Examining the determinants of agricultural innovation activities: a case study of emerging sugarcane farmers in South Africa

ABSTRACT

Since innovation is regarded as a source of a firm's development, productivity, and competitive advantage, the identification of the drivers of innovation activities is important for businesses and governments. Based on a case study of 35 emerging sugarcane growers in KwaZulu-Natal's North Coast, South Africa, this study employed the Nossal and Lim framework, which utilised the criteria and methodologies described in the Oslo Manual to measure the innovation activities of firms. The Ordered Probit Model (OPM) was utilised to estimate the factors impacting the innovation activities of the emerging sugarcane farmers. The study findings show that majority of farmers (57%) are highly innovative, with process innovation being the most popular type of innovation. Furthermore, the OPM results revealed that several socioeconomic, institutional, and farm level factors are statistically significant in explaining farmers’ capacity for innovation. Therefore, it is essential for farm managers and policymakers to consider and incorporate these range of elements that have a positive link with innovation and are crucial for new farming ideas.

KEYWORDS:

• Agricultural innovation
• emerging farmers
• sugarcane industry
• innovation policy

Acknowledgements

I am very thankful to the enumerators and farmers for responding to the questionnaire. I am also grateful to Professor Mihalis Chasomeris for project supervision and reading through the manuscript, and to the reviewers for their invaluable contributions.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data Availability Statement

Data available on request due to ethical restrictions, i.e., privacy.