Abstract
BackgroundIn southern Africa, conservation agriculture (CA) has received a lot of research and promotional support from various organizations in the past decades. Conservation agriculture is largely promoted as one of the few win–win technologies affordable to farmers, in the sense that potentially it improves farmers’ yields (in the long term) at the same time conserving the environment. This is because conservation agriculture reduces nitrogen loss in the soil, promotes water and soil conservation and improves agronomic use efficiency of applied nutrients. However, some concerns have been raised over the feasibility of conservation agriculture on smallholder farms given constraints imposed by the biophysical and institutional realities under which smallholder farmers operate. The main aim of this study is to answer the question whether conservation agriculture is resulting in tangible livelihood outcomes to smallholder farmers. The counterfactual outcome approach was used to estimate ex post impact of conservation agriculture adoption on one of the key livelihood outcomes—food security.ResultsThe study that utilized a data set covering 1623 households in Zimbabwe, Malawi and Mozambique found no significant impact of conservation agriculture adoption on Food Consumption Score of farmers in Zimbabwe and Malawi. Possible reasons for the insignificant of CA impact on food security in Zimbabwe and Malawi could include the small land areas currently devoted to CA, and the failure to implement the full complement of practices necessary to set off the biophysical process that are expected to drive yield increases. In Mozambique, conservation agriculture significantly improved the Food Consumption Score for farmers exposed to the technology. A possible reason for effectiveness of CA in Mozambique could be due to the fact that often CA is being promoted together with other better cropping management practices such as timely weeding and improved seed varieties, which are poorly practiced by the generality of farmers in a country just emerging from a war period.ConclusionThis paper provides one of the few ex post assessments of the impact of conservation agriculture adoption on household livelihood outcomes—food security. Given the mixed findings, the study suggests that conservation agriculture farmers in the three countries need to be supported to adopt a value chain approach to conservation agriculture. This entails the introduction of commercial or high-value crops in the conservation agriculture programmes, value addition on farmers produce, access to the necessary support services such as markets for seed, fertilizer, herbicides and equipment as well as reliable extension. We believe that under such circumstances conservation agriculture can effectively reduce food insecurity and poverty in the medium to long term.
Highlights
In southern Africa, conservation agriculture (CA) has received a lot of research and promotional support from various organizations in the past decades
It forms the backbone of the economies of southern African countries by contributing 35% of the gross domestic product, offers 70–80% employment, provides about 30% foreign exchange earnings and provides livelihoods to over 70% of smallholder farmers who constitute the bulk of the food producers [1, 2]
Possible reasons for the insignificant of CA impact on food security in Zimbabwe and Malawi could include the small land areas currently devoted to CA, and the failure to implement the full complement of practices necessary to set off the biophysical process that are expected to drive yield increases
Summary
In southern Africa, conservation agriculture (CA) has received a lot of research and promotional support from various organizations in the past decades. The reduced yields of important food crops are attributed to a number of causes that include: use of rudimentary farming practices, the low productive capacity of the heavily nutrient-mined sandy soils, increased frequency and intensity of cyclical droughts and the low input nature of the conventional farming systems in the region [5, 6] This host of production constraints coupled with the lack of incentives to smallholder farmers for engaging in optimal land management policies that would speed up the need for technological change is propelling massive land degradation leading to low agricultural productivity and increased food insecurity [7]. Very few farmers use farming practices that physically conserve the soil, and as a result, farmers are trapped in a vicious circle of poverty and hunger as the soils continue to degrade unabated
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