Kadzamira Mariam A T J, Ogunmodede Adewale, Duah Solomon, Romney Dannie, Clottey Victor Attuquaye, Williams Frances
Centre for Agriculture and Bioscience International (CABI), Egham, UK.
CABI West Africa Centre, Accra, Ghana.
CABI Agric Biosci. 2023;4(1):16. doi: 10.1186/s43170-023-00157-3. Epub 2023 Jun 1.
The African continent is known for high entrepreneurial activity, especially in the agricultural sector. Despite this, the continent's economic development is below expectations, due to numerous factors constraining the growth and sustainability of agricultural SMEs. These constraints have been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. The purpose of this study was to understand the pathways through which the pandemic affected agri-SMEs, with specific focus on assessing the differentiated effects arising from the size of the agri-SME and the gender of the owner-manager.
Data was collected from over 100 agri-SMEs, ranging in size from sole proprietorships with one employee to agri-SMEs employing up to 100 people, in six African countries. Mixed methods were used to analyse the data with changes in business operations arising from changing market access, regimented health and safety guidelines and constrained labour supply assessed using visualisations and descriptive statistics. Logistic regression modelling was employed to determine the set of variables contributing to agri-SME business downturn during the COVID-19 pandemic.
All surveyed agri-SMEs were negatively affected by COVID-19-associated restrictions with the size of the firm and gender of the owner-managers resulting in differentiated impacts. The smallest agri-SMEs, mainly owner-managed by women, were more likely to experience disruptions in marketing their goods and maintaining their labour supply. Larger agri-SMEs made changes to their business operations to comply with government guidelines during the pandemic and made investments to manage their labour supply, thus sustaining their business operations. In addition, logistic regression modelling results show that financing prior to the pandemic, engaging in primary agricultural production, and being further from urban centres significantly influenced the likelihood of a firm incurring business losses.
These findings necessitate engendered multi-faceted agri-SME support packages that are tailored for smaller-sized agri-SMEs. Any such support package should include support for agri-SMEs to develop sustainable marketing strategies and help them secure flexible financing that considers payment deferrals and debt moratorium during bona fide market shocks such as the COVID-19 pandemic.
非洲大陆以高度的创业活动而闻名，尤其是在农业领域。尽管如此，由于众多因素制约了农业中小企业的增长和可持续性，该大陆的经济发展未达预期。新冠疫情加剧了这些制约因素。本研究的目的是了解疫情影响农业中小企业的途径，特别侧重于评估农业中小企业规模和业主经理性别所产生的差异化影响。
从六个非洲国家的100多家农业中小企业收集数据，这些企业规模从仅有一名员工的独资企业到雇佣多达100人的农业中小企业不等。采用混合方法分析数据，通过可视化和描述性统计评估因市场准入变化、严格的健康与安全准则以及劳动力供应受限而导致的业务运营变化。采用逻辑回归模型来确定在新冠疫情期间导致农业中小企业业务下滑的变量集。
所有接受调查的农业中小企业都受到了与新冠疫情相关限制的负面影响，企业规模和业主经理性别产生了差异化影响。规模最小的农业中小企业，主要由女性业主经营，更有可能在商品营销和维持劳动力供应方面遇到困难。较大的农业中小企业在疫情期间改变了业务运营以遵守政府规定，并进行投资以管理劳动力供应，从而维持其业务运营。此外，逻辑回归模型结果表明，疫情前的融资、从事初级农业生产以及远离城市中心显著影响了企业遭受业务损失的可能性。
这些发现需要为规模较小的农业中小企业量身定制多方面的支持方案。任何此类支持方案都应包括支持农业中小企业制定可持续的营销策略，并帮助它们获得灵活的融资，这种融资要考虑在诸如新冠疫情这样的真正市场冲击期间的付款延期和债务缓期偿还。
