Farmer competencies for successful farming in Sub-Sahara Africa

Abstract

Commercial farms have increased in physical size and the spectrum of managerial skills required to farm viably. The pivotal role of commercial farms as centres of rural development has spurred much research investigating the multiple factors contributing to successful farmers in developing countries. Given the limited control over socio-economic conditions and farm characteristics, understanding the individual factors that account for the success of farmers is of special interest. Studies on farmer success traditionally focused on demographic factors and technical/functional skills, with a growing concern for managerial capacity and decision-making. We contribute to this discussion by developing an integrative, behaviour-based competency model that cuts across different functional areas.

Critical incident interviews were conducted with a stratified sample of successful farmers (N = 48) across various agricultural industries to explore the behavioural competencies for long-term success in commercial agriculture in the rural context. By integrating primary interview data with current literature on farmer success and leadership models, we identified 12 key competencies for sustained successful farming which were clustered into five categories, namely creating the vision and strategic planning; monitoring and analysing information; collaborating and human resource capacity; character strengths; and commercial acumen and technical expertise. The result reveals that leadership attributes are on equal footing with the technical and economic attributes of successful farms. The study emphasises the importance of leadership competence as a vital component for growth and provides new insights into why so many farm development support schemes in developing economies fail even when abundant technical and economic assistance is provided.