Abstract
Food insecurity is common place among 44% (six million) of Zambian population. Conservation agriculture (CA) is an option being promoted to address this problem. There is little evidence showing whether CA adopters are better than non-CA adopters in terms of food security. Using a four years panel data, focus group discussions, key informant interviews, informal discussions and personal observations, this study documents the differences in household food security between CA adopters and non-CA adopters in relation to pulses. Results showed that most common pulses grown among smallholder farmers were groundnuts, cowpeas, soya beans and other beans. A tendency for the percentage of households growing pulses to be significantly higher among CA-adopters than among non-CA adopters was recorded. Cash income from pulses as percentage of total pulses production was significantly higher among CA adopters than among non-CA adopter in all the four years. Similar results were obtained for crop diversity and mean number of meals with pulses eaten in a day. Cases of women increasing their cash income from pulses because of CA practices were also reported. Focus group discussants explained that CA had reduced the intensity of food shortage during the peak hunger period because of early green harvest. With reference to pulses, it is concluded from this study that, among sampled smallholder farmers, CA adopters are relatively more food secure than non-CA adopters. Factors contributing to increased food security included farmer trainings in CA, increased access to planting seed, early land preparation and planting, and revitalisation of the practice of crop rotation.
Highlights
Food insecurity is a day to day experience for hundreds of millions of people in the world
Legumes promoted by Conservation Farming Unit (CFU) under Conservation Agriculture Project (CAP) included groundnuts, cowpeas, soya beans, velvet beans (Mucuna pruriens), guar (Cyamopsis tetragonoloba) and pigeon peas (CFU, 2006)
This study has shown that the most common pulses grown among sampled smallholder farmers in Zambia were groundnuts, cowpeas, other beans and soya beans in the order of decreasing prevalence
Summary
Food insecurity is a day to day experience for hundreds of millions of people in the world. About 13 % of the world population are undernourished (FAOSTAT, 2011). This means about one billion people continuously experience food deprivation. The hot spots of food insecurity are in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa marked by favourable progress in Asia but sluggish progress in Sub-Saharan Africa (Wiesmann, 2006). Percentage of undernourishment is higher in Sub-Saharan Africa (35% and above) compared to most regions in the world (UN, 2011). Zambia is among countries in Sub-Saharan Africa with highest levels of undernourishment. About 44 % of the Zambian population experience food deprivation (FAOSTAT, 2011; UNPFA, 2011). The proportion of undernourishment has increased from about 35% in the early 1990s to 38% (3 million) in the mid 1990s, 43% (3.6 million) in the early 2000 and 44% (6 million) towards 2011(FAO, 2010a)
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