To the Conservation agriculturists, CA is the way to go. But this is not the case for Kezia. For her Conservation Agriculture means "Hard labour, measuring basins, digging the holes, carrying mature, getting the stovers or any other cover materials, covering the gardens "No this is not for me, It is too much work". Kezia emphatically repeated. When asked about the yields compared to the conventional methods, Kezia agreed that the farmers who were practicing CA, got better yields. This was the scenario at Mponela, Kaweure Village A, during the Training of Trainers CA workshop in Malawi. The field visit one of the highlights of the training, reflected how CA is practiced by small scale farmers and their perceptions.
Conservation Agriculture is a farming system that aims to conserve, improve and make more efficient use of natural resources through integrated management of available soil, water and biological resources combined with external inputs. It contributes to environmental conservation as well as to enhanced and sustained agricultural production. It can also be referred to as resource-efficient / resource effective agriculture. In Malawi the practice involves
- Reduced tillage
- Live fencing
- Weed Management
- Improved furrow [T. vogelii)
- Tree interplanting [F. albida]
By 2012, 85,000 hectares was under conservation Agriculture in Malawi. However the practice is not without challenges, the first major challenge is the mindset both within the farming communities and the technocrats. Most farmers have practiced conventional agriculture for years in Africa and extension workers have carried the same messages over and over. Getting the mindset to shift is an uphill task for many farmers. Other challenges are the conflicting messages given to farmers by the different stakeholders, the limited capacity of the agricultural and extension staff.
Some of the issues that we saw emerging from the CA practice was the
Disparity in terms of practicing the technologies. Different farmers used different measurements in the spacing between the basins and between the crops. Farmers and extension workers both sent out mixed signals (e.g placement of the seeds in the pit). It is recommended that CA is promoted within recommended agronomic practices and it was suggested during the discussions that the Ministry reinforces these recommendations through the extension service.
The Labour intensiveness of the CA technology was one of the reasons farmers practiced it on a small acreage of land and most of the farming was still done the conventional way. Most of the farmers we visited, had a small portion where they practiced CA and the rest of the field they used the normal conventional methods. When we inquired why this was so, the farmers complained of the labour intensiveness of the practices and the fact that people came and stole most of the covering material while looking for mice.
We also observed that the same technology was being done differently in adjacent fields by the farmers adopting CA. The reason for this was also partly attributed to the fact that different organisations promoted the technology differently. Back at the panel discussion, this was an issue to be addressed at policy level and within the extension system in Malawi. There was need to harmonize how the technology was being disseminated.
While the CA farmers endeavored to cover their fields, they could not prevention the burning of their fields by the mice hunters and stealing of their yields from the Farms. This was discouraging, but they had brought in village heads and clan leaders to address this challenge. By the time we were leaving, we learnt that by-laws had been effected to curb this vice