Conservation Agriculture, Gendered Impacts on Households Livelihood Outcomes in Zambia

In light of climate change, new technologies resilient to climatic variability have been promoted along the years among smallholder farmers. Conservation Agriculture (CA) is one such technology, which has been promoted since the 1990 s in Sub-Saharan Africa. However, as with any new technology, various factors affect adoption and ultimately the impact of the technology of which gender is one such factor. Both female and male smallholder farmers are faced with numerous constraints to access productive resources, more so for female farmers, resulting in limited adoption capability, which in turn reduces the impact that these technologies have on their livelihood. Using nationally representative data the study examines the gendered impacts of CA on livelihood outcomes - household income, crop income, crop diversification, and dietary diversity. Results show that CA adoption improves a household s level of dietary diversity and crop diversification. However, the impact of CA on these livelihood outcomes reduces if the household is female headed or the farmer (male or female) is in a female headed household. Therefore, promotion of CA should take into account the gender differences at household level and within the household, as well as female farmer s access to productive resources. Keywords: Conservation Agriculture, Gender, Impact, Zambia Acknowledgement : The Indaba Agricultural Policy Research Institute (IAPRI) is a non-profit company limited by guarantee that collaboratively works with public and private stakeholders. IAPRI exists to carry out agricultural policy research and outreach, serving the agricultural sector in Zambia so as to contribute to sustainable, pro-poor agricultural development. We wish to acknowledge the Financial and Substantive support of the Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA), the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the European Union 11th EDF programming in Lusaka

Dis-incentivizing sustainable intensification? The case of Zambia s fertilizer subsidy program

Poor and declining soil fertility remains a major constraint on increased cereal production in sub-Saharan Africa. Input subsidy programs (ISPs) for inorganic fertilizer are a popular and expensive tool used by African governments to increase cereal yields; however, far fewer resources are devoted to promoting other soil fertility management (SFM) practices that can improve soil quality, increase cereal yield response to inorganic fertilizer, and support sustainable agricultural intensification. This article uses nationally-representative household panel survey data from Zambia to estimate the effects of the country s ISP on smallholder farm households adoption of several SFM practices: fallowing, intercropping, crop rotation, and the use of animal manure. The results suggest that Zambia s ISP induces reductions in fallowing and intercropping of maize with other crops. We also find some evidence that the program incentivizes an increase in continuous maize cultivation on the same plot in consecutive seasons but little evidence of effects on animal manure use. The changes in SFM practices induced by the ISP are likely to be detrimental to soil fertility, maize yield response to fertilizer, and returns to government expenditures on the ISP over the medium- to long-term. Overall, Zambia s ISP may have dis-incentivized sustainable intensification rather than promoted it. Acknowledgement : This research was funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) through funding to the Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Food Security Policy and the USAID Mission to Zambia, and by the United States Department of Agriculture National Institute of Food and Agriculture and Michigan AgBioResearch (project number MICL02501)