Evaluating the impact of fodder-purchase as drought mitigation strategy for smallholder cattle holdings

The study set out to investigate how fodder-purchase as drought response strategy impact smallholder cattle farmers (SCF) cattle inventory during drought years. Information on such mitigation strategy for drought is rare in the literature. We used a pooled survey data obtained from the National Income Dynamics Study (NIDS) collated in the years 2015 and 2017 in South Africa. The nationally representative data was comprised of smallholder cattle households that experienced the 2015 to 2017 widespread drought events of South Africa. Propensity score matching method (PSM) was used for the analysis. Factors that influence SCF decision to adopt fodder purchasing as drought mitigation strategy include age, income, market participation, crop farm ownership, recipients of secondary off-farm income, social support beneficiary and land ownership. The PSM result shows that fodder-purchase has significant and positive impact on smallholder cattle production during drought. Therefore, government policy towards provision of fodder storage infrastructure that would help increase production and improve accessibility during drought emergencies must be encouraged.