INVESTING IN TREES AND LANDSCAPE ... - PROFOR

BOX 2.2. SOUTHERN PROVINCE, ZAMBIA: SMALLHOLDER CONSERVATION AGRICULTURE
The Southern Province is a semi-arid plateau zone that receives 750–900 mm of annual rainfall.
Agricultural systems are mixed crop-livestock, with maize, groundnut, and cotton dominant. The Tonga
(the main ethnic group in the area) farm 1–5 hectares per family, but the plateau also houses commercial
farming operations. Large expanses of the region have been subjected to serious soil erosion, nutrient
depletion, watershed deterioration, and loss of biodiversity as a result of unsustainable farming practices
and overexploitation of natural vegetation. To address these challenges, the government of Zambia
promoted the widespread adoption of conservation agriculture (CA).
CA approaches foster natural ecological processes to increase agricultural yields and sustainability.
In Zambia, CA involves six basic conservation farming technologies: (1) retaining crop residues, (2)
concentrating tillage and fertilizer application in a permanent grid of planting basins or a series of
planting rows, (3) completing land preparation in the dry season, (4) weeding aggressively to reduce
plant competition, (5) intercropping, and (6) rotating nitrogen-fixing legumes on up to 30 percent of the
cultivated area (CFU 2010). Many farmers also incorporate nitrogen-fixing trees. In Zambia, 30 percent of
smallholders have adopted elements of CA. The estimated area restored is 300,000 hectares, with more
than 160,000 participating households; adoption has been especially widespread in the customary land
areas under customary tenure of Monze and Choma in the Southern Province (see photos below).
Conservation Farming in Zambia
The socioeconomic and environmental benefits have been well documented. Yields on farms using CA
practices doubled in maize plots and were 60 percent higher for cotton compared with yields under
conventional plowing systems (Haggblade and Tembo 2003). A 2010 FAO budget analysis in Zambia
found that returns under CA are significantly higher than under conventional systems: $104/ha under CA
and $19/ha under conventional tillage. A switch to CA has allowed women and children to carry out lighter
and more diversified tasks (Baudron et al. 2007). In terms of ecosystem services, CA has improved soil
structure, water retention, and biological activity, and has reduced greenhouse gas emissions, as residue
is not burned.
The scaling up of CA since the mid-1990s has been achieved by a coalition of stakeholders from
government, donors, and the private sector. The Zambian Conservation Farming Unit (CFU) led the effort,
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52 INVESTING IN TREES AND LANDSCAPE RESTORATION IN AFRICA