Abstract
Climate change and environmental degradation are major threats to sustainable agricultural development in Southern Africa. Thus, the concept of sustainable intensification (SI) has become an important topic among researchers and policymakers in the region over the last three decades. SI involves getting more output from less input using practices such as agroforestry, organic fertilizer, sustainable water management, among others. A comprehensive review of the literature on adoption of SI in the region identified nine relevant drivers of adoption of SI among (smallholder) farmers. These drivers include (i) age, (ii) size of arable land, (iii) education, (iv) extension services, (v) gender, (vi) household size, (vii) income, (viii) membership in a farming organization and (ix) access to credit. We present the results of a meta-analysis of 21 papers on the impact of these determinants on SI adoption among (smallholder) farmers in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) using random-effects estimation techniques for the true effect size. While our results suggest that variables such as extension services, education, age, and household size may influence the adoption of SI in SADC, factors such as access to credit are also of great importance. Decision-makers should, therefore, concentrate efforts on these factors in promoting SI across the SADC. This includes increasing the efficiency of public extension service, as well as the involvement of the private sector in extension services. Furthermore, both public and private agriculture financing models should consider sustainability indicators in their assessment process.
Highlights
Meeting the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal of eradicating hunger and guaranteeing food security by 2050 might entail a 69–110% increase in current global food production [1,2]
This study set out to answers to the question: What are the essential drivers or determinants of sustainable intensification (SI) in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) sub-regions most vulnerable to climate change such as the Southern African Development Community (SADC)? Our meta-analysis shows that arable land size, education, extension, household size and access to credit are key to the adoption of SI by smallholder farmers in the SADC
The role that women smallholder farmers play in SI adoption remains unquestionable
Summary
Meeting the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal of eradicating hunger and guaranteeing food security by 2050 might entail a 69–110% increase in current global food production [1,2]. These projections put a spotlight on agriculture, as food production must increase to meet rising food demand Meeting these challenges is complicated by the fact that several current agricultural practices degrade the environment; contributing about 19–29% of current global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, the majority of which comes from land clearing and intensive farming needed to increase crop production [1,4]. This has led to calls for a shift in current agricultural practices towards cultivation systems that accommodate both sustainability and increased productivity [3]. These systems include climate-smart agriculture (CSA), ecological intensification, conservation agriculture and sustainable Intensification (SI)
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