Conservation agriculture Tanzania_casestudy.pdf - Sokoine ...

produces a straight row with accurate seed spacing.’ The ripper is also thought toincrease yield due to proper spacing and improved seeds.LabourMost farmers depend on family labour but hire additional labour during labourpeaks, like weeding. Therefore, reducing labour is crucial to farmers. Labour toprepare land, slash, collect trash, burn and till can be reduced to slashing only(table 3).Conservation agriculture definitely affects labour. For example, with conventionalfarming, at least three people are needed per acre to till the soil and plant withthe animal-drawn disc plough. Generally, men guide the animals and ploughs andwomen and children follow, planting and covering the seed with their feet. Withthe introduction of direct seed planters, fewer people are needed to plant. At most,two people are required to rip, plant and cover the seed on two acres in one day.Direct seeding reduces drudgery and frees up time for people to rest and attendto other chores. It saves energy used for thinning. Conservation agriculture hasalso reduced time for tilling the field by half. Land preparation was reduced. Inconventional farming, a farmer must slash, burn and plough before sowing seeds.Conservation agriculture offers a choice. Herbicide needs two people for one dayto spray more than an acre. Slashing previous crops or any vegetation may takeabout three to four people about two days. Labour for weeding was not greatlyreduced, especially since conservation agriculture is still at an early stage in thedistrict. Other ways of dealing with weeds were more time consuming, especiallyuprooting. In conservation agriculture preparing land by ripping can be done bymen or women, while in conventional farming men mostly do the ploughing, whichis regarded as heavy work. See figures 2 and 3.On most conservation agriculture farms, men work more than with conventionalagriculture. The amount of hired labour has also increased because more land canbe cultivated.Managing weedsAccording to Mwalley and Mawenya (2002) during the SCAPA trials, rampant weedscompeted with the crop, leading to two or three weedings. During the second andthird seasons the weedings reduced to two. Farmers are gradually changing fromturning the soil during weeding to scraping and uprooting them. Most farmers agreedthat during the first season uprooting weeds was cumbersome and very tiring, sincethe farmer must bend for a long time, leading to backache.Pastor Nelson started using a lablab cover crop on his banana farm in 2003. Inconventional farming he used three days to weed his farm. He no longer weeds.Instead he harvests the beans and leaves the lablab to wither. The next season heuses herbicide on the emerging weeds and again plants lablab with a hand hoe.Arumeru District 31