Conceptual conservation agriculture adoption in Zimbabwe.

Abstract

The adoption of conservation agriculture is increasingly becoming important in southern Africa to sustainably increase food security, manage degraded lands and increasing resilience of agricultural systems to climate change. The practices is relevant to the smallholder farming systems of Zimbabwe where productivity is constrained by lack of access to agricultural inputs, decline in soil fertility and increasing rainfall variability. However despite years of research and extension, the adoption of the practice is very limited and piecemeal in Zimbabwe. Therefore, the main objective of the research was to get an in depth understanding of the barriers to adoption of conservation agriculture in Zimbabwe with specific reference to smallholder farmers. The study employed participatory approaches to collect data in Chivi, Murehwa and Mutoko districts. A pre - tested questionnaire was administered to three selected wards in each of the three district. The questionnaire was triangulated through focus group discussions, key informant interviews and personal observations in order to enhance the richness of our findings. Household survey data was analysed using Statistical Packages for Social Scientists and Statistical Analysis Software, while information obtained during key informant interviews and focus discussions was analysed through thematic analysis. Our results revealed that despite agriculture contributing to the livelihoods of the majority of the smallholder farmers, less than 10 % of the respondents had any formal agricultural training. On the other hand, the level of knowledge on conservation agriculture was high amongst the respondents. However, the non - adopters had an indifferent perception about the technology. The significant (P < 0.05) explanatory variables of the knowledge attribute were age, gender, education, visit to demonstration centres and years of practicing the technology, while the perception attribute was explained by age, gender, education, visit to demo sites, experience in conservation agriculture and agriculture. On the other hand, we found a weak but significant correlation between knowledge and perception (Rs = 0.36, P < 0.05), knowledge and adoption (Rs = 0.484, P < 0.05) but strong and significant correlation between perception and adoption (Rs = 0.808, P < 0.05). The later points to a very important point, that adoption of conservation agriculture can be improved by increasing positive perception of the farmers towards the technology. We also found out that the respondents adopted conservation agriculture through the knowledge (mean score of 2.13; standard error = 0.043)) and compliance (mean score of 2.02; standard error = 0.043) pathways. The explanatory variables of the knowledge pathway were education, experience in agriculture, agricultural training and visit to demonstration centers while the gender of the household was the significant variable in explaining the compliance pathway. The study also investigated access to equipment by smallholder farmers. The results indicate that the respondents had low access to conservation agriculture equipment (mean score of 1.72). The respondents indicated that availability, affordability accessibility and acceptability were the main non - socio - economic constraints to accessing conservation agriculture equipment. On access to agricultural markets, we found out that farmers had low level of access to markets (mean score of 1.814). Gender of household head (β = - 1.3196) and age of household head (β = - 0.63198) all had inverse but significant relationship with access to agricultural markets by the farmers. However, access to inputs (β = 2.3893), access to extension (β = 1.21) and belonging to agricultural groups (β = 0.887) all had positive and significant relationship with access to agricultural markets by the smallholder farmers. The study recommends closing negative perception gaps, understanding appropriate adoption pathways in the promotion of conservation agriculture and providing guidelines on “true” conservation agriculture, linking farmers to markets and improved access to conservation agriculture equipment as the main drivers of adoption of the technology among smallholder farmers in Zimbabwe.