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and improving NRM. As such, the IP structure and activities are proving to be a useful model for
the implementation of Government’s ASWAp in the respective districts.
The IP approach has proved very useful for empowering participating stakeholders in rural
communities. However the expectations and aspirations of IP members vary, meaning that the
IP is ever-evolving or changing with a potential to become increasingly relevant. The benefits
enjoyed by farmers are numerous, including access to inputs, loans, market and power through
collective action. Each learning site has proved to a be focus for IP activities for farmers from
both host villages and surrounding communities as well as visiting NGOs, who arrange exchange
visits for farmers from other areas.
Zambia’s conservation agriculture
Pilot initiatives to introduce more sustainable
farming practices in Africa are many, although
documentation of results and lessons
learned is scarce. There is, however, growing
understanding among stakeholders that
sustainable agriculture needs to be based on
simple core principles that are embodied in
CA. This Zambia case study concerns the role
of CA in increasing agricultural productivity
and supporting diversification to other crops,
particularly legumes.
A Conservation Farming Unit (CFU) was established in 1995 as an independent unit
within the Zambia National Farmers Union (ZNFU) to develop and promote the adoption
of CA. This was in response to the realisation that even in years of good rainfall the
majority of smallholder farmers were food-insecure. At the same time it was argued
that conventional cultivation practices were leading to declining productivity, increasing
food insecurity, increasing poverty, and serious environmental degradation, not only in
Zambia but in the region as a whole. There was clearly an urgent need to identify and
promote more productive and more sustainable farming practices.
CFU strongly believed that these problems could be addressed by adopting CA practices.
Management practices were developed for hand hoe, animal-drawn and tractor faming
systems, involving growing crop rotations that included legumes with options for the use
of herbicides for weed control and trees to harvest soil nutrients and improve human
nutrition. In 1999 the Zambian Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives (MoA&C)
endorsed the promotion of CA as national extension policy and by 2003 studies were
confirming that CA was financially attractive, although its effectiveness varied across
crops and over time due to weather fluctuations. Today an estimated 175,000 farmers
are practising CA.
The case studies: Southern Africa 59