Impact of conservation agriculture on smallholder farmer livelihoods in Kenya and Zimbabwe

Abstract

To contribute to the conservation agriculture (CA) is considered as that of combining minimum soil disturbance through zero-tillage practices, permanent soil cover through mulching and crop rotation or crop diversification practices. For the purposes of this study, minimum tillage is considered as a tilling of land at a maximum of 30% of total land area in hectares. Adoption of the full CA suite by Kenyan farmers is found to be at a higher intensity than Zimbabwean farmers at 26% and 5% respectively. This can be explained by the statistically significant challenges faced in availability of cover crops by Zimbabwean farmers practicing CA, relative to their non CA practicing counterparts. To contribute to the CA discourse in Sub-Saharan Africa, this study applies the propensity score matching technique to estimate the impacts of CA adoption on the livelihoods of smallholder farmers in Kenya and Zimbabwe. 25 variables were identified and grouped under 4 categories – (1) farm production, (2) food security and income, (3) social dynamics 7 gender disparity, and (4) sustainability & environmental benefits. Data collected from 204 farmers in Kenya show that CA has statistically significant positive impacts on farm production variables e.g., farm yield; food security and income variables e.g., number of meals per day and profit from produce; social dynamics variables e.g., solidarity and social cohesion; gender disparity variables e.g., overall gender disparity; and sustainability and environmental benefits variables e.g., soil fertility. CA has statistically significant negative impacts on forest area cleared per hectare, which was found to have increased for CA farmers and is under the sustainability and environmental benefits category. CA has no statistically significant impact on overall farm workload, in the gender disparity category. Data collected from 202 farmers in Zimbabwe show that CA has statistically significant positive impacts on variables in the 5 categories as well. There was no impact on sorghum production in the farm production category. There was no impact on health and nutrition, number of months food insecure, overall income, costs of production and access to assets, which fall under the food security and income category. There was also no impact on social dynamics variables i.e., overall social dynamics, and sustainability and environmental benefits variables i.e., overall environmental change. There were no statistically significant negative impacts observed in Zimbabwe. Policy implications for the study’s findings include implementation of targeted promotion of CA based on farmers’ characteristics e.g. promoting CA adoption as an indicator of creditworthiness as those with previous credit access were more likely to adopt CA.