Abstract:
The Agricultural Orientation Law (AOL) of 2006 gave Malian small-scale farmers incentives for commercial-orientation. However, they have not been fully embraced by farmers, and this may be due to their entrepreneurial behaviour (EB). Few studies have been conducted on farmers’ EB in Mali. This study aimed towards fulfilling this knowledge gap. The general objective was to contribute towards improved livelihood through enhanced EB and farm performance among small-scale farmers in Niono zone, Mali. Specifically, the study aimed to determine: the level of EB of small-scale farmers, and the effect of their EB on both the uptake of AOL’s business incentives and farm performance. Multistage sampling technique was used to select 236 farmers. Data was collected using semi-structured questionnaire. The Confirmatory Factor Analysis revealed relevancy of the selected EB while Cronbach’s alpha of 0.82 was qualified acceptable. Descriptive statistics were used to determine farmers’ EB while multivariate Probit and multivariate Tobit models were used to analyse the effect of farmers’ EB on uptake of incentives and farm performance, respectively. Both models indicated good fitness to the data at 5% and 10% significance level respectively. The initiation, innovativeness risk-taking and self-efficiency of the respondents are ranged at second highest level. The previous-failure and proactiveness were scaled at second lowest level. The highest uptakes of incentives were fertilisers (84%) and credit (35%) while the lowest uptakes were funds (16%) and equipment (14%). The uptake was negatively influenced by the distance to extension services providers, household size and the proactiveness, initiation and previous failure. For farm perfonnance, the indicators, sales, profitability and post-harvest losses (PHLs), were affected differently. Both sales and profitability were found to be affected by land size, farm asset values and access to a model farm. The PHLs increased with household size and average fann size in famiers’ network, but decreased with household head’s years of schooling, nature of business, average time of walking between network members, amount of credit in the counter-season and EB of initiation and innovativeness. To promote commercial-orientation, the study recommended that the government should develop farmers’ EB, adapt equipment subsidy and agricultural funds to farmers’ socio-economic realities. It should also smoothen the administrative procedures and consider positive factors that appeal and facilitate the emergence and achievement of EB. Further, consideration should be more inclined to farmer-to-farmer approaches since the network is important in terms of motivation, sensitization and sharing of knowledge and experiences.
