size, and farm training have significant positive effect on efficiency. In addition, the study examined farmers willingness to pa...
The study determines whether there are causal influences amongst the decision to apply for leaseh... more The study determines whether there are causal influences amongst the decision to apply for leasehold land right, investment, and livestock farm productivity in the Kavango West Region of Namibia. Various econometrics models have been used to model these relationships in the literature. However, there is a growing concern that methods which do not explicitly account for the endogeneity of regressors and which are used to investigate the relationship between property rights and the economic activities on agricultural farms often produce bias estimates that are inefficient and inconsistent. This study applied an instrumental variable (IV) regression to a survey data of 510 farmers to correct for endogeneity. A test of endogeneity of tenure security, investment, and farm productivity in the various models show that tenure security is exogenous to farm investment decision and farm productivity. On the other hand, farm investment decision was found to be exogenous to farm productivity, which implies that farmers make investment decisions given a secure tenure right that enhances their productivity on the farm. Overall, there was no evidence to support reverse causality in any of the tests. These findings highlight the importance of secure property rights as being a stimulus for increased agricultural investment and productivity.
This paper used Regression Adjustment (RA), Inverse-Probability Weighted (IPW) and the Inverse-Pr... more This paper used Regression Adjustment (RA), Inverse-Probability Weighted (IPW) and the Inverse-Probability Weighted (IPW) Regression Adjustment (IPWRA) estimators to estimate the treatment effects of marketing livestock at the informal market relative to other alternative market choices on the farmers’ gross margin. Estimation is based on survey data obtained by interviewing livestock farmers in the Southern Communal Area of Namibia. Four treatment levels representing market channels are the informal market, the permit sale, auction market, and abattoir. The estimated Average Treatment Effects (ATE) of patronizing permit instead of the informal market is N$142,701.8. Moving from the informal market to the auction, the estimated ATE is N$224,547; also for a movement from the Informal market to the abattoir ATE is N$605,810.8. Results show that among the farmers who marketed at the alternative markets, there is an increase in their gross margin sales from the average of N$142,012.1 to...
This study investigated an alternative method to improve livestock marketing position amongst com... more This study investigated an alternative method to improve livestock marketing position amongst communal farmers in the Southern Communal Area (SCA) of Namibia. The investigation includes determining the willingness to pay for the establishment of an alternative market entity and the economic feasibility of such entity. The farmers’ decision was modelled using a logistic probability model while the investment decision was estimated considering uncertainty and its probability distribution. According to the result, on average, there is a probability of 87.91% that farmers’ will pay for a business entity with the future prospect of being a shareholder. The study found that the proposed business entity could generate between N$1.6 to N$3.2 million income annually. The study found livestock farmers in the SCA of Namibia to be mindful of running their enterprise as a business unit. Therefore, a good policy directive is needed for the implementation of the proposed agribusiness entity in Nam...
This paper investigates the potential for a sustainable wood pellet torrefaction investment and i... more This paper investigates the potential for a sustainable wood pellet torrefaction investment and its economic feasibility using samples of Namibian encroacher wood species. Two types of tests were carried out on the wood species by a technology vendor in France to evaluate the capability of producing a valuable bio-coal from the samples. The result shows that the Namibian wood has a high ash content of 37.1% and 18.4% when heated to a temperature of 400 °C and 300 °C, respectively, for 10 min. The mass yield at 300 °C was 76.15% with a low heating value (LHV) and a high heating value (HHV) of 17.84 MJ/Kg and 18.90 MJ/Kg, respectively, compared to 40.50% and LHV, HHV of 16.46 MJ/Kg and 16.98 MJ/ Kg, respectively, for the 400 °C roasting. The study found that a stand-alone wood biomass torrefaction is currently not economically feasible in Namibia. A strategic partnership is needed to further test the technology and optimise its operation for a variety of purposes.
Report on Polytechnic visits to Vasdraai Resettlement Farm This research was funded through the C... more Report on Polytechnic visits to Vasdraai Resettlement Farm This research was funded through the Country Pilot Partnership programme (CCP)
Journal of economics and sustainable development, 2016
Farmer’s attitude towards disease outbreak was investigated with the aim of determining whether t... more Farmer’s attitude towards disease outbreak was investigated with the aim of determining whether they can be classified as being reactionary or precautionary. They are more reactionary than precautionary if the level of mortality triggers more rapid positive reaction than the level of vaccine and vice versa. Using an aggregate clinical veterinary record from 2009 to 2015, the farmers’ response to diseases were classified as “poor”, “fair” and “good” and an ordered logit outcome model was fit. The result shows that the threat of mortality and the level of vaccine do not increase the likelihood of reporting on time. Farmers who vaccinated their livestock are less likely to report disease incidence on time compared to those who did not vaccinate. This is because their decision is influenced by the level of precaution they have previously embarked on. Consequently, they tend to embark on a wait-and-see attitude hoping the livestock will recover. On average, there is 28.74% probability th...
Journal of Development and Agricultural Economics, 2013
The primary objective of this study is to identify alternative export markets for Namibian meat a... more The primary objective of this study is to identify alternative export markets for Namibian meat and meat products. This study applied the Extended Gravity Model to a cross-sectional dataset of global trade for fresh beef and frozen beef, as well as sheep and goat meat, based on 2009 trade data to identify key determinants of the above-mentioned products trade flows in a regional perspective. The variables used in this study include the impact of income, per capita income, distance, and exchange rates, as well as dummy variables, for regional blocs' supply to the specific region or country partners. The results of this study have two significant policy implications for Namibia. Firstly, trade agreementswhether implemented unilaterally or bilaterallywill enhance potential trade flows between Namibia and other countries or regions. Equally, it is also important to protect and advocate productivity growth within the context of these trade arrangements. Secondly, GDP per capita was found to be positively related and significant in Southern and West Africa for fresh beef. Fresh beef was found significant in all cases, while goat and sheep meat was only significant in East Africa. The study revealed that a higher income per capita is a major indicator of potential export opportunity. Denser populated nations may have higher demand for protein commodities such as meat, but a higher population either increase or decrease trade, depending on GDP per capita. In Asian markets, per capita income was found to be significant at 1 % and highly elastic, making these markets attractive export destinations. As far as Namibia's ability to compete with Oceania and North America is concerned, Namibia has a good opportunity to acquire a share of the Asian market.
The global literature widely uses Revealed Comparative Advantage (RCA), Lafay Index (LFI), Export... more The global literature widely uses Revealed Comparative Advantage (RCA), Lafay Index (LFI), Export Diversification (EDI), Hirschman (HI), and Major Export Category (MEC) to analyze international trade flows, though agricultural trade, specifically agri-food commodities consisting of food and feed commodities, is neglected in empirical works. Furthermore, the determinants of Revealed Comparative Advantages and the Lafay Index have received little attention, with little focus on the relationships between food insecurity as measured by the Household Food Insecurity Access Scale (HFIAS) and the aforementioned factors, including the RCA and LFI indices as explanatory variables with other macroeconomic variables. The purpose of this study was to ascertain the competitiveness of Namibia’s agri-food products, the factors that influence it, and their implication for food security. This study attempts to answer which factors affect agri-food comparative advantage, which agri-food commodities h...
The objective of this paper is to analyse sheep producer’s supply response under price risk and v... more The objective of this paper is to analyse sheep producer’s supply response under price risk and volatility using data from January 2000 to December 2013. Different Autoregressive Conditional Heteroscedastic (ARCH) processes were compared and TGARCH (1, 1) model was selected and used to estimate expected price and price volatility effects. The study found positive inelastic short-run supply price elasticity of 0.2184 for the Namibian sheep industry. The long-run own-price supply elasticity is more elastic than in the short-run (0.6817). The findings also show that the expected price volatility (-0.1385) has a negative and statistically significant effect on producer’s supply response, this implies that sheep supply declines as the price volatility increases. The volatility effects were found to be negatively asymmetric and persistent which implies that producers tend to respond more intensely in the case of a negative shock that reduces their margin than a positive shock. Sheep produ...
The problem of trust, non-transparency, and dysfunctionality has been ascribed to the character a... more The problem of trust, non-transparency, and dysfunctionality has been ascribed to the character and the nature of the agricultural cooperative system in Namibia. Perhaps the true characterisation of the problem is not known with certainty albeit, the concern about the role of the institution, government intervention and member laxity. Further insight from the institutional economics suggests that organisational behaviour has a much larger role to play. Using a survey of 340 livestock farmers in six regions of the Southern Communal Areas of Namibia and adopting a logistic probability outcome model, the study examines the relevance of agricultural cooperatives with regards to the extent members are willing to participate with due cognisance to these concerns. The result shows that the probability that a farmer will join a cooperative is 29.5%. Education and technical constraints such as lack of adequate market information and training negatively affect willingness to participate. Part...
The problem of trust, non-transparency, and dysfunctionality has been ascribed to the character a... more The problem of trust, non-transparency, and dysfunctionality has been ascribed to the character and the nature of the agricultural cooperative system in Namibia. Perhaps the true characterisation of the problem is not known with certainty albeit, the concern about the role of the institution, government intervention and member laxity. Further insight from the institutional economics suggests that organisational behaviour has a much larger role to play. Using a survey of 340 livestock farmers in six regions of the Southern Communal Areas of Namibia this book examines the relevance of agricultural cooperatives with regards to the extent members are willing to participate with due cognisance to these aforementioned concerns. Their behavioural attribute was further accessed through their willingness to pay for an alternative equity share business entity proposed to them. The findings show that there is a general lack of knowledge of the benefit of livestock cooperative and that farmers ...
This study fits a stochastic Cobb-Douglas production frontier of the pearl millet smallholder far... more This study fits a stochastic Cobb-Douglas production frontier of the pearl millet smallholder farmers and examined their technical efficiency comparing Conservation and Traditional Agriculture practices. The data was collected using a structured questionnaire administrated to 100 randomly selected smallholder farmers in Omusati, Ohangwena, Oshikoto, Oshana and Kavango regions during the 2014-2015 planting season. The estimated parameter of the model shows that land availability, the level of fertilizer use and tractor power explains variations in the production of pearl millet. The efficiency analysis result shows there is no statistically significant difference in the technical efficiency of farmers who were exposed to conservation agriculture compared to their traditional method of agriculture. The inefficiency model indicates that farm experience, farm size, and farm training have significant positive effect on efficiency. In addition, the study examined farmers willingness to pa...
The study determines whether there are causal influences amongst the decision to apply for leaseh... more The study determines whether there are causal influences amongst the decision to apply for leasehold land right, investment, and livestock farm productivity in the Kavango West Region of Namibia. Various econometrics models have been used to model these relationships in the literature. However, there is a growing concern that methods which do not explicitly account for the endogeneity of regressors and which are used to investigate the relationship between property rights and the economic activities on agricultural farms often produce bias estimates that are inefficient and inconsistent. This study applied an instrumental variable (IV) regression to a survey data of 510 farmers to correct for endogeneity. A test of endogeneity of tenure security, investment, and farm productivity in the various models show that tenure security is exogenous to farm investment decision and farm productivity. On the other hand, farm investment decision was found to be exogenous to farm productivity, which implies that farmers make investment decisions given a secure tenure right that enhances their productivity on the farm. Overall, there was no evidence to support reverse causality in any of the tests. These findings highlight the importance of secure property rights as being a stimulus for increased agricultural investment and productivity.
This paper used Regression Adjustment (RA), Inverse-Probability Weighted (IPW) and the Inverse-Pr... more This paper used Regression Adjustment (RA), Inverse-Probability Weighted (IPW) and the Inverse-Probability Weighted (IPW) Regression Adjustment (IPWRA) estimators to estimate the treatment effects of marketing livestock at the informal market relative to other alternative market choices on the farmers’ gross margin. Estimation is based on survey data obtained by interviewing livestock farmers in the Southern Communal Area of Namibia. Four treatment levels representing market channels are the informal market, the permit sale, auction market, and abattoir. The estimated Average Treatment Effects (ATE) of patronizing permit instead of the informal market is N$142,701.8. Moving from the informal market to the auction, the estimated ATE is N$224,547; also for a movement from the Informal market to the abattoir ATE is N$605,810.8. Results show that among the farmers who marketed at the alternative markets, there is an increase in their gross margin sales from the average of N$142,012.1 to...
This study investigated an alternative method to improve livestock marketing position amongst com... more This study investigated an alternative method to improve livestock marketing position amongst communal farmers in the Southern Communal Area (SCA) of Namibia. The investigation includes determining the willingness to pay for the establishment of an alternative market entity and the economic feasibility of such entity. The farmers’ decision was modelled using a logistic probability model while the investment decision was estimated considering uncertainty and its probability distribution. According to the result, on average, there is a probability of 87.91% that farmers’ will pay for a business entity with the future prospect of being a shareholder. The study found that the proposed business entity could generate between N$1.6 to N$3.2 million income annually. The study found livestock farmers in the SCA of Namibia to be mindful of running their enterprise as a business unit. Therefore, a good policy directive is needed for the implementation of the proposed agribusiness entity in Nam...
This paper investigates the potential for a sustainable wood pellet torrefaction investment and i... more This paper investigates the potential for a sustainable wood pellet torrefaction investment and its economic feasibility using samples of Namibian encroacher wood species. Two types of tests were carried out on the wood species by a technology vendor in France to evaluate the capability of producing a valuable bio-coal from the samples. The result shows that the Namibian wood has a high ash content of 37.1% and 18.4% when heated to a temperature of 400 °C and 300 °C, respectively, for 10 min. The mass yield at 300 °C was 76.15% with a low heating value (LHV) and a high heating value (HHV) of 17.84 MJ/Kg and 18.90 MJ/Kg, respectively, compared to 40.50% and LHV, HHV of 16.46 MJ/Kg and 16.98 MJ/ Kg, respectively, for the 400 °C roasting. The study found that a stand-alone wood biomass torrefaction is currently not economically feasible in Namibia. A strategic partnership is needed to further test the technology and optimise its operation for a variety of purposes.
Uploads
Papers by Salomo Mbai