Analysis of smallholder farmer livelihood strategies for coping and adapting to drought in the Western Cape Province, South Africa

This study was part of a broader Water Research Commission (WRC) Project No. K4/2716/4, entitled ‘Improving smallholder farmer livelihoods through developing strategies to cope and adapt during drought periods in South Africa.’ The datasets, therefore, need to be under embargo for 24 months because publications still need to be written using this data. The transcript files have been combined into pdf files to avoid uploading numerous word files. DATASET 1aa and 1ab. Data in this set was collected to assess: a) the livelihoods assets for smallholder farmers in the Overberg and West Coast districts. b) challenges experienced by smallholder farmers in the two districts to achieve their livelihoods outcomes. c) coping and adaptation strategies utilized by smallholder farmers in the two districts during the 2015-18 drought. d) challenges for coping and adaptation strategies by smallholder farmers in the two districts. Fifty-two farmers in the Overberg and 60 in the West Coast districts were interviewed face-to?face and their responses were recorded. Each farmer's audio recordings were transcribed, each transcript was renamed using numbers to protect their names. All the individual farmer transcripts are attached to this dataset according to each district. The qualitative data included in this dataset was uploaded and analysed on Atlas ti. Software. DATASET 1b: This is an excel spreadsheet imported from SPSS. It contains data collected to assess: a) the livelihoods assets for smallholder farmers in the Overberg and West Coast districts. b) challenges experienced by smallholder farmers in the two districts to achieve their livelihoods outcomes. DATASET 1c: Graphs for livelihoods excel spreadsheet This is an excel sheet with graphs generated for various livelihoods assets: •Human: (training provision, age categories, education levels, family sizes, hiring or labour, farming experiences) •Physical: (Modes of transport, sources of energy) •Financial: (Income sources) •Social: (Group membership) •Natural: (Land ownership, sources of water) Surveys were conducted with 52 farmers in the Overberg and 60 in the West Coast districts, in which they were assisted to complete a semi-structured questionnaire. Their responses were recorded accordingly, and the questionnaires were re-named using numbers. All the data was captured on SPSS and imported to an excel sheet to generate graphs using the above asset variables. DATASET 2: This dataset includes the responses of farmers to obtain group views and validate individual farmer opinions on the following aspects: a) challenges experienced in pursuit of livelihoods outcomes. b) smallholder farmers’ coping and adaptation strategies during the 2015-18 drought. c) challenges for coping and adapting to the 2015-18 drought. DATASET 3: Data in this set was collected to assess: a) the goals and objectives of organisations in assisting smallholder farmers in their livelihoods and drought adaptation strategies in the two districts. b) challenges experienced by organisations and farmers in implementing the commodity approach in the two districts. c) challenges experienced among organisations in implementing the commodity approach in the two districts. Note: The evaluation drought relief scheme was a continuous process because it was commenced when farmers were asked to identify the organisations that supported them during the drought until the last stage, in which extension officers and other drought implementation personnel were interviewed.