Commercialization in Mashonaland East
Description
This study was conducted in Mashonaland East province. In the study area, smallholder farmers are engaged in livestock rearing activities and crop production. Rain-fed agriculture is the dominant economic activity that serves as the livelihood base of smallholder farmers. Farmers produce both cash and food crops simultaneously such as maize, tobacco, wheat, horticultural crops, and various small grains. The province has 9 districts namely Chikomba, Goromonzi, Hwedza, Marondera, Mudzi, Murehwa, Mutoko, Seke, and Uzumbamarambapfungwe. A purposive sampling of districts was done in Goromonzi which has the highest population proportion of 17%, Murehwa 15%, and Mutoko 11% were selected. The three districts were selected because that’s where there are many smallholder farmers with relatively low household incomes and tend to rely on AIV production and marketing to supply to the capital city. Purposive sampling, also known as judgmental, selective, or subjective sampling, reflects a group of sampling techniques that rely on the judgment of the researcher when it comes to selecting the units that are to be studied (Sharma, 2017). These purposive sampling techniques include maximum variation sampling, homogeneous sampling, and typical case sampling, and total population sampling. They can justify researchers to make some generalizations from the sample that is being studied and it provides a wide range of non-probability sampling techniques for the researcher to draw from. Within the districts, wards were purposively sampled based on the production of AIVs through the help of AGRITEX offices in the respective districts. The study relied on purposive sampling because we were selecting respondents at different stages it provides a wide range of non-probability sampling techniques, it gives room to select everyone in the population for the study which helps to prove the validity of the information without leaving anyone out. Respondents were randomly selected from the wards with the main aim of selecting 10% of the households in each ward. The sample size was drawn from 136,984 households in the province with a total population of 1,328,308 residents. According to (ZIMSTAT, 2012), the household population for the selected districts is as follows; Murehwa 46284, Goromonzi 55587, and Mutoko 35113 households. The sample size was calculated with an aim of determining an adequate sample size which is a true representation of the population with good precision. At 90% confidence level and p = 0.5, the size of the sample for the three districts: Murehwa, Goromonzi, and Mutoko was 271 households. Even though 271 questionnaires were distributed, only 250 were used for the study; the remaining 21 questionnaires were discarded because they were either incomplete or inconsistently filled