Conservation Farming in Zambia

Since 1996, a growing coalition of stakeholders from the private sector, government and donor communities has promoted a new package of agronomic practices for smallholders in Zambia. 

Results from a survey of 125 farms in Central and Southern provinces during the

2001/2 cropping season suggest that, on average, hand-hoe Conservation Farming (CF) farmers produced 1.5 tons more maize and 460 kg more cotton per hectare than did farmers practicing conventional ox-plow tillage. Among maize farmers, 1.1 tons of this increase comes from the CF technology – 400 kg from early planting and 700 kg from water harvesting and greater precision in input use in the basins – while the remaining 400 kg stems from higher doses of fertilizer, lime and high-yielding variety (hyv) seeds. Because cotton farmers use standard packages of seed and pesticides, the great bulk of the observed gain under CF --430 of the total 460 kg gain -- stems from the water harvesting, precision and timeliness

of the CF system. Erratic early season rainfall showcased the water-harvesting benefits of CF during the 2001/02 season. Since results will no doubt vary under different rainfall regimes, future monitoring will be necessary to evaluate impact over a series of production seasons.