Development of an Agricultural Mechanization Model Based on After-sales Service in Southern Africa

There is a plentiful of arable land in Africa and South Africa. Africa remains the region all over the world with the lowest power usage and the lowest level of agricultural mechanization (Daum and Birner 2019; Makini et al. 2020). As the development of cross-border e-commerce and economy progress, more and more Chinese farm equipment has been sold in Africa and South Africa. As of now, one of the most significant problems that trap the farmers and users in Africa and South Africa is after-sales service. However, many researchers focus on agricultural mechanization in Sub-Sahara Africa (Mrema, Kienzle, and Mpagalile 2018; Makini et al. 2020). Few academics are concentrating on the risk reduction of after-sales service of agricultural machinery in Africa and South Africa, which is largely beneficial to the sustainable agri-machinery enterprise as well as agricultural economic growth. This research aims to meet this gap mentioned above. This research aims to develop a risk reduction model of after-sales service on Chinese agricultural machinery in South Africa.

The information on arable land and agricultural mechanization in Africa and South Africa will be shown in the literature review. The development process of Chinese farm machinery, the status quo of export on the farm machine as well as Chinese agricultural equipment in Africa and South Africa will be addressed in the literature review. Furthermore, the detailed knowledge of the after-sales service of agricultural machinery and risk management will also be elaborated in this part.

This study's research methodology is an explanatory research method and design in which quantitative data will be collected and analyzed first, followed by qualitative data collection and analysis. The research population in this study includes staff, workers, directors, managers, CEOs as well as presidents who work at agricultural machinery enterprises. The government officials, staff, fellows, directors who research agricultural machinery and provide the service, information and knowledge for agri-machinery users have also been involved in this study. Meanwhile, the research population consists of academics, including professors, doctors and researchers whose study is about after-sales service of agricultural machinery or the relevant. On the other hand, the small-holder farmers or users who make use of farm machinery in both South Africa and China as well as other relevant people who know the after-sales service of agricultural machinery are also in the probe of the study population. Seven hundred thirty-nine closed-end questionnaires have been collected in Shandong province and Henan province in China. Due to the Covid-19, we cannot gather the questionnaires in South Africa. Furthermore, focus-group interviews have been conducted in South Africa and China.

The principal axis factoring (PAF) with Promax rotation is employed to analyze the factors that influence the research's agricultural machinery's risk reduction. Bartlett's Test of Sphericity was highly significant at a p-value of 0.05, implying that the data is suitable for the factor analysis. Furthermore, the Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin Measure of Sampling Adequacy (KMO) was 0.903 and was more significant than 0.500, implying that the sample was adequate for the factor analysis. The result shows that experts (0.879), spare parts (0.841), and timely repair (0.823) are revealed to be the top three high loading factors that impact the risk reduction of agricultural machinery. A multiple regression analysis (MRA) is utilized to analyze the data collected from the structured questionnaires. Evidence from this study suggests that combining these financial resource factors have a large effect (F2 = 0.802) on the after-sales service of farm equipment. An analysis of the data using the structural equation modeling (SEM) procedure shows relative contributions of a better understanding of risk reduction for after-sale services on agricultural machinery. From the standardized estimates, the study reveals that all the hypotheses have been supported. Finally, the risk reduction model of the after-sales service has been certified by means of the method employed mentioned above. Furthermore, the thematic content analysis is employed to analyze the data from the focus-group interviews conducted both in South Africa and China.

In conclusion, the findings obtained from the questionnaires and focus-group interviews do indeed meet the research questions and validate the objectives largely. The risk reduction of agricultural machinery can facilitate sustainable agri-machinery enterprises that can enhance and improve the agricultural economic growth. Finally, this research provides an empirical contribution to the socio-economic sphere and literature via which it can benefit the South African and Chinese agricultural economy and policy-making sector.