Papers by Susanna (Sanlie) L Middelberg
Open Agriculture, 2020
The Zambian government has introduced the farm block development programme (FBDP) to facilitate a... more The Zambian government has introduced the farm block development programme (FBDP) to facilitate agricultural land and rural development and encourage private sector investment. This study assessed whether the FBDP achieves these goals. Key obstacles and possible opportunities were also identified and, where appropriate, specific corrective actions were recommended. Qualitative data were collected through semi-structured interviews conducted in Lusaka with various stakeholders of the FBDP. The FBDP is designed to facilitate agricultural land development and encourage private sector investment. However, the programme falls far short in terms of implementation, amidst policy uncertainty and lack of support. This is evident by the insecurity of land tenure which negatively affects small- and medium-scale producers’ access to financing, lack of infrastructure development of these farm blocks, and constraints in the agricultural sector such as low labour productivity and poor access to se...
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Journal of Economic and Financial Sciences, 2018
Research purpose: The aim of this article was to evaluate the relevance of Global Management Acco... more Research purpose: The aim of this article was to evaluate the relevance of Global Management Accounting Principles (GMAPs) in the sustainability of a mechanised piggery in a South African context.Motivation for the study: Considering the pressure which commercial agriculture in South Africa is experiencing, as well as the growing nature of pork production in this sector, mechanised piggeries would have to consider ways in which to manage their operations in order to remain sustainable.Research approach, design and method: The research design took the form of an exploratory case study and contextual applied research with an inductivist approach to qualitative research.Main findings: The findings include that, without pre-knowledge of GMAPs, Piggery A employed a large number of the concepts and principles described by GMAPs as best practice.Practical and managerial implications: All commercial farming operations should consider GMAPs as a tool to establish best practice in the support...
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Journal of Economic and Financial Sciences, 2019
Orientation: The study explores credit management on the South African higher education landscape... more Orientation: The study explores credit management on the South African higher education landscape in the context of the institutional theory.Research purpose: To calculate a best practice frontier to assess the extent to which universities’ credit management policy as an institutional resource is appropriate for its environment.Motivation for the study: The study was undertaken to investigate how the institutional environment influences the development of formal university structures.Research design, approach and method: A parallel mixed-method research design was followed to collect both qualitative data and quantitative data: document analysis to assess five universities of technology’s credit management policies and quantitative data testing 1392 senior students’ perspectives on the credit management policies of these five universities of technology.Main findings: The lesson learnt from this study is that the more aggressive the credit management policy, the more the students rat...
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Agricultural Finance Review, 2013
PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to identify, present and compare agricultural production fina... more PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to identify, present and compare agricultural production financing alternatives available to grain producers in South Africa. From the South African perspective, agricultural land cannot always be utilised as collateral and therefore alternative financing has developed.Design/methodology/approachThe study makes use of an exploratory study by applying qualitative techniques. The research population was agricultural finance providers in South Africa and semi‐structured interviews were conducted with representatives of the sample.FindingsThe production financing alternatives identified and presented include: grain contract financing; grain contract financing with additional collateral; and corporate farming. A comparison of these alternatives indicates that although the traditional balance sheet financing is a cheaper form of financing, using agricultural land as collateral has a number of limitations, especially within the South African context.Prac...
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Designing Cost Management Systems to Support Business Decision-Making, 2021
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Designing Cost Management Systems to Support Business Decision-Making, 2021
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Agrekon, 2014
ABSTRACT Agricultural land is the preferred form of collateral used by financiers to finance Sout... more ABSTRACT Agricultural land is the preferred form of collateral used by financiers to finance South African farmers. The objective of the paper is twofold; firstly, to determine the valuation methods used by financiers in determining the value of agricultural land used as collateral, and secondly, to determine the correlation between the agricultural land value and the amount of financing provided. Interviews were conducted with five respondents representing the Land Bank, three of the four largest commercial banks and an agricultural company. It was found that the market value approach and the income capitalisation approach are considered to be the most suitable valuation techniques. It was furthermore found that the amount of finance provided is based on varying percentage adjustments made to the value of agricultural land. The practical policy implication is that it is imperative that reliable governmental statistics on agricultural farm values and sales be re-established to encourage conformity among financiers in market value valuations.
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South African Journal of Economic and management Sciences
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Smallholder farmers in Zambia comprise 85 per cent of the farmers’ population. Such farmers are... more Smallholder farmers in Zambia comprise 85 per cent of the farmers’ population. Such farmers are regarded as not creditworthy and furthermore their agricultural productivity could be improved. The aim of this paper is to present recent evidence on value chain financing (VCF) as a framework to increase access to agricultural finance for Zambian smallholder farmers. Such financing will act as an enabler to mechanize and, in turn, might improve productivity. Qualitative data collection techniques were followed to provide the results as presented in three illustrative case studies. Each case study highlights the benefits of financing, using the value chain framework, but also emphasizes certain challenges and risks associated with the approach. The Zambian case is not perfect, but provides recent evidence of how various roleplayers in Zambia’s agricultural sector have applied the VCF framework to coordinate the actions of various chain actors, and by doing so allow smallholders access to finance within the local and country-specific context. Although two of the three VCF programmes have been discontinued, they still provide useful learning points: for instance, commercial banks should assign more resources to manage the VCF products; and the risk should be shared between all the VCF participants.
Keywords: agricultural value chain financing, Zambia, mechanization, collateral, credit, smallholder farmers
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Environmental Economics, 2014
The oil and gas sector is one of the key players in the South African economy; however, South Afr... more The oil and gas sector is one of the key players in the South African economy; however, South Africa is also regarded as the foremost polluter in Africa. The main objective of the study was to develop a sustainable balanced scorecard (SBSC) that addresses the needs of the South African oil and gas sector. The research approach followed was supported by the application of content analysis of the integrated reports of JSE-listed oil and gas companies. The theoretical concepts of sustainability, integrated reporting and the balanced scorecard (BSC) are used to establish the overall theoretical framework of this study. It was found that selected oil and gas companies include sustainability issues in their integrated reports, but with a specific focus on social aspects. It is recommended that these indicators, together with the GRI sector supplement, should be incorporated with the conventional balanced scorecard measurements to ensure that sustainability is linked to the financial and overall objectives of the company.
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Banks and Bank Systems, 2014
Africa is the ideal location for agricultural investment to address the growing concern of food i... more Africa is the ideal location for agricultural investment to address the growing concern of food insecurity worldwide. South African agricultural producers and agricultural financiers are strategically positioned to expand their agricultural interests into Africa, as South Africa is regarded as the gateway for investors to Africa. Expansion into Africa is regarded as high risk and to reduce the increased credit risk, agricultural financiers use credit assessment criteria when evaluating South African producers’ credit applications. The objective of this study was to identify and evaluate these credit assessment criteria to facilitate improved credit applications. The research used qualitative techniques by conducting semi-structured interviews with specialist representatives from three commercial banks in Mozambique. The contribution of the study is the unveiling and evaluation of the credit assessment criteria founded on four pillars, namely financial history, cashflow repayment ability, collateral, and management profile of the producer.
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Agrekon, Oct 2014
Agricultural land is the preferred form of collateral used by financiers to finance South African... more Agricultural land is the preferred form of collateral used by financiers to finance South African
farmers. The objective of the paper is twofold; firstly, to determine the valuation methods used
by financiers in determining the value of agricultural land used as collateral, and secondly, to
determine the correlation between the agricultural land value and the amount of financing
provided. Interviews were conducted with five respondents representing the Land Bank, three of
the four largest commercial banks and an agricultural company. It was found that the market
value approach and the income capitalisation approach are considered to be the most suitable
valuation techniques. It was furthermore found that the amount of finance provided is based
on varying percentage adjustments made to the value of agricultural land. The practical policy
implication is that it is imperative that reliable governmental statistics on agricultural farm
values and sales be re-established to encourage conformity among financiers in market value
valuations.
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Journal of Economics, 2014
The purpose of the study is to use data from a case study to build a data envelopment analysis (D... more The purpose of the study is to use data from a case study to build a data envelopment analysis (DEA)
model to compare the financial performances of South African boer goat with cattle and sheep production,
respectively. Data was collected by calculating the financial performance, which is broken up into six measurements.
These measurements formed the output variables and various levels of capital employed were used as the input
variable to determine the technical and scale efficiencies of the comparative red meat product lines. Data was
developed for 65 different scenarios, resulting in a total of 455 data points. The study firstly concludes that South
African boer goat production outperforms cattle and sheep production financially, and secondly, that it is easier for
sheep production to operate at a scale that maximises productivity, followed by South African boer goat and then
cattle production.
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The Journal of Applied Business Research, Mar 2014
The South African labor market was recently characterized by violent and hostile labor strikes by... more The South African labor market was recently characterized by violent and hostile labor strikes by workers demanding exorbitant wage increases. These demands and violent protests overflowed to the agricultural sector, followed by an announcement of a 51% increase in the agricultural minimum wage. Labor costs form an integral part of a producer’s production costs and labor increases will therefore directly affect the profitability of producers. The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect higher wages have on the South African maize sector. Furthermore, to determine whether there is a relationship between higher labor cost and increased mechanization in the maize sector. Quantitative and qualitative research techniques were utilized to address the research problem. The findings of the study include that the higher wages do not have a significant effect on the maize sector as it is less dependent on manual labor and therefore more tolerant to wage increases. Furthermore, it was determined that there is a relationship between the maize sector’s level of mechanization and the impact of higher wages. It was found that the maize sector is more developed and mechanized than other agricultural sectors. Notwithstanding, it is recommended that the sector should maintain the investment in mechanization to increase global competitiveness.
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International Business & Economics Research Journal, Jun 2013
Operating leases form a great part of companies’ financing structures in today’s economic
enviro... more Operating leases form a great part of companies’ financing structures in today’s economic
environment. Some accounting standard-setters and other users of financial statements are of the
opinion that the current standard on accounting for operating leases, IAS 17, does not provide
sufficient guidelines on the disclosure of a company’s leasing activities. The current accounting
standard on leases provides companies with the opportunity to classify lease contracts into
different classes which leads to off-balance-sheet financing. This problem is currently being
addressed by the IASB as they are in the process of developing an improved standard on leases.
The main focus of this paper is to determine the impact of the improved accounting standard on
the financial statements and the resulting financial ratios of the JSE Top 40 companies when
operating leases are accounted for as on-balance-sheet debt. The differences between the current
IAS 17 and the Exposure draft (ED/2010/9) are identified and the comparison indicates significant
differences between these two approaches on accounting for operating lease activities.
The focus of the IASB in developing this exposure draft was to provide the users of financial
statements with a universal picture of the leasing activities that the company is engaged in. The
findings include that this objective is achieved as users are not left uninformed about any of the
financing activities that stakeholders are exposed to if indeed a company is engaged in operating
lease activities. The study also revealed that the capitalising of long-term operating leases will
have a significant effect on the key financial ratios that stakeholders use to interpret a company’s
financial performance.
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Journal of Human Ecology, 2013
This review paper considers the various challenges facing the South African agricultural sector a... more This review paper considers the various challenges facing the South African agricultural sector against
the background that agricultural sectors globally are pressurised to provide food security for the estimated nine
billion people in 2050, while simultaneously addressing climate change. The use of agricultural land to produce
crops for the production of biofuels and the impact of land redistribution in South Africa on food security are
contemplated. It is recommended that the South African government should develop an integrated strategy to
address these challenges. Furthermore, sustainable agricultural practices, such as organic and conservation agriculture,
should be considered as alternatives to conventional agricultural practices.
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Papers by Susanna (Sanlie) L Middelberg
Keywords: agricultural value chain financing, Zambia, mechanization, collateral, credit, smallholder farmers
farmers. The objective of the paper is twofold; firstly, to determine the valuation methods used
by financiers in determining the value of agricultural land used as collateral, and secondly, to
determine the correlation between the agricultural land value and the amount of financing
provided. Interviews were conducted with five respondents representing the Land Bank, three of
the four largest commercial banks and an agricultural company. It was found that the market
value approach and the income capitalisation approach are considered to be the most suitable
valuation techniques. It was furthermore found that the amount of finance provided is based
on varying percentage adjustments made to the value of agricultural land. The practical policy
implication is that it is imperative that reliable governmental statistics on agricultural farm
values and sales be re-established to encourage conformity among financiers in market value
valuations.
model to compare the financial performances of South African boer goat with cattle and sheep production,
respectively. Data was collected by calculating the financial performance, which is broken up into six measurements.
These measurements formed the output variables and various levels of capital employed were used as the input
variable to determine the technical and scale efficiencies of the comparative red meat product lines. Data was
developed for 65 different scenarios, resulting in a total of 455 data points. The study firstly concludes that South
African boer goat production outperforms cattle and sheep production financially, and secondly, that it is easier for
sheep production to operate at a scale that maximises productivity, followed by South African boer goat and then
cattle production.
environment. Some accounting standard-setters and other users of financial statements are of the
opinion that the current standard on accounting for operating leases, IAS 17, does not provide
sufficient guidelines on the disclosure of a company’s leasing activities. The current accounting
standard on leases provides companies with the opportunity to classify lease contracts into
different classes which leads to off-balance-sheet financing. This problem is currently being
addressed by the IASB as they are in the process of developing an improved standard on leases.
The main focus of this paper is to determine the impact of the improved accounting standard on
the financial statements and the resulting financial ratios of the JSE Top 40 companies when
operating leases are accounted for as on-balance-sheet debt. The differences between the current
IAS 17 and the Exposure draft (ED/2010/9) are identified and the comparison indicates significant
differences between these two approaches on accounting for operating lease activities.
The focus of the IASB in developing this exposure draft was to provide the users of financial
statements with a universal picture of the leasing activities that the company is engaged in. The
findings include that this objective is achieved as users are not left uninformed about any of the
financing activities that stakeholders are exposed to if indeed a company is engaged in operating
lease activities. The study also revealed that the capitalising of long-term operating leases will
have a significant effect on the key financial ratios that stakeholders use to interpret a company’s
financial performance.
the background that agricultural sectors globally are pressurised to provide food security for the estimated nine
billion people in 2050, while simultaneously addressing climate change. The use of agricultural land to produce
crops for the production of biofuels and the impact of land redistribution in South Africa on food security are
contemplated. It is recommended that the South African government should develop an integrated strategy to
address these challenges. Furthermore, sustainable agricultural practices, such as organic and conservation agriculture,
should be considered as alternatives to conventional agricultural practices.
Keywords: agricultural value chain financing, Zambia, mechanization, collateral, credit, smallholder farmers
farmers. The objective of the paper is twofold; firstly, to determine the valuation methods used
by financiers in determining the value of agricultural land used as collateral, and secondly, to
determine the correlation between the agricultural land value and the amount of financing
provided. Interviews were conducted with five respondents representing the Land Bank, three of
the four largest commercial banks and an agricultural company. It was found that the market
value approach and the income capitalisation approach are considered to be the most suitable
valuation techniques. It was furthermore found that the amount of finance provided is based
on varying percentage adjustments made to the value of agricultural land. The practical policy
implication is that it is imperative that reliable governmental statistics on agricultural farm
values and sales be re-established to encourage conformity among financiers in market value
valuations.
model to compare the financial performances of South African boer goat with cattle and sheep production,
respectively. Data was collected by calculating the financial performance, which is broken up into six measurements.
These measurements formed the output variables and various levels of capital employed were used as the input
variable to determine the technical and scale efficiencies of the comparative red meat product lines. Data was
developed for 65 different scenarios, resulting in a total of 455 data points. The study firstly concludes that South
African boer goat production outperforms cattle and sheep production financially, and secondly, that it is easier for
sheep production to operate at a scale that maximises productivity, followed by South African boer goat and then
cattle production.
environment. Some accounting standard-setters and other users of financial statements are of the
opinion that the current standard on accounting for operating leases, IAS 17, does not provide
sufficient guidelines on the disclosure of a company’s leasing activities. The current accounting
standard on leases provides companies with the opportunity to classify lease contracts into
different classes which leads to off-balance-sheet financing. This problem is currently being
addressed by the IASB as they are in the process of developing an improved standard on leases.
The main focus of this paper is to determine the impact of the improved accounting standard on
the financial statements and the resulting financial ratios of the JSE Top 40 companies when
operating leases are accounted for as on-balance-sheet debt. The differences between the current
IAS 17 and the Exposure draft (ED/2010/9) are identified and the comparison indicates significant
differences between these two approaches on accounting for operating lease activities.
The focus of the IASB in developing this exposure draft was to provide the users of financial
statements with a universal picture of the leasing activities that the company is engaged in. The
findings include that this objective is achieved as users are not left uninformed about any of the
financing activities that stakeholders are exposed to if indeed a company is engaged in operating
lease activities. The study also revealed that the capitalising of long-term operating leases will
have a significant effect on the key financial ratios that stakeholders use to interpret a company’s
financial performance.
the background that agricultural sectors globally are pressurised to provide food security for the estimated nine
billion people in 2050, while simultaneously addressing climate change. The use of agricultural land to produce
crops for the production of biofuels and the impact of land redistribution in South Africa on food security are
contemplated. It is recommended that the South African government should develop an integrated strategy to
address these challenges. Furthermore, sustainable agricultural practices, such as organic and conservation agriculture,
should be considered as alternatives to conventional agricultural practices.