Characterizing commercial cattle farms in Namibia: risk, management and sustainability
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Lüneburg: Institut für Volkswirtschaftslehre der Universität Lüneburg, 2012. (Working Paper Series in Economics ; No. 248).
Research output: Working paper › Working papers
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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 -