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
