Early Evidence on Conservation Farming in Zambia

Conservation farming (CF) offers a set of sustainable agronomic practices for Zambian smallholder farmers using either hand hoe or animal draft tillage. The CF package includes dry-season land preparation using minimum tillage methods (hand hoe basins or ADP ripping), crop residue retention, precision input application (in a precise grid of planting basins or along rip lines), and nitrogen-fixing crop rotations. These practices aim to improve soil structure and water retention and reduce the need for chemical fertilizers while at the same time increasing crop yield. Yet CF also increases weeding labor, at least in the early years following adoption. Using survey data from the 2001/2 cropping season, this paper evaluates yield gains against input usage increases in order to assess financial incentives for farmers to switch from conventional to CF tillage systems. Results suggest that in 2001/2 CF basins proved financially more attractive to hand hoe farmers than conventional hand hoe tillage in in Zambia’s Agro-ecological Regions I and IIa, regions of erratic rainfall and in areas with extensive plow-pan damage where 440,000 smallholders currently farm. Animal draft powered conservation farming using rippers promise still further gains, though realization of this potential will require improved extension support to ensure effective off-season land preparation. Overall, roughly 75,000 Zambian smallholders farmed CF plots accounting for approximately 3% of cultivated area in applicable regions during 2002/3. Of these, about 15,000 are spontaneous adopters while the remaining 60,000 practice CF as a condition for receiving their inputs. Adoption rates prove highest in regions of sporadic rainfall, with strong extension and input supply systems. At a personal level, CF requires highly disciplined farmers who are able to execute precisely and plan well in advance of the cropping season. Evidence from similar technologies in other parts of Africa suggests that the effectiveness of conservation farming will vary not only across regions but also across crops and over time, due to variations in weather and rainfall. In addition, many of the benefits of CF -including improved soil structure, gains from nitrogen-fixing crop rotations and reduced field preparation labor -occur gradually and over time. Therefore, it will be important to establish long-term monitoring efforts to assess the effectiveness of conservation farming, across a broad range of geographic settings, crops and seasons. JEL CLASSIFICATION CODE: