Impact evaluation of conservation agriculture on smallholder farmers’ livelihood in Zambia and Tanzania
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Date
2021-01
Authors
Sankhulani, Linda
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
African Economic Research Consortium
Abstract
Based on cross-sectional data drawn from 135 treated and 68 control farmers in Tanzania, and
133 treated and 71 control farmers in Zambia, this study uses propensity score matching to test
whether conservation agriculture (CA) improves smallholder farmers’ welfare, in response to
the policy objective of enhancing their resilience in the face of climate change. Farmers in
Tanzania assess CA as having statistically significant impacts on increasing total agricultural
yield, adaptation to climate change impacts, resilience to droughts, increasing maize
production, enhancing household food security, increasing number of meals per day, increasing
household income, accumulation of productive assets , addressing gender disparity and social
cohesion, and improving soil health . However, CA had no impact on reducing the forest area
cleared per year and total agricultural costs. Farmers in Zambia assess CA as having
statistically significant impacts on increasing total agricultural yield , adaptation to climate
change impacts, resilience to droughts, increasing maize production, enhancing household food
security, increasing number of meals per day, decreasing number of food insecure months,
increasing household income, accumulation of productive assets, addressing agricultural
calendar bottlenecks, increasing total agricultural costs, addressing gender disparity and
social cohesion, and decreasing soil health. However, CA had no impact on reducing forest
area cleared per year. Policy could use such evidence to leverage CA adoption in support of
the sustainable development goals (SDGs) and Africa Agenda 2063, although its potential to
sequester carbon and provide ecosystem services comes into question.
Description
Keywords
Propensity score matching; impact; conservation agriculture; Tanzania; Zambia