TY - UNPB

T1 - Characterizing commercial cattle farms in Namibia

T2 - risk, management and sustainability

AU - Olbrich, Roland

AU - Quaas, Martin F.

AU - Baumgärtner, Stefan

PY - 2012/8

Y1 - 2012/8

N2 - Commercial cattle farming in Namibia, a prime example of livestock farming in semi-arid rangelands, is subject to a variety of risks, predominant among which is precipitation risk. Atthe same time it suffers from rangeland degradation that is at least partly due to inadequate management. We characterize cattle farms through descriptive statistics and cluster analysisusing data that we elicited in August 2008 through mail-in questionnaires and in-field experiments. We find that cattle farms are highly heterogeneous in the majority of individualcharacteristics. Heterogeneity is also observed when analyzing characteristics jointly through the cluster analysis which suggests classification of farms into three distinct clusters. Thisclassification is predominantly driven by environmental condition and financial risk management, and to a lesser extent by organizational structure of farms or ethnicity. Overall, our study is the first to provide a comprehensive characterization of this system in respect to risk, management and sustainability.

AB - Commercial cattle farming in Namibia, a prime example of livestock farming in semi-arid rangelands, is subject to a variety of risks, predominant among which is precipitation risk. Atthe same time it suffers from rangeland degradation that is at least partly due to inadequate management. We characterize cattle farms through descriptive statistics and cluster analysisusing data that we elicited in August 2008 through mail-in questionnaires and in-field experiments. We find that cattle farms are highly heterogeneous in the majority of individualcharacteristics. Heterogeneity is also observed when analyzing characteristics jointly through the cluster analysis which suggests classification of farms into three distinct clusters. Thisclassification is predominantly driven by environmental condition and financial risk management, and to a lesser extent by organizational structure of farms or ethnicity. Overall, our study is the first to provide a comprehensive characterization of this system in respect to risk, management and sustainability.

KW - Sustainability sciences, Management & Economics

KW - cattle farming

KW - semi-arid rangelands

KW - Namibia

KW - empirical survey

KW - perceived risk

KW - management

KW - risk and time preferences

KW - normative views

KW - sustainability

KW - sustainability

KW - cattle farming

KW - semi-arid rangelands

KW - Namibia

KW - empirical survey

KW - perceived risk

KW - management

KW - risk and time preferences

KW - normative views

KW - Economics

KW - cattle farming

KW - semi-arid rangelands

KW - Namibia

KW - empirical survey

KW - perceived risk

KW - management

KW - risk and time preferences

KW - normative views

KW - sustainability

M3 - Working papers

T3 - Working Paper Series in Economics

BT - Characterizing commercial cattle farms in Namibia

PB - Institut für Volkswirtschaftslehre der Universität Lüneburg

CY - Lüneburg

ER -