Performance of the Comprehensive Agricultural Support Programme (CASP), and Its Infrastructure Development Project at Dolidoli Village, Musekwa Valley, Limpopo Province: Solutions through Social Capital Adoption

The main objective of this paper was to assess and evaluate the performance of the Comprehensive Agricultural Support Programme (CASP) in the Musekwa Valley. This paper proposes a corrective approach to the complexities experienced at the programme. Primary data were collected from Fifty five (n=55) households using a questionnaire-based survey. Field work, Focus Group Discussion (FGDs) and Key Informant Interviews (KIIs) were also employed to collect data. The results revealed that the CASP was used to supply agricultural infrastructure. However, the programme experienced intertwined complexities. Poor infrastructure was supplied. The infrastructure was also being extensively vandalised. Social capital and social entrepreneurship could be adopted to address the complexities. A follow-up study on the vandalism of infrastructure is imperative. Original Research Article Mafukata; AJAEES, 13(3): 1-19, 2016; Article no.AJAEES.29079 2


INTRODUCTION
Post-liberation and post-colonial governments in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) and elsewhere in the developing regions have for many decades tried to conceptualise poverty alleviation programmes designed as innovations to assist agricultural systems to meet the expected targets of combating socio-economic complexities such as poverty and other related socio-economic inequalities with regard access to productive resources. In fact, many a developing economies around the world have always sought to stimulate agricultural productivity in order to aid sustainable development amongst vulnerable societies -especially in communal areas. National governments, development agencies and planners, international organisations on socio-economic development have sought to lobby grass-roots initiatives from amongst the citizenry to actively participate in finding solutions for under-development complexities -especially in agriculture. Evidently, the majority of postcolonial and post-liberation governments in SSA in particular were worried of the state of their economies to guarantee livelihood and food production and security safety nets which in most cases looked increasingly vulnerable. The majority of post-colonial economies therefore sought to invest in agricultural technological efficiency, infrastructural capacity and human competence levels in agricultural practice; be it in production or marketing for example. This was aimed at stimulating and fast-tracking sustainable development with major priorities being the vulnerable communities. Developmental policies targeted the involvement of a multi-stakeholder base and networks by recruiting and enlisting individual and collective competences from non-state and non-scientific actors in particular to maximise societal innovation capacities in areas of agricultural education, extension, human resource development, learning and skills development in technological adoption amongst others. In fact this approach would drastically improve consultation of the citizenry in envisaged development tools and instruments while increasing capacity building and empowerment of the general citizenry in development. This paper investigates one programme meant for promotion of rural development imperatives in South Africa; how it was conceptualised and implemented. The paper extends its scope by investigating the complexities and constraints impacting on this programme by making use of a case study based on an infrastructure development project at the Dolidoli Village of Vhembe District, Limpopo Province, South Africa.

BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY, AND THE CASE STUDY
One of the most dreadful deficiencies of postliberation and independence Sub-Saharan Africa is increased scourge of poverty -especially amongst the vulnerable rural resource-poor; who most undesirably were in the majority. It is lamentable in addition that the majority of these poor affected by rampaging poverty in the main comprised women and children. Women and children are vulnerable to poverty because they lack access to productive resources as compared to men, and adults in general. Based on this, most of post-independence transitional economies of Sub-Saharan Africa had sought to assist these disadvantaged vulnerable groups such as women and children to benefit from the new socio-political trends brought about by the post-liberation era by emancipating them from poverty. This target saw an emergence of fundamental agricultural policy reforms in most regions of Sub-Saharan Africa post-liberation and independence aiming at transformation of the social, political and economic conditions of the majority of the vulnerable designated groups such as women and children. Since the majority of indigenous African societies depended on agro activities for livelihoods and survival, agriculture was identified the main target for improving these societies. These resultant policy reforms aimed at increasing agricultural productivity and farmer market participationespecially amongst small-holder communal subsistence farmers in the rural areas amongst others [1]. In the case of South Africa for example, the post-apartheid government advocated for a creation and development of a middle class entrepreneur base of Black farmers in particular. Government's argument has been that this approach would redress the impact of the apartheid agricultural policy effected by successive National Party (NP) regimes on power since 1948 to 27 April 1994 at South Africa's liberation on the socio-economic welfare of Black communities in particular.
Apartheid had created two-centres of agricultural economy in South Africa; those of the rich Whites commercial farmers and that of the poor Black subsistence farmers on the one hand. Unfortunately, the effects of this dreadful segregative apartheid policy persistently spilled over into the new democratic era long after apartheid had ended. This had to be speedily and expediently arrested and corrected. The post-apartheid government had to therefore facilitate for a new transformational agricultural policy position which would ensure that vulnerable groups were affirmed to become agriculturally productive, and active beneficiaries of an equitable mainstream formal economy. This, would, as postulated reduce existing enormous socio-economic disparities and inequalities between poor Blacks and rich Whites still characterising South Africa's economy. Pursuing this target, the post-apartheid government argued that Black communal subsistence farmers for example needed increased and accelerated government-backed affirmation by increasing institutional support in order to fast track their integration with the commercial sub-sector of agriculture already predominated by White farmers. According to [2], the fast tracked integration of communal subsistence Black farmers into mainstream formal economy would also fast track the Black farmers to commercialise some of their farming sections. The thinking was that commercialisation would improve productivity capacity of the subsistence communal farmers; which had been identified as being low while enhancing the opportunities of the majority of these farmers to also actively participate in mainstream formal economy. In addition, food security capacity would also be enhanced amongst these groups. Resultantly, various farmer support policy measures were therefore developed and implemented [3,4]. The support measures hinged on the so-called National Agricultural Strategy of 2001 and 2015 respectively [5]. According to [5], the National Agricultural Strategy set out the so-called "eight priority programmes". The eight priority programmes were meant for fast tracking agricultural development, black economic empowerment, development of agricultural infrastructure, improving food security capacity, improving knowledge and information management capacity, preservation and conservation of natural resources, improving regulatory services and agricultural researchwith the formerly disadvantaged groups being the main beneficiaries of the programmes. [5] further indicated that one such program developed by post-apartheid government in South Africa is the CASP. Of all these programmes, this paper focuses specifically on the role played by the CASP.

LITERATURE REVIEW ON THE CASP AND MOTIVATION FOR THIS PAPER
Of late, empirical research on the CASP has been intensively growing. Amongst the latest on the CASP, [5] emerged with the audit of CASP projects in Gauteng Province with the study's main focus on women empowerment projects.
On the other hand, [5] investigated the challenges facing the implementation of the CASP. [6] assessed capacity building of the CASP in Capricorn District, Limpopo Province. In this study, [6] focused on the role of the CASP in farming skills and techniques development amongst resource-poor beneficiaries of Land Settlement programmes. Conspicuously absent however is literature investigating the performance of the CASP in farming communities where CASP was implemented. This paper fills that research gap. The investigation of this paper has been necessitated by existing mixed reports on the performance of the CASP in particular. Existing literature [4,7] has reported massive failures of the CASP while others [5] have, on the one hand reported considerable successes in some other regions of South Africa [8].
Despite the successes mentioned by [9], such successes on the CASP in some regions, in most instances had failed to convincingly postulate that national success story. In the main, the arguments posted by [8] suggest that farmer support programmes fail to adhere to the guidelines posted above. There is lack of consensus in existing literature to the successes of the CASP for instance. The lack of consensus might suggest that the successes of the CASP have been sporadic and intermittent -lacking in consistency, alternatively that the failures on the other hand have not been entirely and convincingly all over. This  section  briefly  describes what Comprehensive Agricultural Support Programme (CASP) is all about while also describing the programmes' successes and its complexities and constraints on the one hand. According to [5] the CASP is a programme initiated by the postapartheid government in South Africa on the 30th May 2004 with an aim of providing post -settlement support to the targeted beneficiaries of land reform programme for land redistribution. In addition, the CASP covered other producers outside the beneficiary lists of the postsettlement programme -especially those producers who would have acquired land through private means and such producers having been deemed crucial because of their continued engagement in value-adding agricultural entrepreneurship; either domestically or through international exportation of their produce [5]. [4,5] further indicated that the goals of the CASP were structured for the programme to have priority with regard the programmes' intervention in the development and empowerment of farmers in areas concerning information and technology management, technical and advisory assistance, and regulatory services, marketing and business development, training and capacity building, on/off farm infrastructure and product inputs development, and provision of financial support for instance. Evidently, the CASP is meant to increase support to farmers who have had limited or no government institutional support services prior to end of apartheid in April 1994 when South Africa was liberated from apartheid [5]. Since its inception in May 2004 [4,5], the CASP is said to have had its fair share of successes although there are also incidences of notable complexities and constraints for the programme is some areas. With regard successes, [5] for example posted that the programme was successfully adopted in the Gauteng Province to empower women in various projects. On the other hand, [6] reported that the programme was successfully used for farmer capacity building in the Capricorn District of Limpopo Province. The successes of the CASP in some areas and its challenges in some, raise mixed reactions amongst beneficiaries of the programme. For example, the gains of the CASP are recognised and appreciated in those areas where beneficiary farmers would for instance improve on their various factors of their farming in critical factors such as increased and improved access to government's financial support. This perception is expected because of the history of farmers in the resource-poor communal areas having had no access to such financing by commercial institutions who would always regard them too risky a sector. Through CASP, beneficiary farmers are able to improve their capacities with regard purchase of farm inputs, development of infrastructure and their farming skills in addition. These increase productivity of their farming while improving their potential of participating in mainstream formal agricultural economy in South Africa which was exclusively retained for White commercial farmers. Increased productivity of the farming -especially in the communal subsistence sub-sector of the Agricultural economy would also improve sustainability of livelihood production systems in those areas while commercially improving the prospects of the same beneficiary farmers to improve their income generation capacities. The CASP therefore becomes a crucial programme for poverty alleviation amongst the resource-poor households who rely on communal subsistence farming -especially those in the former apartheid-created homelands meant for Black people in South Africa for instance. This assertion is corroborated by [4] who reasoned that the Agricultural support programmes such as the CASP as initiated by government would continue to play a major role in alleviating poverty.

Complexities and Constraints Affecting the Implementation of the CASP
As observed in the study conducted in Gauteng Province [5] and elsewhere [10] for example, [5] found and reported that the CASP revealed that it had some notable implementation complexities and constraints. Some of the complexities and constraints on the implementation of the CASP include, but not limited to: farmer participation in government-initiated programmes and projects including the CASP has been a nightmare for facilitators and initiators in most communities in South Africa [10]. This factor has often led to government programmes remain initiatives of government without the involvement of the beneficiary communities; this with huge failure consequences, and • • • • Similar programmes such as the CASP would be rendered obsolete and dysfunctional as a result of nonparticipation and involvement of the targeted farmer households in these projects [10] as a result of poor attitudinal factors of intended farmer beneficiary communities towards government initiated programmes.
Literature in the study of the successes and complexities and constraints affecting the CASP in South Africa has in the main discovered and reported on the listed factors above as being the main, if not the only factors impacting on the CASP. This paper goes further to reveal other factors involved in the failures of the implementation of the CASP in beneficiary communities apart from these as has been indicated under the hypotheses of this paper.
As this paper intends to show, it is crucial that these complexities and constraints impacting on the implementation of the CASP and its subsequent projects for instance be investigated, identified and corrected accordingly. There are several ways, means, mechanisms, instruments and tools which could be adopted to redress the complexities and the constraints. More often that not when looking for ways, means, mechanisms, instruments and tools to manage difficult-toimplement government-initiated programmes and projects such as in rural agricultural development scenarios, agriculturalists would look for costeffective and efficient instrument and tools -with those instruments and tools promoting community initiatives and ownership highly desirable. For the purpose of this paper, adoption of Social Capital factors was considered relevant. Since Social Capital could mean different things for different users of this concept, this paper provides the context and definition of the term as has been adopted for the purpose of this paper. [11] argues that the definition is crucial because the term Social Capital often would be unfamiliar to some stakeholders of Social Capital research -this extending also to policy makers and development practitioners -especially those in charge of community development agricultural projects such as the CASP for instance.

Definition of Social Capital and Its Characterisation
Before delving into the definition of what Social Capital is, it is imperative to identify that Social Capital has in fact been adopted by stakeholders in agricultural project development as means to design corrective instruments and tools where such programmes and projects would meet problematic agricultural scenarios before [12,13,14]. This section presents the definition for Social capital, its characterisation and finally the reasons for the adoption of Social Capital for the purpose of this paper.

Social capital definition
Amongst a plethora of definitions adopted for Social Capital, there are only two definitions of what Social Capital is which this paper considered. Both of these definitions were adopted from Grootaert and Bastelaer and Coleman for example by [11]. [11], basing his definition on Coleman argued that "Social Capital is defined by its function; it is not a single entity, but a variety of different entities having characteristics in common: they all consist of some aspects of a social structure, and they facilitate certain actions of individuals who are within the structure", and furthermore on Grootaert and Bastelaer who defined Social Capital as "institutions, relationships, attitudes, and values that govern interactions among people and contribute to economic and social development."

Characterisation of social capital
Evidently, what emerges from the definition of Social Capital as based on [11], Social Capital could be said to bear the following characterisation: • Social Capital appears in structural and cognitive forms. These forms could point to Social Capital as involving socio-economic institutions and networks, or at least relating to individual states of mind. • Social Capital could appear at either macro (national), meso (regional and community), and/or micro (household or individual) levels. These levels depict economic structure which Social Capital could have effect on. • Social Capital could appear as bonding, bridging, linking and bracing as functions Social Capital produces in a particular community or between several organisations and/or individuals in different communities.

Motivation for adoption of social capital for the purpose of this paper
This paper postulates that Social Capital as adopted by [11] as has been demonstrated in its characterisation above, has been found relevant to this case study because the characterisation would allow the paper to develop a communitybased instrument and tool to effectively and sufficiently address issues of its problem. In other words, by adopting the use of Social Capital as a tool and instrument to find solution for the complexities and constraints as and when they manifest in the CASP programme as demonstrated in the infrastructure development project at Dolidoli Village would not only facilitate for community involvement and participation in finding solutions for their developmental challenges, but also strengthen community ownership prospects of the CASP in generaland its subsequent infrastructure development project at Dolidoli Village while collaboratively and collectively seeking for solutions. It is historical that Social Capital had been adopted to find solutions on typical complexities affecting communities in some developing economies regarding amongst others issues of environmental degradation, biodivesity depletion and loss of infrastructure and services which had threatened, marginalised and underdeveloped certain areas of some communities [15]. [15] further revealed that in those circumstances, community members would rely on Social Capital to address such challenges.
This paper argues that adoption and involvement of individuals, community structures such as households, traditional leadership, civic structures, farmer organisations, schools and government service delivery structures such as agricultural extension and Community Development Worker (CDW) services could be harnessed through lobbying for collective and collaborative actions of these structures and institutions to network and cooperate to develop a tool or instrument adopted to address the identified complexities and constraints affecting the CASP programme as it unfolds in the study area. This paper argues that had Social Capital emanating from these identified stakeholders been harnessed right at the conceptualisation of this programme and its implementation in the study area much earlier, this programme would have dealt with some of the complexities and constraints on its implementation much earlier and easier before such complexities and constraints could even appear.

METHODS
This section presents the methods adopted and followed for the purpose of this paper. First, the section presents the statement of the problem, describes the objectives which are structured into main and specific objectives, describes the hypotheses and this is followed by presentation of the study design; population, sampling techniques, data collection and analysis instruments and techniques. Furthermore the paper describes the motivation for the adoption of the applied frameworks and theoretical underpinnings while finally presenting the paper's limitations and its subsequent scope which is then followed by the structure of the paper.

Statement of the Problem
While the CASP has been duped a success in certain areas of the country, there are also areas where this magnanimous post-apartheid government-initiated anti-poverty and poverty alleviation tool and instrument meant to assist resource-poor beneficiaries of South Africa's land redistribution of land programme remains clouded with insurmountable complexities and constraints in the implementation of its many sub-programmes. The emanating complexities and constraints remain mixed and complex to determine outside study of this nature. In addition, existing studies are short of providing any meaningful tool and instrument to identify and remove the complexities and constraints affecting this programme. This paper investigates the complexities and constraints as and when they affect the CASP and its related projectswith particular focus on the CASP in the Musekwa Valley, and the Dolidoli Village CASPsponsored infrastructure development project in particular. This paper extends its scope by going a mile further into finding the right tool and instrument which turns out to be communitybased to address any such identified complexities and constraints there.

Objectives of this Paper
The objectives of this paper are structured into two sub-sections:

Main objectives
The main objective of this paper was to assess and evaluate the performance of the CASP in the Musekwa Valley of Makhado Local Municipality, Vhembe District in Limpopo Province.

Specific objectives
The specific objective (s) of this paper were: • to determine the relevance of the CASP and its infrastructure development project at Dolidoli Village, • to characterise the CASP in the Musekwa Valley in general, and the Dolidoli infrastructure development project in particular, • to determine the perceptions of the farmers on the CASP in general, and the Dolidoli infrastructure development project in particular, • to investigate the complexities and constraints encountered in the CASPsponsored infrastructure development project at Dolidoli Village, • to propose the ways, instrument and tool to resolve the complexities and constraints as experienced in the CASP and its subsequent project at Dolidoli Village.

Study Design, Population, Sampling Techniques, Data Collection and Analysis
This study is quantitative-qualitative in nature.  (17). From this distribution, 55 households were randomly selected for primary data collection. Data were collected from heads of household using semi-structured questionnaire instrument. Sixteen community leaders (n=16) -two from each participant village were also selected from a list of community structures provided by local chiefs and confirmed by local agricultural extension officers to participate in the study. Two Focus Group Discussion (FGDs) meetings were held with the community leaders. Two local extension officers (n=2) were also interviewed as Key Informants. Document reviews -especially those of agricultural authorities such as Livestock Population Registers (LPRs) formed part of data collection. Field work was also undertaken in the area to observe the state of the CASP provided infrastructure -in this case at Dolidoli Village. Primary data were coded in Microsoft Excel programme for analyses to obtain frequencies and percentages of selected variables. On the one hand, qualitative data were analysed using thematic sub-headings.

Motivation for the Frameworks and Theoretical Underpinning
This paper postulates that the CASP is a crucial instrument in South Africa to support and empower resource-poor communal farmers who were previously excluded from accessing and obtaining institutional assistance by the apartheid regime [2]. Adoption of the CASP would improve farm productivity while removing the bottlenecks impeding Black communal farmers from accessing proper agricultural infrastructure, and any other institutional support. However, in postapartheid South Africa soliciting farmer participation in government-initiated programmes and projects has been a nightmare for facilitators and initiators [10].
[10] went on to demonstrate that some post-land reform and settlement agricultural initiatives were rendered obsolete and dysfunctional as a result of non-participation and involvement of the targeted farmer households in these projects. In other words, before most of these projects could fail from operational deficiencies and complexities, much of the source of the failure could be ascribed to attitudinal factors of farmer communities. This paper demonstrates that the performance of the CASP in South Africa as demonstrated by events of the selected study area could sufficiently be associated with the theoretical postulations as opined by [9]. The final output of most government-initiated programmes such as the CASP, according to [14] is total collapse or struggle to survive. Social networks and social entrepreneurship could be harnessed as corrective measures of the complexities and constraints experienced by communities [11,14,16] -on the CASP in particular, just as [16] postulated that "networks can direct strategies to promote participative behaviour and volunteering".
Finally, the effect of entrepreneurial education of farmers on improved performance of agricultural projects and programmes used as farmer support tools has been identified as being effective in removing some identified complexities and constraints amongst smallholder farmers in some selected villages of the Lango Sub-region of Northern Uganda [13]. [13] further revealed that vigorous educational programmes on integrated entrepreneurship training amongst such farmers immensely transformed the dynamics for the better. Farmer entrepreneur training's curriculum could be guided by the "knowledge-flow mechanism" and the typological framework designed by [17]however adapted to suit the dynamics of the local programme.

Limitations and Scope of This Paper
The logistical complexities and constraints of this paper makes it difficult however to investigate both issues of successes and failures in the same paper. This paper therefore particularly interests itself with the failures of the CASP. In doing so, two critical questions arise on the issues of the CASP; "what led to the failure of the CASP?" Secondly, what was done; at both policy level and programme implementation level amongst the beneficiary communities to mitigate against the failures of the CASP? Thirdly, what has to be done to redress the complexities and constraints affecting the CASP? These imperative questions arise out of the surveyed literature which hypothesises that various strategies employed and adopted to mitigate against the failures and complexities experienced by the CASP seem to have stalled to sufficiently address the complexities. While different categories of the beneficiaries of the CASP would experience different complexities and constraints at different levels of intensity, such complexities and constraints are yet to be conclusively explored and determined. The chief purpose of this paper is therefore to explore constructing a mitigating framework, tool or instrument to address the complexities and constraints. So far, existing literature had failed provide this expertise. Based on this, this paper argues that the mitigating framework should emanate from employing and adopting the properties of social capital and social entrepreneurship theories as espoused and advocated for by a plethora of empirical theorists [12,14,16]. In other words, the affected communities should be provided with that opportunity to provide solution for their challenge. Solution should not be exported to the affected communities as it had been the case with the programme. Secondly, the framework should explore development of entrepreneur farmer base through increased public education on agriculture as argued by [2]. This could produce entrepreneurial farmers motivated by increased desire for personal achievement, who, on the other hand combined increased passion, self confidence and innovation amongst others with the acquired skills. In other words, this paper advocates for the notion expressed by [1] who argued that farmers needed to be developed into "farmers as entrepreneurs" practising "agri-business entrepreneurial activities" to alleviate themselves against rampaging poverty. In other words, this assertion postulates that entrepreneurship development could be an effective strategy amongst resource-poor farmer households with regard poverty alleviation [18]. To substantiate this assertion, [18] conducted a study on the same amongst communal farmer households in Igbo-Eze of North Local Government Area of Enugu State, Nigeria, and the emanating results affirmed this assertion. From the resultant findings of this study, it is evident that at this study site, these approaches were not adopted.

Structure of This Paper
This paper is presented in categorically demarcated themes and sub-themes. First, the paper presents the background to the study with some literature reviewed for the purpose of this paper, introduces the research methodology by describing the study area; the study design; population and sampling techniques; data collection methods and instruments. Secondly, the study describes the instruments employed to analyse the data before finally presenting the findings, policy/areas of further studies and recommendations thereof. Reviewed literature mainly focuses on the efforts of the postapartheid government efforts to improve subsistence Black farmers in communal South Africa in particular. The literature furthermore revisits the processes of the CASP looking at the objectives of the programme and finally the response of communal farmers to the effectiveness; usefulness and other benefits brought about by the CASP in their respective region.

Relevance of the CASP and Its Infrastructure Development Project at Dolidoli Village
Since the bigger part of the CASP-sponsored infrastructure development project at Dolidoli Village for instance concerns livestock infrastructure, this paper's departure was to present the profile of the livestock sector. Therefore, this paper began by determining the livestock audit to assess and evaluate if at all the CASP-sponsored infrastructure development project initiative was relevant in this community. Evidence suggests that there were incidences where irrelevant projects were initiated for communities resulting in several other complexities thereafter. For instance, there are incidences were irrelevant infrastructure would be supplied to communities, and this ended in a waste of resources as such infrastructure would become obsolete and dysfunctional without those communities using them [10] to total collapse and struggle [14] in addition. However, in this case, it was determined that livestock farming was the backbone of the local economy. Although farming practices in this study area were largely mixed-farming, the majority of households however practised and in the main also depended on livestock farming. The results of this paper (Fig. 1) confirmed that the majority of households had kept goats (53.0%), cattle (42.9%), donkeys (2.5%) and sheep (1.6%) as livelihood strategy.
Donkeys are prominent in the study area because they are mostly used for traction purposes. The study area is remote with poor off farm infrastructure development such as roads.
The road system is mainly hard gravel which makes transportation in the area slow and unreliable. Donkeys and donkey carts provide transportation alternative. They are also substitutes for tractors -especially during summer when cultivations begin. However, unlike in some other parts of SSA, donkeys at this study area do not produce any human consumables such as milk and meat. Goats and sheep are cheaper to acquire, and therefore very common amongst women-headed households [19]. Goats are however mostly vulnerable to predators such as leopards (Panthera pardus) and baboons (Papilo hydrus) which are common in this study area. Most farmers have livestock enclosures to protect the animals from these predators. Based on the high volumes of livestock herds kept by majority households in the this study area, it is imperative therefore that relevant infrastructure be available to make the franchise profitable and sustainable. Supposedly, the dereliction status of the infrastructure prior to CASP-sponsored infrastructure development project being introduced in the area -specifically at Dolidoli Village, farmers were faced with a serious problem which needed to be addressed as a matter of urgency. It is on this account that the infrastructure development project at Dolidoli Village was conceptualised and brought to the area. In the context of the submission made by [4,5] with regard the overall target of the CASP, which they indicate as prioritisation of the programmes' intervention in the development and empowerment of farmers in areas concerning information and technology management, technical and advisory assistance, and regulatory services, marketing and business development, training and capacity building, on/off farm infrastructure and product inputs development, and provision of financial support for instance for instance, it could be reasonably concluded therefore that the CASP-sponsored infrastructure development project at Dolidoli Village was fair and relevant.

Characterisation of the CASP in Musekwa Valley in General, and the Sponsored Infrastructure Development Project at Dolidoli Village in Particular
Key informant Interviews (KIIs) and Focus Group Discussions (FGDs) revealed that the farmers at Dolidoli Village were the only group in the entire Musekwa Valley study area who had made request with the Limpopo Department of Agriculture for the CASP assistance. Although it emerged later in the study that the farmers at Dolidoli Village might not have lodged that request but what is critical is that somebody had done so on their behalf. As standard practice for obtaining assistance with the CASP, [19] submitted that the respective community must have submitted a formal request for assistance to the agricultural authorities of their respective province -the request of which should also meet the criteria as set out for the programme.
The results of this paper revealed that the CASP programme was only active at, and assisted farmers in only one (Dolidoli Village) village in the entire Musekwa Valley area. This suggests that only a few cattle farming households (18.2%) were able to benefit from the CASP while the rest of the farming households in the valley (71.8%) were excluded. Key Informant Interviews (KIIs) and Focus Group Discussion (FGDs) revealed that other excluded villages from the activities of the CASP had actually never requested for the assistance as provided for by the CASP policy frameworks. Even though the CASP was visible at Dolidoli Village, the results of this paper revealed that, still the majority of farmers in the bigger portion of the entire Musekwa Valley study area (76.4%) were not yet familiar with the CASP. A mere 24.6% of the respondents were familiar with the programme. On further probing, this paper established that a large number of farmers (76.4%) in the area were, as early as in the initial stages of the CASP been suspicious of the CASP and government intentions of the programme. The suspicions would later reveal major impact on how they finally responded to the campaign for the programme. This result is corroborated by [10,14] who found that attitudinal factors of farmers had rendered most government-initiated community assistance such as the CASP obsolete and dysfunctional with some in fact reaching total collapse or struggle. To corroborate the suspicions of some farmer community members, one community leader remarked "The CASP? Our people could not trust the facilitators because many years ago during the Bantustan government of Venda, people lost their cattle to a dubious scheme orchestrated by some extension officers and some big people in government which ended up being bogus with a lot of people losing their cattle to the syndicate" Confirming the suspicions during data collection, Focus Group Discussions (FGDs) and Key Informant Interviews (KIIs) established in fact that prior to Dolidoli Village farmers having been assisted by the CASP, there had been an unfounded rumour spread and circulating amongst villagers in the study area. The rumour was that the CASP was instead not a farmer assistance program since the farmers would at some stage be required to pay for whatever service they would have benefited from the programme. Some key informants even suggested that the rumour and the peddled lies also affected other government programmes such as the Reconstruction Development Programme (RDP) housing supply initiative in the area. The rumour on the CASP actually had split the farmers into two groups; those farmers who thought that the CASP was the same scheme which had resulted in some of them losing cattle to some government officials and politicians of the old Venda government many years ago while the second group involved those farmers who merely lacked access to correct information on the CASP, and therefore resorted to the false rumour and peddled lies.
[20] reported similar conduct elsewhere. In fact [20] found and reported that the majority of farmers in the Bojanala District of the North West Province lacked access to proper information of the CASP despite the fact that the national campaigns on the popularisation of the CASP have been public issues as early as 2003. The ignorance displayed by the majority of the farmers in this study area might suggest that campaigns and the marketing strategies of the CASP by the agricultural national and provincial agricultural authorities might have lacked effectiveness to effectively inform beneficiary farmers on the objectives of the CASP. The implication of the inability of the agricultural authorities to effectively popularise the CASP, and the farmers' lack of access to this crucial information might result in huge numbers of targeted beneficiary farmers missing out on crucial farmer support initiativeespecially with regard to services the CASP is meant to provide [4,21,22]. Government authorities should have projected that any failure of the CASP to achieve its intended objectives would have implacable repercussions on the economic welfare of the targeted farmer households -significantly impacting on the ability of these farmers to integrate with the commercial agricultural wing, and in addition to improve on their lower productivity rates as compared to their commercial counterparts. However, it is mostly common for communal farmers to lack proper awareness, knowledge and understanding of farmer assistance organisations and government programmes operating in their areas in South Africaespecially where the mechanisms to popularize such programmes amongst such farmers remain largely limited and inaccessible. For example, [23] found that approximately 52.0% of the farmers in the tomato production sub-sector in the Limpopo Province never knew nor understood how the Limpopo Tomato Growers Association operated. The implication of this unawareness of farmer support programmes amongst some of these farmers is that crucial agricultural support initiative which might have been very crucial in assisting the farmers to access valuable agricultural service is seriously compromised. Evidently, the majority of the farmers are left out of the programme although indications from the study were that the majority of the respondents outside Dolidoli Village for example had expressed desire to receive assistance from the CASP. One farmer respondent even remarked "People at Dolidoli have improved their infrastructure through CASP. Us here we do not have nothing because we feared that we will be robbed our cattle the same way as it happened some years ago here. But now, all of us we regret we did not take the extension officers seriously when making suggestions that we apply for the CASP assistance" Evidently, poor communication and publicity strategies of the CASP by the agricultural authorities in the province might have had some drastic contribution to the low interest and participation rates in the CASP by farmers in the other villages of the area. It is evident that there were perceptions that had developed amongst the stakeholders of the CASP in the valley. Resultantly, this paper measured the perception of the farmers in this regard.

Perceptions of the Farmers on the CASP in General and the Infrastructure Development Project at Dolidoli Village
This paper solicited for the views and perceptions of the farmers at Dolidoli Village on the benefits of the CASP in general and the infrastructure development project at Dolidoli Village in particular. On this, the results of this paper (Table 1) revealed some mixed feelings. The majority of farmers (45.5%) expressed moderate satisfaction while 34.5% thought the CASP was bad with the remainder 7.5% expressing positive comments declaring that the CASP was actually a good program for them. The greater part of the results (Table 1) suggests that the confidence of the farmers in the CASP in general was generally low. Key Informant Interviews (KIIs) and Focus Group Discussions (FGDs) were able to establish the reasons behind increased apathy and disillusionment of the farmers on the CASP. Some farmers revealed that the CASP had achieved very little since the programme had actually collapsed right from its inception. Those farmer respondents critical of the CASP also revealed that the program was poorly conceptualised, implemented and managed from its beginning to end. First, there were no buy-ins of the programme by the local farmer community because contrary to some beliefs, the programme had actually never been an initiative of the farmers but of some certain "ghost" role players who might have been only interested in acquiring tender contracts from government to build the supplied infrastructure at the Dolidoli Village for example. One farmer instead remarked

Complexities and Constraints Affecting the Implementation of the CASP-Sponsored Infrastructure Development Project at Dolidoli Village
This section of the paper reports on the identified complexities and constraints as they affect the implementation of the CASP-sponsored infrastructure development project at Dolidoli Village.

Lack of community buy-in, involvement and participation in the CASPsponsored infrastructure development project at Dolidoli Village
The farmers and some members of the community were asked during farmer interviews, FGDs and KIIs to identify their interests in the CASP -especially the infrastructure development project at Dolidoli Village. First, it was difficult to deduce who, amongst the community structures might have initiated the infrastructure development project at Dolidoli Village for instance. Secondly, it was not convincing either whether the extension officers were the initiators of this project, or the farming community as some had been supposing over the years. As [24] argued, it is imperative of government to seek for total involvement and participation of the communities before any government service could be dispensed, in this case the same could not be conclusively acknowledged. Furthermore, [24] argued that such involvement and active participation of the citizenry should begin right at the onset of the targeted programme or project; initiation and formulation of the product, not only at the implementation stage as it seems to have been the case with regard the CASP in this study area. As one respondent opined that the farmers were unaware of what, and who really informed the building of the livestock grazing camps ahead of other services the majority of farmers considered most crucial in the area, it is worthwhile to consider the assertions postulated by [24] that government service be initiated from sufficient consultation in order to promote future collaborations. Apart from this, [24] argued that proper consultation on government service to people would promote the spirit of good governance while promoting accountability on the other hand. It is evident that the conceptualisation of the project for the study area without the initial buy-in, participation and involvement of the farming communities and the rest of society was an omission later to be regretted in the CASP in general and the project in particular. This was to provide a serious complexity and constrain to the success of this project in particular.

Other identified complexities and constraints which had impacted on the CASP in general and the infrastructure development project at Dolidoli Village in particular
There were several other complexities and constraints which had impacted on the CASP in general and the infrastructure development project at Dolidoli Village in particular.

Misplaced assumptions on the CASPsponsored infrastructure development project at Dolidoli Village
It was made evident during the process of the study that as matters currently are, the local CASP as adopted at the study area had based its precepts out of misplaced assumptions: (1) that everyone practising cattle farming in the study area was a (potential) entrepreneur (2) that the farmers the programme meant to assist were natural entrepreneurs who only lacked access to productive resources as a result of the apartheidera policy position of the National Party (NP) government on Black farmers and communities in general (3) that making state assistance equitable and accessible by the local farmers would result in these farmers "pooling themselves" out of their prevailing socioeconomic circumstances (4) that "dumping" the productive resources such as infrastructure and land for example with the farmers would assist these farmers to be pro-active, develop desire and gain self-motivation to become resourceful, productive and competent (5) that access to resources would facilitate creation of entrepreneur farmers, and lastly, (6) that what the farmers would produce already had an established market -where these farmers have been selling their produce all along.
In the process, other flawed technical assumptions of the CASP were also laid bare (1) failure of the CASP to have a programme of action to develop its own "cadre" farmer entrepreneurs through a vigorous "agrientrepreneurship program" aiming at developing "farmers with quality of entrepreneurship" which has become immensely popular in transitional economies such as Malaysia for example [16,25]. This factor could be read together with the assertion postulated by [26] who argued that "...some individuals are pulled into entrepreneurship by opportunity recognition while others are pushed into entrepreneurship because they have no other choice to earn a living..." In other words, the CASP should have been viewed as an opportunity the farmers might recognise to develop into agricultural entrepreneurs while others might be persuaded in addition by that desire to want to transform their social status of poverty through increasing food security opportunities and improving household income means by eloping into the CASP -making the CASP an instrument or tool for "human capital empowerment" [16], (2), the CASP should have been viewed as a countrylevel innovation aiming at providing solutions to the socio-economic circumstances experienced there just the same way as other non-farm entrepreneurial innovations had played elsewhere [9], and (3) there was no provision of continuity of assistance of the farmers as the model only provisioned for the short term -in this case, infrastructure supply (3) the CASP failed to view the assistance programme holistically but spontaneously as the challenge had been identified (4) sustainability of the programme was not projected, and (5) no market was created or developed to make the farmers commercially viable and competent. Lack of creation of relevant market for the farmers suggested that farmers would now have to produce more for household consumption instead with increased surplus for the market. The implication in this regard is that farmers would instead be left stuck with increased productivity without a market. However, amidst the shortcomings, this paper still argues that: (1) the CASP was a good intention with bad implementation strategy (2) the CASP should have sought to identify and develop agricultural entrepreneurs before it could seek to "dump" productive resources with the clueless communities and farmers on "modern" livestock farming (3) a solid entrepreneur curriculum should have been developed and implemented within all facets of society as opined by [27].

Lack of proper post-project management systems
The results of this paper revealed that postproject at Dolidoli Village for instance, there were no management responsibilities allocated to resident farmers to take care of the supplied infrastructure, and infrastructure needing maintenance service and rehabilitation could therefore not be sufficiently serviced. The Limpopo Department of Agriculture could not cope with maintenance of the post-project infrastructure at Dolidoli Village because of lack of resources and expertise to fix broken and mechanically dysfunctional machinery such as boreholes and windmills while they could also not cope with vandalised and dilapidating infrastructure for example. However, it confirms that the local farmers did not feel indebted to making the project functional because they seem discouraged and intimidated to get involved at this stage.

High incidences of vandalism on the developed infrastructure
There was excessive incidences of vandalism on the developed infrastructure at Dolidoli Village post-project. This paper established that exacerbating the situation of vandalism on the infrastructure is the fact that the supplied infrastructure was, in addition, of poor quality. Poor quality of the infrastructure made it prone to sudden dilapidation within a short period of time immediately after being handed over to the resident farmers. Furthermore, there were virtually no management systems set to take care of the infrastructure post-supply, and hence the plethora of challenges experienced thereafter. Lack of management structures to take care of the infrastructure, if not the entire CASP project in the village had in fact resulted in spiralling and uncontrolled vandalism and abuse of the infrastructure for instance. Locals forget that rural development and betterment of the lives of the poor in the rural areas of transitional economies such as South Africa and Nigeria for instance would hinge in particular on supply of proper (agricultural) infrastructure [28] -and this happens at huge cost. The cost of vandalism of infrastructure is extensive, amongst others, also reverses the gains made in community development and betterment of the lives of the ordinary poor. Vandalism also threatens livelihood generating resources in communities, and furthermore wastes hard-earned public resources. In other words, vandalism is anti-development, and therefore needed to be properly managed, controlled and finally eradicated. Vandalisers of infrastructure should be identified and punished because vandalism is criminal.
However, probing the respondents further to identify possible vandalisers of the infrastructure in the study area, yielded mixed responses. Some respondents revealed that people from neighbouring villages would cut the fences off and destroy the livestock grazing camps at certain strategic points to let their livestock in for grazing -especially when such people were facing feed challenges for their livestock in their respective villages. Some coming from distant areas such as Nzhelele to steal firewood from the area would also cut the fences off to gain entrance into the camps. Locals also vandalised the infrastructure through theft of materials such as fencing poles and wire for their own domestic use. A new trend was also discovered where infrastructure made of metal was vandalised to be sold to scrap metal dealers elsewhereespecially to those scrap metal dealers who frequent the areas collecting scrap metals for cash. Boreholed windmills (phaphapha) and handpums (magwedzho) were in the main targets.
Field work undertaken in the study area revealed that most of the vandalised infrastructure had almost become irreparable or that state of dereliction and extinction. In fact, some participants felt strongly that valuable state resources were unnecessarily spent on unproductive suppliers of the over-priced infrastructure who supplied poor service on the project, to start with. It could not be completely ruled out that the CASP programme in general, and the project at Dolidoli Village in particular were also from the onset never without the common unwarranted unethical conduct bedevilling some government projects in general considering that no officials seem interested in the project in the area further than its current stage. This paper discovered that there have been mudslinging amongst the government officials and the locals characterised by a growing blame game between the communities and the local agricultural extension officers in particular with regard issues around CASP. Local farmers blame the department for negligence while the department on the other hand blames the local communities for anti-progress behaviour; citing vandalising of the expensively built infrastructure which other communities around the area desperately needed. Farmers also expressed disappointment on the Department that they received no further engagement on the program. However, blame games where there are frustrations in projects are actually common -and they have been reported elsewhere [8]. It is needed that both the department and the local beneficiary community cooperate and work together to eradicate vandalism instead of playing unproductive blame game.

ADDRESSING THE COMPLEXITIES AND CONSTRAINTS THROUGH SOCIAL CAPITAL AND SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP
Under normal circumstances the farmers could volunteer service such as maintenance and guarding the infrastructure as, and when it is needed; either as individuals, networks, organisations or groups [29]. This approach could be immense innovation and creativity which could have brought stability in, and success of the CASP -especially the Dolidoli Village infrastructure development project while increasing the socio-economic benefits and value of the initiative to the local community at large [29]. Participant farmers were asked during discussions for data collection if they were willing to volunteer service for the success of the programme. One farmer respondent put it this way "We are able to deal with stock theft through organised community networks involving the youths and the rest of the community, why could we not able to deal with vandalism of the infrastructure assisting our farming? It is because nobody above there in government does not care. In fact, as far as I know, the CASP here is a closed matter. Somebody made quick money, and left us suffering" Looking at these responses, one can therefore reasonably argue in the context of [2] in a study on the role of social entrepreneurship in community development in Kathmandu, Nepal that "...community development through social entrepreneurship is a doable mechanism"especially where there is willingness amongst the stakeholders to find solution to the existing problem just as the results of this study demonstrate in this study area. Evidently, people are motivated not by material gains but by that pride of being part of the success of their communities. That human pride of achieving success through voluntary participation drives the emotional desire that goes beyond personal material gains -for recognition. This must be exploited for community developmentespecially in arresting the observed complexity and constrain factors as have been identified for the purpose of this paper.
In other words, the farming community in this study area could simply harness and mobilise human capital from its vast Social Capital sources -other farmers and community at large to address the complexities and constraints as experienced in the CASP in general and the project in particular. In other words, there needs to be collectivity and common approach by the resident community to addressing the challenge they are facing. The farming community could maximise what [30] refer to as "the basic elements of social capital", which are; trust, reciprocity and mutuality, formal and informal social networks, shared norms of behaviour, shared commitment and belonging. This approach had been successfully adopted in various resource-poor communities to address socio-economic complexities with great success. For example, [12] report that resource-poor communities harnessed Social Capital to address community challenges. Resource-poor communities such as in Nyanga, Zimbabwe transcended their socio-demographic factors to successfully use their trust amongst each other, social networks, shared norms and behaviour amongst others to address socio-economic challenges such as poverty. Farmers at this study area could borrow the assertions postulated by [12] who argued that "networks, collectivity and communalism emanating from social capital had been fundamental tools employed by communities to overcome obstacles of community development in various socioeconomic aspects of the communities through a 'people centred development' approach" In this argument, it is evident that [12] is advocating for what [29] termed "social entrepreneurship" which operates within the community, being concerned of resolving problematic social issues affecting the particular community; however without any compensatory motivation for "profit making" as is common in many other types of business entrepreneurship. In other words, from their passion, volunteer members of the farming community, and the community at large could "pool" their resources together -by mobilising ideas, capacities and social arrangements to voluntarily find an immediate long lasting solution to the problem of infrastructure vandalism in the area for instance.
[30] corroborate this assertion. It is evident that this assertion revisits the postulation submitted by [16] who opined thus "...politicians and people in every walk of life seem convinced that communities can solve social ills and build a happier, more fulfilled society..." This is corroborated by [31] who argued for the adoption of social entrepreneurship in societal development or problem solving. [31] argued that adoption of social entrepreneurship would provide society with that opportunity to pursue innovative solutions to social problems affecting them. In the farming community at Dolidoli Village though, social entrepreneurship already could prove adoptable considering the willingness of some respondents in doing so. A revisit to the interviews held with some respondent farmers is evidence of this assertion. During data gathering, participant farmers were asked if they would be willing to volunteer service for the success of the CASP -especially on dealing with vandalism and provision of maintenance service to infrastructure, and one farmer respondent responded thus: "We are able to deal with stock theft through organised community networks involving the youths and the rest of the community, why could we not able to deal with vandalism of the infrastructure assisting our farming? It is because nobody above there in government does not care. In fact, as far as I know, the CASP here is a closed matter. Somebody made quick money, and left us suffering" From the willingness of the locals to offer volunteer service, it could be postulated that if authorities could facilitate for such action to commence, then the solution to the challenges could be at hand. What then arises from this assertion is the need to pose a further question, again sourced from [16] who, when making follow-up on the previous assertion had this to ask "But if communities are the answer, what exactly is the question?" How do we get people to cooperate?" Having considered that the current paper has its own limitations, and would therefore not attempt to answer these rhetoric, it is recommended that another study be commissioned to investigate matters raised by [16].
Evidently, during the commencement of the CASP in this study area, sufficient audit -in the form of a study for example of what needed to be done seems not to have ever been undertaken.
Such a survey could be in line with the suggested guidelines postulated by [8] when opining that prior to the commencement of a farmer support programme of the nature of the CASP in this case, there should have been an execution of baseline survey in order to determine the socio-economic situation of the particular beneficiary community. To substantiate the view that such a survey might never have taken place in this study area, respondent farmers and Key Informant Interviewees were asked if any such survey had taken place. This question was necessitated by the discovery that in actual fact, farmer community in the area had expressed different expectations on the CASP than the programme finally supplied them with. For example, The results of this paper (Table 2) revealed that the majority of farmers would have preferred the CASP to have supplied them with on-farm infrastructure such as dipping tanks (23.6%), farmer training on agricultural commercialisation just as the White commercial farmers were (18.2%), acquisition of breeding bulls (25.5%), financial support and access to operate the enterprise (9.1%), assistance to access marketing and production information (7.3%) and other unspecified assistance expected (16.4%). Based on the failure of the CASP to meet these expectations drew mixed reactions over the appropriateness of the CASP in the area. This was demonstrated by the farmers' perceptions on the CASP as has been expressed earlier in the paper (Table 1). This paper postulates therefore that had a proper survey been undertaken prior to the commencement of the CASP in study area, a different scenario might have been resulting -with regard farmer perceptions on the CASP. This paper is, in addition, of the view therefore that such a survey might have emanated with possible tools and approaches to deal with social ills prevalent in the area; for instance vandalism, and also the Limpopo Department of Agriculture's inability to provide any further assistance to the farmers on the programme beyond infrastructure supply.

CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDA-TIONS
The main objective of this paper was to assess and evaluate the performance of the CASP in addressing farmer needs in the Musekwa Valley.
In the Musekwa Valley, the CASP as implemented at Dolidoli Village sought to provide farmer support by building infrastructure such as grazing camps and water supply. Fifty five (n=55) cattle farmer households were selected for primary data collection through the heads of household. A questionnaire-based survey was run on the cattle farmers with Focus Group Discussion (FGDs) and Key Informant Interviews (KIIs) providing means to collect secondary data from a range of key stakeholders. In addition, field work was conducted to observe the state of the CASP supplied infrastructure in the area. The findings of this paper revealed that the CASP, as intended, was necessary an instrument to address a number of constraints and complexities affecting communal cattle farming in the study area. This paper concludes that the CASP infrastructure development project at Dolidoli Village in particular was a good innovation implemented in a rush. Some key infrastructure was improved or developed from scratch while a few was also rehabilitated. The final output of the programme as intended remain mixed. Developed infrastructure was poor. Most supplied infrastructure was totally vandalised to a state of disrepair and extinction. Supplied infrastructure such as boreholes and windmills for example was not serviced for various reasons. The programme proved wasteful. Knowledge and understanding of the CASP amongst the farmers was low. Farmers lacked information on the CASP. Farmers demonstrated negative attitude and perceptions towards the CASP. The CASP only assisted farmers at one village (Dolidoli) with the rest of the villages in the Musekwa Valley left out. It is recommended that government has to do more in terms of the popularization and information dissemination of the CASP to improve chances of increasing participation and involvement of the beneficiary farmers in the programme. The multi-dimensional model/platform proposed by [24] in his argumentation on sourcing for, and strengthening participation of the citizenry in government service delivery programmes and projects is highly recommended. This "platform" as [24] calls it would broaden the scope for information access by the citizenry. Government should use CASP to develop farmers in the rest of the study area, not just one village. Government should also widen the scope of the CASP to include services such as training, development of entrepreneurial skills amongst farmers in accordance with the objectives of the programme, not only to supply infrastructure. Extension officers should educate communities with regard farmer support programmes and subsequent active participation of the farmers in such initiatives. In addition, government structures such as Community Development Workers (CDWs) could also be enlisted to assist with such education of the farmers. Community structures should be formed to monitor vandalism of infrastructure with Law-enforcement agencies dealing with perpetrators punitively. In other words, communities could exploit the power of social capital networks [14,32] to build monitoring manpower on vandalism. Dilapidated infrastructure should be repaired, and also maintained from time to time. As a result of the limitations of this case study, it is recommended that a similar study be conducted to cover a larger area as the CASP is a national programme. However, the Dolidoli Village scenario provides a good platform when dealing with the CASP issues elsewhere in the country. Vandalism emerged in this paper as a strong factor of retrogression in community advancement and development -especially in agriculture. Its extent was not sufficiently determined in this paper. It is imperative that a follow-up study be conducted on the extent of vandalism in the area.