Authors : O.I. Oladele, M.A. Antwi and A.E. Kolawole
Abstract: This study examines the perceived social impacts of disease outbreak among livestock farmers along border villages of South Africa and Namibia. This was due to the high volume of trans-boundary activities particularly with respect to animals. The Northern Cape shares boundary with Namibia. The population of study is all livestock producers in border villages along Northern Cape provinces, a mix of purposive and random sampling were used to select 140 respondents for the study. Data were collected through the use of questionnaires, on farmers personal and farm characteristics and farmers perceived social impacts of disease outbreak. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze farmers personal and farm characteristics. Regression analysis was used to determine the relationship between livestock farmers’ perceived social impacts of disease outbreak and other study variables. The results show that 32% of the livestock farmers fall within the age 61 years and above 83.6% of the farmers are male, 56.4% of the farmers are married; most of the farmers are literate, 67.9% of the respondents have less than five dependents, 97.9% of the farmers have livestock based farming system, 70% reported that they have no contact with extension agent, 89.3% have access to market. Significant determinant of perceived social impacts of disease outbreak are marital status (t = 3.753), farm size (t = -1.82), farming experience (t = -1.836).
O.I. Oladele, M.A. Antwi and A.E. Kolawole, 2013. Perceived Social Impacts of Disease Outbreak among Livestock Farmers along Border Villages of South Africa and Namibia. Journal of Animal and Veterinary Advances, 12: 168-172.