A Review of the Entrepreneurial Behavior of Farmers: An Asian-African Perspective

This paper is a literature review on the subject of entrepreneurship. Specifically, the review focusses on the components of the entrepreneurial behavior of farmers. The desk study is based on over 50 publications on entrepreneurship or related subject matter, the majority of which are journals and scholarly articles. The paper revealed the following components of entrepreneurial behavior possessed by farmers: innovativeness, achievement motivation, decision making ability, risk orientation, coordinating ability, information seeking behavior, self-confidence, planning ability and cosmopoliteness. Research findings further revealed that farmers possess low, medium and high levels of these components but the majority of farmers fall under the medium level category. This has been attributed to varying levels of education, household income, age, marital status, land and livestock holding, farming experience, training exposure, and participation in various social and extension activities. However, research on entrepreneurial behavior has been limited to dairy, vegetable and floriculture farmers in Asia with a few examples from Africa. Future research outside Asia needs to focus on the entrepreneurial behavior of smallholder farmers and how they can open up market opportunities, and spur economic growth and development, especially in agro-based economies.