Your new experience awaits. Try the new design now and help us make it even better

ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Sustain. Food Syst.

Sec. Land, Livelihoods and Food Security

Volume 9 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fsufs.2025.1675573

This article is part of the Research TopicIndigenous and Local Knowledge as a Catalyst for Sustainable Agriculture and Food SecurityView all 16 articles

Enhancing indigenous livestock production towards improving livelihoods among small-scale farmers in KwaZulu-Natal Province, South Africa

Provisionally accepted
Yanga  NontuYanga Nontu1*Nkosingimele  NdwandweNkosingimele Ndwandwe2Bonguyise  Mzwandile DumisaBonguyise Mzwandile Dumisa1Zole  Nqobile MsaneZole Nqobile Msane1Sibusisiwe  Nonkosi DlaminiSibusisiwe Nonkosi Dlamini1
  • 1University of Zululand, KwaDlangezwa, South Africa
  • 2Department of Agriculture, University of Zululand,, KwaDlangezwa, South Africa

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

Income security is a global concern threatening the livelihood of farmers. To ensure that the livelihoods of farmers are maintained, small-scale indigenous livestock farming serves as a solution to this issue. To investigate the income contribution of producing indigenous livestock towards small-scale farming households in uMhlathuze Municipality, this study was conducted. It randomly collected primary data from 60 small-scale indigenous livestock farmers, following a cross-sectional design with a quantitative approach. Findings from this study reveal that most small-scale indigenous livestock farmers in this area are predominantly middle-aged to older individuals, who are mostly single, male, and unemployed with no educational background. Indigenous livestock farmed include chicken, goats, cattle, and sheep. However, these farmers lack services such as extension, credit, infrastructure, markets, and veterinary services, which significantly impact production. Moreover, factors including age, education, household size, employment status, number of households employed, access to veterinary and extension services, theft, and diseases were found to be significant towards the households' income security. This study, therefore, encourages the adoption of indigenous livestock farming to sustain household income and preserve indigenous knowledge. Also, services such as extension, credit, infrastructure, markets, and veterinary services should be enhanced to improve farmer production and participation in markets.

Keywords: Animal Husbandry, Food security, resilience, Rural Development, value chain

Received: 29 Jul 2025; Accepted: 31 Aug 2025.

Copyright: © 2025 Nontu, Ndwandwe, Dumisa, Msane and Dlamini. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

* Correspondence: Yanga Nontu, University of Zululand, KwaDlangezwa, South Africa

Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.