Conservation Agriculture in Eastern and Southern Africa

Abstract

Conservation Agriculture (CA) works, by building the soil health basis for climate-proofing agriculture. As a low cost innovation that smallholders in Eastern and Southern Africa (ESA) can access and relate with, CA empowers smallholders to produce a surplus at minimal cost, which subsequently enables them to penetrate markets and commercialize their farming systems without debt burden. It is thus feasible to attain the goals of the Malabo declaration and the Africa We Want Agenda 2063 with CA technologies adapted to and adopted by the majority, millions of smallholders managing one hectare farms. The magnitude of the aspiration requires mainstreaming of CA into public and private sector agendas, strategies and programmes, to attract investments from the private and public sectors to farming and related agrifood systems as de-risked investment options, and for developing the institutions for an enabling environment and quality assurance respectively. This, in turn, needs investments in mapping, documenting and promoting the role models, case studies and Centres of Excellence to focus on the business case and proof of concept.