probably because of the yield. the economic factors plays an important role in many aspects of agriculture now.
@ Kafula, may be due to low awareness level and available technologies.
There are many factors:
1. As Youssef says the economic returns from CA come after a long time, and usually farmers want to see benefits immediately.
2. CA depends on the availability of residues (about 30% cover is recommended). Most farmers use residues as livestock feed, so they have to make a choice whether to feed the animals or use in CA.
3. Labour requirements for weeding are quite demanding.
You may also want to check some of these papers:
Article Conservation Agriculture and Smallholder Farming in Africa: ...
Article Understanding the impact and adoption of conservation agricu...
resilience to climate change, reinforcement of food security, restoration of degraded areas, popularization of alternative technologies, greater awareness of public power (where it operates) ...
@Kafula, as everyone has already alluded , technologies with long term benefits have a slow adoption process, in Zambia particularly, small scale farmers are more concerned about immediate benefits than overall benefits
1.- Social, Cultural Issues
2.-Access to CA Implements.
3.- Market Access
and 4 .-Extension and Access to Information:
Adding to what has already been mentioned, the partial adoption suggests that farmers see the benefits from CA ( e.g. basins give good maize yields) but are prevented from committing fully because of several other reasons ( e.g. drudgery associated with basin making and manual weeding). Sometimes the choice of the crop matters e.g. sweet potatoes perform better in ridges so better to have both ridges for sweet potatoes and basins for maize.
Por mi parte yo opino que la razón principal por la cual los agricultores en África deben adoptar la agricultura de conservación es por la razón que se ahorran constes económicos, usando los medios naturales que tienen a su alcance. De esta manera la agricultura esta en armonía con el Medio ambiente y existe una soberanía por parte del agricultor. Otra razón es tener conciencia de los gases de efectos invernaderos que se dejan de emitir a la atmósfera y contaminaciones por nitratos de aguas subterráneas y superficiales. Kafula Chisanga tenga usted mucho éxito con esta investigación.
What is partial adoption, and is this happening outside project zones?
Modest adoption of CA by small farmers not only in Africa, but also in WANA region. The main reasons are the technical, policy and socioeconomic barriers that preventing the adoption of conservation agriculture.
I think this question is the same that we face with family farmers in Brazil and I have a similar question in my study here.
This is a complex and multifaceted issue, but one of the main driver are risk aversion, because the benefits are not immediate, and this causes insecurity. In general, family farmers prefer the guarantee of working as they always have. And risk aversion is greater when the social condition is worse, low resources, low formal education, vulnerability, etc.
Another important point is that conservation practices need to be in line with the operational capacity of these smallholders. The ideal is no increase in workforce and no difficulty in access to inputs and agricultural machinary. And more support the farther away you are the ideal.
i agree with Yahya Khalil Shakhatreh , things may be great at farm level, but adoption happens at farmER level, on his/her LIVIHOOD level which cuts across many systems. So the farmer will ask, does CA make sense from a labor perspective, can i combine it with my off-farm work, how will my 10 goats be affected, etc etc.Then he is an area where he may not get herbicides, or the government is promoting (subsidizing) ploughs instead of zero tillage machinery...etc etc> Context is King.
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