Assessment of Commercialization Level and Trends in Marketing Initiatives for Sustainable Smallholder Farming Development in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa

Transforming farm produce to cash is the primary objective of anyone going into farming as an occupation but the reality on ground is that most of these farmers are not linking up with their desire results due to inadequate market or no market in some instances. This paper investigates the reasons farmers are not getting their farm produce sold into profiting, Socioeconomic characteristic of the farmers in the area and to know their level of commercialization level at which they operate in the selected area. Well-structured questionnaires were used to elicits data from 120 respondents that were purposively selected because of the location of the smallholder farmers in Tyefu in the Eastern Cape of South Africa. A commercialization index was used in measuring the commercialization level, Descriptive statistics were used in describing the socioeconomic characteristics and in profiling the challenges of marketing in the study area. Results revealed that the area has more male with 68.3% while female farmers were 31.7%,. Further, 65.8% of the farmers were married with the mean age of 61-65years having the highest percentage of 38.3%. The farmers are doing well in maize production at 5% and 10% level of significance. Profiling the challenges faced by farmers in the study area indicated that bad road network and storage facilities are parts of the major problems they are in area. The commercialization level was measured as 0.45 indicating that smallholder farming is a lucrative venture in the study area. There is future for small farms as they are the integral part of productions in Nigeria. Government and policy, makers must assist the smallholder farmer with various aids in grants, this will attract many people to farming and there will be more food supply and more profits will be made by the individual farmers.