Drivers of Agricultural Entrepreneurship Among Smallholder Farmers in KwaZulu-Natal

Agricultural entrepreneurship has been recognised as an important tool for job creation, alleviating poverty and improving food and nutrition in South Africa. This study aimed to identify the drivers of agricultural entrepreneurship among smallholder urban vegetable farmers in the Sobantu and Mphophomeni townships. Primary data were collected using a structured questionnaire. A purposive multi-stage sampling technique was used to sample 156 smallholder urban vegetable farmers. The agricultural entrepreneurship index was created using principal component analysis and used as a dependent variable to determine factors influencing agricultural entrepreneurship using a two-step generalised least-squares (GLS) model for dealing with multiplicative heteroskedasticity. The results indicated that entrepreneurial spirit, entrepreneurial attitude, farming interest, gender, education, farming information, selling produce, and distance to input suppliers were significant factors influencing agricultural entrepreneurship among smallholder urban vegetable farmers in the study areas. The study concludes that agricultural entrepreneurship in urban settings can be enhanced by improving farming information and empowering urban farmers to strengthen entrepreneurial spirit, entrepreneurial attitude, and farming interest. The study recommends urban policies and programmes that strengthen farming information sources and entrepreneurship training activities to improve agricultural entrepreneurship endeavours among smallholder urban farmers.