Negative evaluation of conservation agriculture: perspectives from African smallholder farmers

Despite more than three decades of promotion, conservation agriculture (CA) has not been widely adopted by smallholder farmer in sub-Saharan Africa. This low rate of adoption reflects substantial negative evaluation of CA by many smallholder farmers, the causes of which have not been adequately explored in an in-depth, qualitative manner. Hence, we implement the Livelihoods Platforms Approach to explore directly with negatively evaluating farmers the reasons why they chose not to implement CA using semi-structured interviews with 35 farmers from 23 communities in 6 African countries. While there are issues with perceived benefit and relevance, the primary driver of negative evaluation of CA was found to be the feasibility of implementation. The required resources to implement CA (financial, physical, human and informational) are limited by community and institutional constraints which appear unlikely to be overcome through interventions targeted at addressing household resources. More positive evaluation of CA by smallholder farmers requires: (1) development of financially viable CA adoption pathways; (2) incorporation of wider livelihood objectives into a CA ‘package’; (3) re-evaluation of current extension policy; and (4) development of CA-complementary agricultural policies. Without addressing these issues, the potential benefits of CA adoption are unlikely to be achieved in African smallholder systems.     

Profitability and opportunity of conservation agriculture in acid savannah grasslands of Laos

In north-eastern Laos, the savannah grasslands of the Plain of Jars cover vast areas of potentially cultivable land. However, soil acidity, low inherent fertility, and the absence of alternatives to tillage represent significant constraints to the development of sustainable smallholder agriculture. Our objective was to evaluate the potential for conservation agriculture (CA) to enhance soil productivity and farming system profitability. A three-year rotation of rice/maize/soybean was tested under three fertilization levels and four agricultural systems: one conventional tillage-based (CT) system and three CA systems based on no-tillage with cover crops. After four cropping seasons, our results show that, compared with CT, CA systems led to similar-to-higher grain production, similar-to-higher profits, higher opportunity of livestock system intensification, and higher labour productivity regardless of fertilization levels. While CA represents a relevant alternative to current practices, our results suggest that its contribution to the emergence of a sustainable smallholder agriculture is conditioned by broader institutional transformations, including the enrolment of local manufacturers and traders for deploying no-till implements and seed market channels for cover crops, long-term public support to maintain active research and technical mentoring to farmers, and possibly the integration of ecosystem services in agricultural policy.     

Integration of conservation agriculture in smallholder farming systems of southern Africa: identification of key entry points

A component-omission experiment based on the principle of conservation agriculture (CA) was established on smallholder farms for three seasons in Murehwa and Hwedza districts, Zimbabwe; Barue district in Mozambique; Balaka district and Chitedze Research Station in Malawi, and Monze district in Zambia to identify strategies for improving crop productivity and livelihoods for smallholder farmers. The objective of the experiment was to evaluate the effect of tillage, residue retention, fertiliser application and weed control on maize yield. In addition, the study analysed possible combinations of these factors that could provide a sustainable entry point for intensification through CA. Results showed that fertilisation had the strongest effect on crop yield in both tillage systems; adequate fertilisation is therefore key to success in CA. Retention of crop harvest residues increased yield in no-tillage systems; no-tillage without residues depressed yield by 50% when compared with yields of conventional tillage. A step-wise integration of CA into the smallholder farming systems is proposed as a possible strategy to avoid new constraints on smallholder farms. If resources are limiting, farmers may apply all principles on small areas to overcome the initial demand in resources (labour, fertiliser and residues), and once productivity is raised, they can expand.     

Research and Development Towards Sustainable Agriculture by Resource-Poor Farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa: Some Strategic and Organisational Considerations in Linking Farmer Practical Needs with Policies and Scientific Theories

Sustainable agricultural development is presented as a diverse and dynamic process through which it copes with agro-ecological and socio-economic diversity at field level and with ever-changing needs and opportunities of (smallholder) farmers. In support, agricultural research—aimed at locally appropriate and environmentally friendly technologies—should contribute to bridging the currently increasing gaps between scientific theories and government agricultural policies as opposed to the practical field realities that farmers are facing.

These gaps are best illustrated by—what in the West is often presumed to be—a stagnant African agricultural (in reality it is not!) in spite of many ambitious policies and projects by national governments and international donors for several decades. Disappointing adoption rates by resource-poor smallholders of the proposed ‘modern’ agricultural technologies have often been blamed. However, the actual local systems are primarily based on ‘ecological’ and ‘organic’ concepts. Localised intensification through recycling of organic by-products is an integral part of such systems. Consequently, these systems are uniquely adapted to the diverse framer needs resulting from widespread variations in soil, climate and socio-economic conditions. By contrast most international R&D support for the African agricultural sector is aimed implicitly at creating a modern conventional system of farming based on external inputs and along a Western industrial model.

To cope with diverse and complex, location specific problems inherent in development, sustainability and poverty alleviation, requires strong national research and development (R&D) institutions that adopt comprehensive, people-centred approaches as opposed to the technocratic nature of most formal international development assistance. The development debate therefore should be turned around. The ‘existing’ smallholder farming systems and their needs should be a point of departure, while the various development initiatives and policies should be handled by including the related institutional aspects.     

Tradeoffs and complementarities in the adoption of improved seeds,fertilizer, and natural resource management technologies in Kenya

There is widespread consensus that agricultural technology has an important role to play for poverty reduction and sustainable development. There is no consensus, however, about the types of technologies that are best suited for smallholder farmers in Africa. While some consider natural resource management (NRM) technologies as most appropriate, others propagate input intensification with a stronger role of the private sector. In the public debate, these two strategies are often perceived as incompatible. Environmental non‐governmental organizations in particular consider low‐external input strategies as the only sustainable form of agriculture, a view that has considerable influence on policymakers and the international donor community. Most existing research studies on smallholder innovation focus on the adoption of individual technologies, so that comparisons between different types of technologies in the same context are not easily possible. We use representative data from maize‐producing households in Kenya and a multivariate probit model to analyze the adoption of different types of technologies simultaneously. Results indicate that NRM technologies and strategies that build on external inputs are not incompatible. Interesting complementarities exist, which are not yet sufficiently exploited because many organizations promote either one type of technology or the other, but rarely a combination of both.     

Modeling intensification decisions in the Kilombero Valley floodplain: A Bayesian belief network approach

The Kilombero Valley floodplain in Tanzania is a major agricultural area. Government initiatives and projects supported by international funding have long sought to boost productivity. Due to increasing population pressure, smallholder farmers are forced to increase their output. Nevertheless, the level of intensification is still lower than what is considered necessary to increase production and support smallholder livelihoods significantly. This article aims to better understand farmers’ intensification choices and their interdependent determinants. We propose a novel modeling approach for identifying determinants of intensification and their interrelationships by combining a Bayesian belief network (BBN), experimental design, and multivariate regression trees. Our approach complements existing lower-dimensional statistical models by considering uncertainty and providing an easily updatable model structure. The BBN is constructed and calibrated using data from a survey of 304 farm households. Our findings show how the data-driven BBN approach can be used to identify variables that influence farmers’ decision to choose one technique over another. Furthermore, the most important drivers vary widely, depending on the intensification options being considered.     

Farming systems and Conservation Agriculture: Technology,structures and agency in Malawi

Conservation Agriculture (CA) is advocated as an agricultural innovation that will improve smallholder famer resilience to future climate change. Under the conditions presented by the El Niño event of 2015/16, the implementation of CA was examined in southern Malawi at household, district and national institutional levels. Agricultural system constraints experienced by farming households are identified, and in response the technologies, structures and agency associated with CA are evaluated. The most significant constraints were linked to household health, with associated labour and monetary impacts, in addition to the availability of external inputs of fertiliser and improved seed varieties. Our findings show that such constraints are not adequately addressed through current agricultural system support structures, with the institutions surrounding CA (in both Government extension services and NGO agricultural projects) focusing attention predominantly at field level practice, rather than on broader system constraints such as education and health support systems. Limited capacity within local institutions undermines long term efforts to implement new technologies such as CA. It is vitally important that the flexibility of farmers to adapt new technologies in a locally-appropriate manner is not closed down through national and institutional aims to build consensus around narrow technical definitions of a climate-smart technology such as CA. To enable farmers to fully utilise CA programmes, interventions must take a more holistic, cross-sectoral approach, understanding and adapting to address locally experienced constraints. Building capacity within households to adopt new agricultural practices is critical, and integrating healthcare support into agricultural policy is a vital step towards increasing smallholder resilience to future climate change.     

Addressing the paradox – the divergence between smallholders’ preference and actual adoption of agricultural innovations

Experiences in smallholder contexts indicate frequent mismatches between technologies introduced and needs of farmers who must make complex decisions in reallocating their limited resources under highly risky ecological and market contexts. This study proposes a cost- and time-effective, easy-to-implement approach to identify farmers’ priorities and critical intervention areas, and presents its application in guiding an agroforestry strategy in Rwanda. It was found that different tree species have distinctive enabling vs. constraining conditions under different agroecological contexts in the perspective of smallholder farmers. Tree species preferred by farmers were not necessarily widely adopted if multitudes of conditions were not enabling. The essential conditions for sustainable adoption include: quality materials/inputs are available; technologies are compatible with existing local farming systems; they are resilient to climate risks/resistant to pests-diseases; management is not complicated; and, there is guaranteed access to markets. The results show that there will not be a silver bullet national strategy to scale up agroforestry. Instead a matrix kind of strategies -to promote enabling conditions and address constraining conditions for priority species in specific agroecologies- will be required. The proposed concept should be further refined for wider agricultural technology transfer debates to break the myths of low uptakes by smallholders.     

Conditioning trends shaping the agricultural and rural landscape in Africa

African countries continue to face deepening food crises that have been accentuated by the global food, energy, and financial crises. This situation is part of a long‐term structural problem: decades of under‐investments in agricultural sector and poor policies of support for smallholder farmers who form the bulk of the farming population. The inability of these farmers to achieve a supply response when commodity prices were high and market access was less of a problem suggests that there are multiple sets of binding constraints that continue to limit the potential of agricultural growth to reduce food security and poverty on the continent. This article reviews some of the historical trends that have hampered the performance of the agriculture sector. In addition, it reviews the impacts of more positive trends that could stimulate agricultural growth in Africa that could change the African agricultural landscape. The article however warns that there are more recent global developments and some continental challenges that could prevent or slow agricultural growth. These include the global financial crisis, public sector investments, inequities in global agricultural development policies, rush for agricultural lands by foreign investors, domestic commercial financing markets, climate change, and emerging carbon markets. The article argues that while opportunities for accelerated growth exists for African agriculture, new sets of policy instruments will be needed to support smallholder farmers to access new agricultural technologies, finance, reduce impacts of climate change, and adopt sustainable land use practices that can allow them to benefit from emerging global carbon markets.     

Who you know and when you plough? Social capital and agricultural mechanization under the new green revolution in Ghana

This paper examines the role of social capital in smallholder agriculture mechanization in Ghana under the ongoing agenda for transformation of African agriculture through the new green revolution. It contributes to the ongoing debate on the potential of social capital in explaining socioeconomic activity over time and space. Drawing on the experiences of smallholder farmers (n = 30) from Navrongo using qualitative interviews and focus group discussions, the paper explores how social capital networks shape mechanized service access and utilization among farmers and highlights the historical background to tractor-based mechanized farming in northern Ghana. Findings reveal how local farmers activate and operate in trustworthy social networks at the community level among themselves and externally with government agencies, traders and development partners to facilitate tractor access. The paper also finds that the withdrawal of government subsidies on agricultural services during structural adjustment in the 1980s created an avenue for private sector entry into the tractor service market. In recent times, the market is a blend of both public and private actors. Given the crucial role of social capital, this paper stresses that apart from economic factors, contemporary agricultural policy should build upon contextual sociocultural networks and the resources inherent in them.     

How smallholder farmers adapt to agricultural drought in a changing climate: A case study in southern China

Although the adaptation strategies of smallholder farmers to climate change and its attendant hazards have attracted widespread attention, the quantitative detection and evaluation of their adaptive behaviors remains a difficult task that deserves further study. This article describes an empirical case study performed in southern China to examine the adaptation strategies of paddy farmers to agricultural drought. We collected first-hand data through household questionnaires, in-depth interviews with local managers, and farm-level land-use surveys. The effectiveness of the adaptation approaches of the farmers was assessed in terms of the ecological, economic, and social benefits. Our findings indicate that over the past three decades, when confronted with recurrent seasonal drought in a warming climate, farmers have gradually abandoned the double-cropping rice production and transformed their cropping patterns into a new diversified mode of “Rice-Cole, rice, cotton, seedling nursery, and coarse cereals”. Current farming practice reduces the vulnerability of local agriculture to drought, and allows farmers to diversify and improve their incomes, which contributes to enhanced resilience and adaptability to drought. However, the autonomous adaptation of farmers may primarily serve their interests of minimizing drought risk and maximizing economic profits but could also undermine the social benefits, such as regional grain security. A robust adaptation strategy should balance the ecological and economic benefits with social interests to maintain agricultural sustainability.     

Breeding for Africa's new smallholder maize paradigm

This paper describes the evolution of a newly emerging smallholder maize paradigm in southern Africa beginning in 1996. This new paradigm involves the breeding, extension, and adoption of a new generation of open-pollinated ‘flinty’ maize varieties that specifically address the needs of southern African smallholder farmers for seed varieties that can be replanted (recycled) and that resist drought and low fertility problems increasingly common in southern Africa. The described mechanism is the extension and breeding work of the Southern Africa Drought and Low Fertility programme (SADLF) of the Centro Internationale por la Mejoridad de Maize y Trigo (CIMMYT). This paper explains the devolution of southern African maize production in the past two decades from centralized large-scale producers to smallholder farms, signalling a shift in research and plant breeding needs. The research/extension approach described here had profound consequences beyond the technical benefits of screening maize varieties for tolerance to stress; it empowered small-scale farmers to become informed consumers of agricultural technology. The transformation of the smallholder from a passive consumer to one actively seeking the best opportunity and seed to produce food, create economic opportunities and address local social conditions is an important development in the history and sustainability of maize production in southern Africa, and one consistent with modern African history of economic liberalization in the global food economy.     

International research on vegetable improvement in East and Southern Africa: adoption,impact, and returns

There is a lack of evidence for impact at scale of vegetable research and development, although the importance of vegetables for human nutrition and smallholder incomes is generally understood. We therefore study adoption and impact of improved tomato and African eggplant varieties developed through international agricultural research, released by national agricultural research and extension systems, and supplied to farmers by private seed companies in East and Southern Africa from 1990 to 2014. The study finds that in 2014, varieties developed by the World Vegetable Center accounted for 50% of tomato and 98% of African eggplant commercial seed production in East and Southern Africa. For Tanzania alone, investment in crop improvement generated economic gains of US$ 255 million for tomato and US$ 5 million for African eggplant up to 2014. The internal rate of return is 26% for tomato and 12% for African eggplant, though we project the latter to increase to 26% by 2024 as the variety was released only in 2007. These findings support the view that agricultural policy and investment reoriented towards contemporary nutritional challenges will give high returns to investment.     

Taking agricultural technologies to scale: experiences from a vegetable technology dissemination initiative in Tanzania

One of the widely suggested approaches to meet the increasing food demand of a substantially growing world population is sustainable intensification. We present a unique agricultural research and scaling programme in Tanzania, focusing on the key elements necessary for results related to: gender analysis; private sector engagement; social capital; improvement and adaptation; and programme performance monitoring and evaluation. Since 2014, more than 6000 farmers have benefited from either the adaptive research or the scaling component of the programme. Preliminary impact analysis results from six pilot locations indicate that programme participants realized significantly higher yields compared to non-participants. In addition to productivity improvements, introducing resistant and drought-tolerant elite vegetable varieties improved the resilience of the existing farming systems. Finally, considering the needs of both male and female participants had a positive impact on technology adoption rates and reach.     

Registration of private interests in land in a community lands policy setting: An exploratory study in Meru district,Tanzania

Current Tanzanian land law offers registration of private interests in land in the form of Certificates of Customary Rights of Occupancy (CCROs) within a broader community lands approach. We conducted qualitative research on the issuance of CCROs along a mountain slope transect in Meru district in northeast Tanzania. This area features intensified smallholder agriculture that evolutionary theory suggests is well adapted for registration of private interests in land. It also features strong customary authorities of the sort that legal pluralism theory suggests may lead to property relations that are not singular and evolving but multiple and co-existing. We found that tenure was highly individualized and local demand for CCROs was expressed in a context of both agricultural intensification and nascent urbanisation. Nevertheless, due to high cost and coordination constraints, this demand did not deliver widespread registration. While CCROs were perceived as useful to resolve land conflicts and put up as collateral for loans, they were not essential as a variety of alternative approaches were in place. In this forum shopping, plurality was not in itself a problem and individuals increasingly chose quasi-formal paper authorisations over customary rituals. Based on our findings, we recommend that land administration systems more explicitly build on existing quasi-formal practice, and that community lands approaches include a diversity of national programmes tailored to different local community circumstances.     

Can improved agricultural technologies spur a green revolution in Africa? A multicountry analysis of seed and fertilizer delivery systems

Sub‐Saharan Africa faces low agricultural productivity amid a confluence of trends that include rapid population growth, climate change, and the rise of the middle class. To raise productivity, governments—in partnership with donors and development organizations—have launched numerous initiatives to encourage the development of sustainable and competitive agricultural input markets. Despite these efforts, markets remain underdeveloped in most countries and access to affordable seeds and fertilizers remains a major challenge for smallholder farmers. This paper explores evidence from recent multicountry analyses of input delivery systems to assess the possibility of a Green Revolution in Africa. It describes use and adoption levels, challenges, policy and regulatory issues, and investments needed to expand smallholder access to these productivity‐enhancing agricultural technologies.     

The spread of Conservation Agriculture: justification,sustainability and uptake

Conservation Agriculture (CA) has been practised for three decades and has spread widely. We estimate that there are now some 106 million ha of arable and permanent crops grown without tillage in CA systems, corresponding to an annual rate of increase globally since 1990 of 5.3 million ha. Wherever CA has been adopted it appears to have had both agricultural and environmental benefits. Yet CA represents a fundamental change in production system thinking. It has counterintuitive and often unrecognized elements that promote soil health, productive capacity and ecosystem services. The practice of CA thus requires a deeper understanding of its ecological underpinnings in order to manage its various elements for sustainable intensification, where the aim is to optimize resource use and protect or enhance ecosystem processes in space and time over the long term. For these reasons CA is knowledge-intensive. CA constitutes principles and practices that can make a major contribution to sustainable production intensification. This, the first of two papers, presents the justification for CA as a system capable of building sustainability into agricultural production systems. It discusses some of CA's major achievable benefits, and presents an overview of the uptake of CA worldwide to 2009. The related paper elaborates the necessary conditions for the spread of CA.     

Does mixed crop‐livestock farming lead to less diversified diets among smallholders? Evidence from Laos

Malnourishment continues to remain a challenge in developing countries. As the undernourished are largely smallholder farmers, it is widely assumed that farm diversification and mixed crop‐livestock agricultural systems can help alleviate this problem. However, empirical evidence in this context is limited. Hence, we use a two‐year panel's data from Laos to examine whether farm production diversity as well as a mixed crop‐livestock farming system improves household dietary diversity among smallholder farmer. The results from the fixed effects regression indicate that although farm production diversity does lead to a higher dietary diversity, the effect diminishes with continued farm diversification. The counterfactual analysis from the endogenous switching regression reveals that mixed crop‐livestock farming systems do not necessarily enhance dietary diversity. However, we further find that purchasing food from the markets plays an important role in enhancing the dietary diversity of rural smallholder farmers.     

Agricultural success from Africa: the case of fertilizer tree systems in southern Africa (Malawi,Tanzania, Mozambique,Zambia and Zimbabwe)

In response to the declining soil fertility in southern Africa and the negative effects that this leads to, such as food insecurity besides other developmental challenges, fertilizer tree systems (FTS) were developed as technological innovation to help smallholder farmers to build soil organic matter and fertility in a sustainable manner. In this paper, we trace the historical background and highlight the developmental phases and outcomes of the technology. The synthesis shows that FTS are inexpensive technologies that significantly raise crop yields, reduce food insecurity and enhance environmental services and resilience of agro-ecologies. Many of the achievements recorded with FTS can be traced to some key factors: the availability of a suite of technological options that are appropriate in a range of different household and ecological circumstances, partnership between multiple institutions and disciplines in the development of the technology, active encouragement of farmer innovations in the adaptation process and proactive engagement of several consortia of partner institutions to scale up the technology in farming communities. It is recommended that smallholder farmers would benefit if rural development planners emphasize the merits of different fertility replenishment approaches and taking advantage of the synergy between FTS and mineral fertilizers rather than focusing on ‘organic vs. inorganic’ debates.     

Maize-legume intercropping in central Malawi: determinants of practice

In Malawi, population growth has reduced opportunities for farmers to expand and cultivate new land. The country's primary farming population is comprised of smallholders, many who cultivate monocultures of maize (Zea mays). To reduce negative outcomes from this practice, intercropping maize with legumes has been promoted. The sustainable intensification (SI) practice was once widely used, but has declined in recent decades. Little is known about the determinants of intercropping or its role in agricultural development. The objective of this study was to examine the drivers of intercropping among smallholders. We used multiple logistic regression analysis to estimate the determinants of intercropping based on a survey of 324 households. Smallholders who sold legumes were more likely to intercrop, contrary to literature positing intercropping as a practice primarily intended to enhance food security. In addition, complementary SI practices such as fertilizer, manure and compost application were more likely to have occurred on intercropped fields relative to sole maize fields. Furthermore, smallholder farmers appeared to apply more fertilizer to their intercropped fields relative to their sole maize fields. The study highlights the value of including field-level characteristics and household socioeconomic survey data to understand farming practices as a means to inform agricultural policy.

Abbreviations: SI: sustainable intensification; MLI: maize-legume intercrop; DL: doubled-up legumes