Your search found 3 records
1 Mutenje, M. J.; Farnworth, C. R.; Stirling, C.; Thierfelder, C.; Mupangwa, W.; Nyagumbo, I. 2019. A cost-benefit analysis of climate-smart agriculture options in Southern Africa: balancing gender and technology. Ecological Economics, 163:126-137. [doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2019.05.013]
Climate-smart agriculture ; Cost benefit analysis ; Gender ; Women's participation ; Households ; Decision making ; Technology transfer ; Climate change adaptation ; Conservation agriculture ; Smallholders ; Farmers ; Agroecological zones ; Models / Southern Africa / Malawi / Mozambique / Zambia
(Location: IWMI HQ Call no: e-copy only Record No: H049486)
(0.72 MB)
Climate change and extreme weather events undermine smallholder household food and income security in southern Africa. Climate Smart Agriculture (CSA) technologies comprise a suite of interventions that aim to sustainably increase productivity whilst helping farmers adapt their farming systems to climate change and to manage risk more effectively. Cost-benefit analysis (CBA) and a mixed methods approach were used to assess the likelihood of investment in various CSA technology combinations. The data were drawn respectively from 1440, 696, and 1448 sample households in Malawi, Mozambique and Zambia, covering 3622, 2106 and 5212 maize-legume plots in these countries over two years. The cost-benefit analysis and stochastic dominance results showed that CSA options that combined soil and water conservation management practices based on the principles of conservation agriculture (CA), improved varieties, and associations of cereal-legume crop species were economically viable and worth implementing for risk averse smallholder farmers. A dynamic mixed multinomial logit demonstrated that women's bargaining power, drought shock, and access to CSA technology information positively influenced the probability of investing in CSA technology combinations. This study provides evidence of the importance of cultural context, social relevance and intra-household decision-making in tailoring suitable combinations of CSA for smallholder farmers in southern Africa.
2 Thierfelder, C.; Mhlanga, B. 2022. Short-term yield gains or long-term sustainability? – a synthesis of conservation agriculture long-term experiments in southern Africa. Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment, 326:107812. (Online first) [doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agee.2021.107812]
Conservation agriculture ; Long-term experiments ; Sustainable intensification ; Climate-smart agriculture ; Cropping systems ; Intercropping ; Diversification ; Productivity ; Trends ; Soil fertility ; Maize ; Cowpeas ; Zero tillage ; Crop yield ; Smallholders ; Rain / Southern Africa / Malawi / Mozambique / Zambia / Zimbabwe
(Location: IWMI HQ Call no: e-copy only Record No: H050779)
(4.95 MB)
Southern Africa is likely to be heavily affected by a changing climate and the brunt will have to be shouldered by smallholder farmers in rural areas. Long-term experiments on climate-smart sustainable intensification practices offer the opportunity to evaluate and assess the potential impact of a more variable climate on crop productivity. Here, we used meta-analytic and meta-regression approaches to assess the response of different Conservation Agriculture (CA) systems across experiments as compared to conventional practices (CP) of varying experimental duration, established in trial locations of Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia, and Zimbabwe under an increasingly variable climate. We assessed how different agro-environmental yield response moderators such as type of crop diversification and amount of rainfall affect maize yield responses. Smallholder farmers, often living below the poverty line, are primarily concerned about short-term gains from agriculture systems accepting loss in longer-term sustainability. We therefore aim to identify cropping systems that may provide both short-term gains and longer-term sustainability. Results show that: a) long-term trends in yield performance are a result of many factors; b) the greatest yield gains between the best performing CA and least performing treatments at each location ranged between + 34% and + 117%; c) the greatest yields were found in direct seeded rotation systems; d) type of crop diversification and type of crop used in the diversification strategy affect yield response, with rotations involving legumes being more responsive than any practice without diversification; e) CA systems gains increase with time of practice as compared to CP and these responses are more pronounced under low to moderate rainfall, and in well drained soils. We therefore conclude that crop yield response under CA is determined by many yield defining agro-environmental factors and benefits of CA become more apparent with time.
3 Simutowe, E.; Ngoma, H.; Manyanga, M.; Silva, J. V.; Baudron, F.; Nyagumbo, I.; Kalala, K.; Habeenzu, M.; Thierfelder, C.. 2024. Risk aversion, impatience, and adoption of conservation agriculture practices among smallholders in Zambia. Heliyon, 10(4):e26460. [doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2024.e26460]
Conservation agriculture ; Risk ; Households ; Smallholders ; Farmers ; Agricultural practices ; Rainfall ; Agricultural technology ; Farm income / Zambia
(Location: IWMI HQ Call no: e-copy only Record No: H052784)
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2405844024024915/pdfft?md5=819d1bd5381474e333be7114d9cb22da&pid=1-s2.0-S2405844024024915-main.pdf
https://vlibrary.iwmi.org/pdf/H052784.pdf
https://vlibrary.iwmi.org/pdf/H052784.pdf
(2.11 MB) (2.11 MB)
Sustainable agricultural practices such as conservation agriculture have been promoted in southern Africa for nearly three decades, but their adoption remains low. It is of policy interest to unpack behavioural drivers of adoption to understand why adoption remains lower than anticipated. This paper assesses the effects of risk aversion and impatience on the extent and intensity of the adoption of conservation agriculture using panel data collected from 646 households in 2021 and 2022 in Zambia. We find that 12% and 18% of the smallholders were impatient and risk averse, respectively. There are two main empirical findings based on panel data Probit and Tobit models. First, on the extensive margin, being impatient is correlated with a decreased likelihood of adopting combined minimum-tillage (MT) and rotation by 2.9 percentage points and being risk averse is associated with a decreased propensity of adopting combined minimum tillage (MT) and mulching by 3.2 percentage points. Being risk averse is correlated with a decreased chance of adopting basins by 2.8 percentage points. Second, on the intensive margin, impatience and risk aversion are significantly correlated with reduced adoption intensity of basins, ripping, minimum tillage (MT), and combined MT and rotation by 0.02–0.22 ha. These findings imply a need to embed risk management (e.g., through crop yield insurance) in the scaling of sustainable agricultural practices to incentivise adoption. This can help to nudge initial adoption and to protect farmers from yield penalties that are common in experimentation stages.
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