The sustainability of conservation farming in the smallholder farming sector. A case of Guruve communal area in Zimbabwe

Abstract

This study is based on fieldwork conducted in Ward 5 Guruve District of Mashonaland Central, Zimbabwe. Conservation farming (CF) has been widely embraced as an antidote to the perennial food insecurity situation, bedeviling drought prone regions in Zimbabwe, such as Guruve district and in Africa at large. Despite widespread promotion of CF among smallholder farmers in Zimbabwe, there has been some dis-adoption of CF by some farmers who originally participated in CF promotions. This study therefore seeks to evaluate the sustainability of conservation farming as an alternative solution to the threatened food security of smallholder farmers. The study therefore determines the socio-economic factors that influence adoption, continuation or discontinuation with conservation farming. It also establishes whether differences exist in terms of socio-economic attributes among farmers who continued and those who discontinued CF. In addition, the study also investigates the profitability of conservation farming practice compared to conventional farming practice. A combination of descriptive statistics, gross margin analysis, and logistic regression analysis was used to investigate the sustainability of conservation farming. Primary data collected through household interviews was used. A structured questionnaire was administered to a total of 90 randomly selected households comprised of three equal categories of farmers namely those that continued CF, discontinued CF and those who never practiced CF. In addition, secondary data was also used in the study.

The study revealed the existence of partial differences and similarities in socio-economic attributes among the three categories of farmers. The most important factors that significantly influence adoption of CF are: number of cattle owned, household labour and maize output. On the other hand, factors that significantly affect continuation/discontinuation with CF are: education of household head, number of cattle owned, access to credit and maize output. Gross margin analysis results showed that maize production using CF practice is significantly more profitable compared to conventional farming hence it is a sustainable farming practice that can be recommended for increasing crop output among smallholder farmers.

It was concluded that conservation farming practice among smallholder can be sustained if the issue of access to credit is addressed, household heads are equipped with education on the importance of CF, CF is promoted with user friendly farm implements to replace draft power shortage and maize output from the CF plot remains significantly higher than that obtained from conventional plot. Anything short of this will result in unsustainable CF. However, the challenge might be that of limited capacity by the government, the private sector and NGOs to continuously provide input support to smallholder farmers in large numbers and hence posing a threat to the sustainability of CF.