The future of Mango farmers post COVID-19 pandemic outbreak: The Household Livelihood Resilience Approach

Mashau Azwihangwisi; Luvhengo Usapfa; Simon Letsoalo

doi:10.18006/2022.10(5).1204.1214

Authors

Mashau Azwihangwisi Department of Agricultural Economics and Extension, North West University, Mahikeng Campus, Mmabatho, South Africa 2735
Luvhengo Usapfa Department of Agricultural Economics and Extension, North West University, Mahikeng Campus, Mmabatho, South Africa 2735
Simon Letsoalo Department of Agricultural Economics and Extension, North West University, Mahikeng Campus, Mmabatho, South Africa 2735

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18006/2022.10(5).1204.1214

Keywords:

Mango farmers, Post COVID-19 outbreak, Socio-economic status, Limpopo, South Africa

Abstract

The future and welfare of mango farmers are important and if mango farmers can apply agribusiness behavior, namely perseverance, resilience, hard work, saving, carefulness, discipline, and respecting time, they stand a better chance of survival during a pandemic. How mango farmers’ livelihood will be going forward is, yet unknown since many aspects such as economic, physical, financial, and human factors of their way of earning a living are affected hugely by Covid-19. This study was conducted to determine the socio-economic nature of mango farmers in Vhembe district Limpopo province, determine the livelihoods of mango farmers after the Covid-19 pandemic, and identify challenges that mango farmers encountered during the Covid-19 pandemic. Descriptive statistics and household were employed to help analyze the results from the collected data. In the study area, 77% of the farmers were males and pensioners since they were above the age of 60. Currently, mango farmers are highly impacted by the outbreak of Covid-19 in terms of production and marketing their products, thus these changes in their livelihood and their survival in farming are in the line since 54% of the farmers currently have access to loans, which makes it easy for them to cover for their loss of income. The government should ease up other restrictions on farmers to enable them to farm and issue necessary support to those farmers who have lost the least they had due to Covid-19. Concerning access to information about Covid-19, the results of the study posit the significance of the relationship between finance and human capital, which the study recommended that the government should subsidize the farmers.

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