This article reports on a study that aimed to assess the impact of the 2015 drought in South Africa on commercial livestock producers, with specific reference to the associated drought adoption strategies. The study was based on primary data collected from 350 commercial livestock producers from seven different provinces. The findings revealed that the effect of drought had a significant impact on average herd size, livestock feeding, and sheep flock. Commercial livestock producers did not receive any form of assistance from the government. The majority of the farmers did not have any preventive measures in place during the drought. The study recommends that the government and policymakers should introduce a mechanism to support commercial livestock farmers when drought strikes.

There are quite a lot of studies from global and regional perspectives that touch on sustainable water use in agriculture. As a result, we explored Biblioshiny to review the scholarly research on the sustainable use of water in agriculture. Using data analysis and visualization technique of 4106 documents authored by 12,686 scholars in 724 journals published between 1990 and 2022, we find that research on this topic gained momentum in 2007 and has followed a steady increase with an annual growth rate of ~16.12%. The results of the co-occurrence network mappings highlight five trendy topics in research on sustainable water use in agriculture, which were categorized based on five (5) Word Minimum Frequency and Number of Words per Year. These topics include the AquaCrop model, Agroforestry, Biochar, No-tillage, and Diet. While renowned journals such as Agricultural Water Management, followed by Sustainability and Water, have taken leading roles in pushing research on sustainable water use in agriculture. Regarding the impact of perspective, in terms of institutional affiliation and countries, we found that the top three most prominent affiliated institutions producing publications allied to research on the sustainable use of water in agriculture are Northwest A&F University in Xianyang, China, China Agricultural University, and Hohai University in Nanjing, China, while the top three countries are China, the USA, and Australia, accounting for 45,039 (43.4%) of the total 103,900 global citations. The study’s findings can be helpful to scholars in presenting an overview of the literature on the sustainable use of water in agriculture.

The Northern Cape Province of South Africa faces drought that limits human endeavours, and which explains the unpredictable progress in livestock production over time. This study evaluated the impact of agricultural drought on smallholder farming households’ resilience in the Northern Cape Province. Data from 217 smallholder livestock farmers were collected and analysed descriptively and with the Agricultural Drought Resilience Index (ADRI), and Household Food insecurity Access Scale (HFIAS). This study found that most smallholder livestock farmers (79%) were not resilient to agricultural drought. Further, the findings revealed that agricultural drought significantly impacted resources, food security, and government policy. This implies that a lack of access to resources, food insecurity, and ineffective government policy affected already vulnerable smallholder livestock farmers coping with severe agricultural drought. This study is significant in providing policymakers and other stakeholders with evidence-based recommendations for developing strategies and implementing policies for improving the resilience of smallholder livestock farmers by improving access to resources, including access to land. They will be better able to deal with challenges that come their way if they become more resilient, resulting in reduced household loss. This study recommends that government and stakeholders enhance the resilience of smallholder farmers by supporting less resilient farmers. The government needs to work with stakeholders to improve access to land and funds to enhance farmers’ resilience. As a result, these policies can help smallholder farmers be more resilient in times of climatic shock.

Agricultural drought has put sub-Saharan African under significant pressure, and without adaptation, will negatively influence a future generation. Hence, it is crucial to assess the adaptation and coping strategies, the resilience of agricultural drought, its implication on the sustainability of the livestock sector, and developing future interventions. Data of 217 smallholder livestock farmers were used in a principal component analysis to estimate the agricultural drought resilience index as an outcome variable against social wellbeing, economic outcome, environmental variable and adaptive capacity variables. The results found that 21% of the livestock farming households sold their livestock as an adaptation and coping strategy. In contrast, 20% of the farming households used alternative land use as an adaptation, and coping strategy, 20% stored food, 17% asked for animal feed, 6% sought employment, 6% migrated, 5% kept drought-tolerant breeds, 3% received relief grants, 2% used their savings and investments, and 1% leased their farms. When natural, economic and social sustainability was viewed as a resilience process, the three pillars positively and significantly impacted households' agricultural drought resilience. This implied that the more smallholder farmers participated in social networks and cooperatives, the higher the resilience to agricultural drought. Further, the more resources, income, access to land, access to water, access to credit, and additional types of farming, the higher the households’ resilience to agricultural drought and adaptive capacity. Thus, the three pillars of sustainability are crucial for enhancing the resilience and adaptability of smallholder livestock farmers. The study recommends that government aid reduce vulnerability to agricultural drought via access to agricultural credit and encourage farmers to be part of social networks and cooperatives. Additionally, the government could improve access to land and water rights to boost the resilience of smallholder farmers to agricultural drought. This could be achieved through collaboration and coordination among all role players.