This study examines the cultural and economic motivations of cattle farming among smallholder farmers in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. Drawing on Polanyi's (1944) embeddedness theory and Granovetter's work (1985) on socio-cultural values' influence on economic behavior, it investigates how cattle serve dual roles as both cultural assets and economic resources. Survey data from 59 smallholder farmers in rural and peri-urban locations was analyzed using an ordinal embeddedness score measuring cultural versus economic motivations. Ordinal logistic regression revealed that geographic location significantly predicts cultural embeddedness (OR = 0.219, p = 0.042), with 83% of rural farmers displaying high cultural embeddedness compared to 17% of peri-urban farmers. Age showed no significant influence on motivation. Notably, 41% of farmers demonstrated mixed embeddedness, expressing both cultural and economic motivations simultaneously. Cultural and economic factors alone could not explain herd size, breed selection, or farmer association participation, suggesting additional influences on these decisions. Cattle fulfill ceremonial purposes, provide social status through practices like lobola, and serve as savings and insurance. Rural farmers maintained stronger cultural motivations while peri-urban farmers expressed primarily economic motivations. This geographic pattern aligns with differences in market access and infrastructure between locations. The study demonstrates how embeddedness theory helps explain the interaction between location and farmer motivations, revealing that cultural and economic functions of cattle are balanced differently depending on geographic context.