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This section documents the levels of access to residential and arable land holdings, sizes of gardens, crop diversity, garden yields, the distribution of livestock ownership, and the use of ‘wild’

natural resources. Data is analysed in terms of the two variables mentioned above – site and income tercile.

8.2.1.1 Residential sites

All of the households surveyed at Ntubeni, i.e. 40 out of 40 (100%), and 33 out of the 39 households surveyed at Cwebe (84.6%), reported having their own residential sites (Table 21). Of the remaining 6 households at Cwebe, two had not been allocated sites after being resettled under the betterment programme (and were consequently ‘squatting’ on the sites of others), one had moved to Cwebe after being evicted from a farm and had presumably failed to gain permission to establish their own site (this household was also ‘squatting’ on another person’s site), and one was the household of a woman that had moved back to build on her parents site following the disappearance of her husband. Of the remaining two, one did not answer the question, and for the other, there was no reason offered.

8.2.1.2 Gardens and fields

39 of 40 households surveyed at Ntubeni (97.5%), and 34 of the 39 households surveyed at Cwebe (87.1%), had access to arable land in the form of a garden or a field³³ (Table 21). However, the number of households owning fields at Cwebe (30 out of 39 (76.9%)) was significantly higher than at Ntubeni (11 out of 40 (27.5%)) (χ²=17.4; df=1; p<0.001). Few households had neither a garden

33 See Chapter 3, Section 3.3.8 for a description of the differences between gardens and fields.

nor a field. With respect to the intra-village distribution of fields, most of the households owning fields at Ntubeni lived at Gume, while there was no discernable spatial pattern at Cwebe. With respect to income, the 11 households owning fields at Ntubeni were all either in the middle or top income tercile, i.e. none of the households in the poorest income tercile owned fields. At Cwebe, field ownership was equally distributed between all income terciles.

Table 21 - Land Holdings in the Study Villages Ntubeni

(n=40) Cwebe

(n=39) Combined (n=79)

Residential Site 40 33 73

Garden 39 31 70

Field 11 30^a 41

Garden or Field 39 34 73

Neither Garden nor Field 1 3 4

a The status of four households was unclear due to missing data.

While all households actively used their gardens, not all households used their fields. Non-usage of fields was significantly higher at Ntubeni than at Cwebe (χ²=7.1; df=1; p<0.01). For instance, of the 30 households with fields at Cwebe, 8 (26.6%) had not used them in the summer preceding the household survey. Of the 11 households with fields at Ntubeni, 8 (72.7%) had not used them.

Various reasons were given for not using fields. These included: a lack of fencing, infertility of the soil, drought, lack of labour for weeding and animal damage.

Gardens varied considerably with respect to size, ranging between 150 m² and 10 000 m². Mean garden size at Ntubeni was, however, significantly larger than that at Cwebe (Table 22) (t=2.0;

df=68; p<0.05), but as most households at Cwebe also had fields, it can reasonably be assumed that total arable holdings at Cwebe were larger than at Ntubeni³⁴.

Table 22 - Mean Garden Size by Village Ntubeni

(n=39) Cwebe

(n=31) Combined

(n=70)

M² ± S.E. M² ± S.E. M² ± S.E.

Mean Garden Size 2 787 356 1 668 411 2 301 276

34 Due to various fieldwork constraints it was not possible to measure the size of fields as part of the household survey (Chapter 3, Section 3.3.8).

A breakdown of garden sizes by different size classes reveals that most gardens at Cwebe were smaller than 2 000 m², while at Ntubeni gardens up to 4000 m² were more common (Table 23). For the sample as a whole, only 8 out of 73 households (10.9%) had gardens larger than 6 000 m².

Table 23 - Household Distribution by Garden Size

Ntubeni Cwebe Combined

Households at Ntubeni grew, on average, a greater range of crops (3.9), than at Cwebe (3.2) (t=2.0;

df=76; p<0.05). Despite the larger arable holdings at Cwebe, reported crop yields per household were remarkably similar between the two samples (Table 24). Crop yields, however, differed considerably between households, ranging from as little as 11 kg to as much as 1 700 kg. Crop yields per hectare (a reflection of garden production only, due to the absence of field size data) ranged from 158 kg per hectare to 5 989 kg per hectare with a mean of 1 757 kg per hectare. Maize yields per hectare ranged from 22 kg per hectare to 3 438 kg per hectare, with a mean of 747 kg per hectare. Maize accounted for 41.6% of total crop output at Ntubeni and 46.7% at Cwebe.

Table 24 - Mean Crop Yield by Study Village Ntubeni

2 Households making use of gardens only.

Only one of the households surveyed managed to meet its subsistence maize requirements, calculated in terms of the minimum subsistence requirement of 175 kg of maize per person per year (ARDRI, 1989) (Table 25). The majority of households, 50 out of 79 (63.2%), produced less than a quarter of their subsistence maize requirement.

Table 25 - Proportion of Maize Consumption Met by Production by Study Village (based on 175 kg per person per year)

Ntubeni Cwebe Total

MAIZE

Up to 25% 24 26 50

25% to 50% 8 5 13

51% to 75% 5 4 9

76% to 100% 0 0 0

More than 100% 1 0 1

n/a ^{2 4 6}

Total Households 40 39 79

To sum up, although nearly all households actively engaged in cultivation, the level of this engagement was highly differentiated. A considerable range in garden size, number of crops grown, and crop yields was evidence of this. Despite the continuing interest in cultivation, few, if any, households were able to cultivate enough to see them through to the next season. Despite the general absence of fields at Ntubeni, households there were able to obtain similar total yields to those at Cwebe. Garden sizes at Ntubeni were, however, on average, bigger than those at Cwebe.

8.2.1.3 Livestock holdings

The most common forms of stock owned in the study area were pigs (75 households owned them (94.9%) and poultry (74 households owned them (93.6%) (Table 26). The mean number of pigs owned by households at Ntubeni was significantly higher than the mean number owned at Cwebe (t=2.0; df=73; p<0.05), but there was no significant difference in the mean number of poultry owned (t=0.4; df=69; p>0.05).

Forty-nine of the 79 households surveyed kept cattle (62.0%), with a mean across all households of 3.7 cattle. The mean herd size among households owning cattle was 6.0. Based on resident household members only, i.e. de facto household size, the per capita cattle holdings was 0.6 cattle per head for all households and 0.9 per head among those households owning cattle. The largest cattle herd captured in the Ntubeni survey numbered 22 animals, while the largest cattle herd at Cwebe numbered 17 animals. The difference in the mean herd sizes between the two villages was, however, not significant (t=0.72; df=47; p>0.05).

Thirty-one households (39.2%) kept goats, with a mean across all households of 3.2. The mean herd size among households owning goats was 7.5. The difference in the mean herd sizes between the two villages was not significant (t=0.7; df=32; p>0.05).

Ownership of sheep and equines was relatively common at Cwebe, but rare at Ntubeni. Whereas 15 of the 39 households at Cwebe owned sheep (38.4%), and 12 owned equines (30.7%), only one household at Ntubeni owned sheep, and only one owned equines. The mean number of sheep

35 When four households that had more than 20 sheep were excluded, the mean flock size decreased to 9 ± 0.9 S.E.

With respect to household income, there was no difference in the proportion of households in the three income terciles that owned cattle (χ²=1.21; df=2; p>0.05) (Table 27). Cattle holdings among households in the top income tercile were, however, considerably larger than those of other income groups (F=6.66; df=2, 43; p<0.01) - the mean size of herds among households in this group was nearly twice the size as those of others. Households in Income Tercile I, i.e. the poorest households, owned marginally more cattle than those in the middle income tercile.

There was no significant difference in the proportion of households owning goats, when separated by income group (χ²=0.65; df=2; p>0.05), and no significant difference in the size of goat herds (F=0.03; df=2, 28; p>0.05).

Sheep ownership was evenly distributed across the income terciles, and the large amount of variation within the groups, meant that the observed difference in mean numbers owned was not significant (F=2.35; df=2, 11; p>0.05). However, 4 of the 5 households with more than 12 sheep were lower-income households.

There was no significant difference in the proportion of households owning equines (χ²=2.53; df=2;

p>0.05), and the sub-sample sizes were too small to test for differences between the means.

There was no significant difference in the proportion of households owning pigs (χ²=2.09; df=2;

p>0.05), or in the mean number owned across the household income terciles (F=1.30; df=2, 66;

p>0.05).

There was no significant difference in the proportion of households owning poultry (χ²=1.22; df=2;

p>0.05). Lower-income households, however, had significantly fewer poultry than those in Income Terciles II (t=2.13; df=43; p<0.05) and III (t=2.27; df=41; p<0.05).

The picture that emerges from the disaggregation of livestock assets in the study villages can be summarised as follows:

• Micro-livestock, in the form of pigs and poultry, were the most commonly owned animals, with over 90% of households owning them. Sixty-two percent of households had cattle, 39.2% had goats, 20.3% had sheep, and 16.5% had equines.

• With respect to site differences, sheep and equines were almost exclusively found at Cwebe, but households at Ntubeni owned, on average, a greater number of pigs than those at Cwebe.

• With respect to income, there were no significant differences in the proportion of households owning different kinds of livestock across the three income terciles.

• However, households in the top income tercile that owned cattle, owned nearly twice as many cattle as other households. Households in the bottom income tercile owned fewer pigs than households in the two other income groups.

Table 27 - Livestock Ownership by Income Tercile.

Income

8.2.1.4 Use of ‘wild’ natural resources

Apart from water, which everybody used, the three most heavily used natural resources in both villages (in terms of the proportion of households collecting them) were fuel wood (98.7%), edible wild plants (92.4%) and shellfish (75.9%) (Table 28). These were followed by building wood (46.8%), thatching grass (45.6%), and building sand (39.2%). Just under one third of households (32.9%) reported using medicinal plants or marine fish. Only 3 households (0.04%) reported using honey.

There were no significant differences in the proportion of households collecting water, fuel wood, thatching grass, wild edible plants, bark, medicinal plants or honey between the two villages.

However, significantly more households at Ntubeni reported collecting building wood (χ²=3.70;

df=1; p=0.05), building sand (χ²=8.44; df=1; p<0.01), marine fish (χ²=7.81; df=1; p<0.01), and shellfish (χ²=3.69; df=1; p=0.05), than at Cwebe.

Table 28 - Proportion of Households that had Used Selected Natural Resources in the Last Year by Village

Ntubeni

(n=40) Cwebe

(n=39) Combined (n=79)

No. % No. % No. %

Water 40 100.0 39 100.0 79 100.0

Fuel Wood 40 100.0 38 97.4 78 98.7

Building Wood 23 57.5 14 35.9 37 46.8

Building Sand 22 55.0 9 23.1 31 39.2

Thatching Grass 17 42.5 19 48.7 36 45.6

Wild Edible Plants 34 85.0 39 100.0 73 92.4

Bark 9 22.5 13 33.3 22 27.8

Medicinal Plants 12 30.0 14 35.9 26 32.9

Honey 0 0.0 3 7.7 3 0.0

Marine Fish 19 47.5 7 17.9 26 32.9

Shellfish 36 90.0 24 61.5 60 75.9

3 x 2 contingency tables revealed no significant differences in the numbers of households collecting any of the above natural resources between households in the three income terciles in both villages. Thus, there appeared to be no difference in the pattern of natural resource utilisation between poorer and richer households. All households could, therefore, be assumed to make similar use of natural resources for livelihood purposes, bearing in mind that data on amounts used, and frequency of trips, was not collected.