Conservation agriculture Tanzania_casestudy.pdf - Sokoine ...

Arumeru has 10 farmer fi eld school groups. The fi eld schools in Manyire village,Matonyok and Vukani have about 60 farmers, each having tried one or twoconservation agriculture techniques on their farms. Fifty-three have ripped theirfarms and all have planted lablab and pigeon pea. These techniques have spilledover to the entire village and nearby Nduruma village, where rippers and covercrops are greatly appreciated and needed. In Likamba, of the 22 Eutulelo FarmerField School members, 18 ripped their own farms and all were able to plantlablab as a cover crop. Since a farmer fi eld school involves many farmers—agroup has 25–30 members—what is learned is easily talked about, challengedand implemented in the village, giving conservation agriculture a chance to provewhether it can improve yields and farmer livelihoods. In each group 10 farmersvolunteered to practise conservation agriculture on their farms and regularlymonitor progress until harvest. These farmers were able to see the improvementin their fi elds under conservation agriculture over those with conventional tillage.IncentivesExternal pressure has been put to bear that incentives be provided to farmersparticipating in testing any new technology. Thus there are now local expectationsof incentives for whoever participates in any development effort. Some farmersproved unwilling to participate without such rewards, and their attitude discouragedtheir groups.During conservation agriculture adoption, the projects provided supplies suchas seeds, inorganic fertilizers, herbicides, rippers, jab planters, direct seeders,Zamwipes, contour equipment, training, paper during training sessions and fieldvisits. Farmers provided land, labour, active participation and security of the crop.In the CASARD project farmers were expected to keep records of their groupperformance and monitor the crops at both their farms and their group trial plots.Incentives, or even the promise of incentives, is a sensitive issue regarding the continuityof conservation agriculture. If incentives were withdrawn, especially the equipment,farmers tended to go back to old practices, even though conservation agriculture wasviable. This happened in Sakila. According to Pastor Mbise, the early withdrawalof the project greatly affected farmers, since they had only one year’s SCAPAexperience, which was not enough. Although they were left with the rippers, theydid not continue conservation agriculture because they expected more incentives.Policies and bylawsIn most villages, bylaws limit free grazing on cropland when crops are growing.The bylaws are supposed to be reinforced through fines, but their enforcementby community leaders is weak. The tradition is to let animals graze after harvest.During the dry season pasture is scarce, so grazing sometimes extends to cropland.In 2003, although the season was very dry, Thomas Loronyo’s farm had a goodcanopy of lablab. But neighbours grazed his farm at night and left his land bare.Being a conservation agriculture pioneer in Likamba, since 2002 he has pushed forArumeru District 29