An Assessment of Factors Affecting the Adoption of Conservation Agriculture as an Approach to Mitigate the Impact of Climate Change among Smallholder Farmers in Zambia: A Case of Chikankata District

Conservation agriculture has been promoted by many international and local organizations to smallholder farmers in Zambia as a solution to soil degradation and low productivity problems (Ng’ombe et al., 2017) [12]. The adoption of conservation farming practices such as reduced tillage, precise digging of permanent planting basins or ripping of soil with a Magoye ripper, leaving of crop residues on the field, rotation of cereals with legumes and dry season land preparation can improve soil fertility and crop productivity (CFU, 2017) [5]. However, most smallholder farmers in Chikankata District have not adopted conservation farming as a way of mitigating the ever rising effects of climate change. The study was conducted to assess factors affecting the adoption of conservation agriculture as a way of mitigating the impacts of climate change among smallholder farmers, which was carried out in Malala ward of Chikankata District in Southern province of Zambia, and the following factors affecting the adoption of conservation farming were reviewed: Social-economic, institutional and environmental factors. Under social-economic factors attention was given to age of the farmer, farm size, levels of education and income. The institutional factors included; access to credit and inputs, availability of extension services, market and transport; whereas temperature, rainfall pattern and soil status were considered under environmental factors. This survey involved 50 participants who were randomly drawn from a population of 600 farmers. The data collected was analyzed using the Statistical package for Social Sciences (SPSS 16).

The results of the survey revealed that the highest number of farmers who participated in conservation farming were males, representing 58%. The age group of all the farmers interviewed ranged from 18-55 years. 70% of the participants lived in families of not less than 5 members and only 30% had small families of 1-4 members. On the other hand, the study established that most conservation agricultural farmers (82%) attained primary levels of education as a minimum. In addition, 44 participants, representing 88% indicated that limited credit facilities in the area demotivated farmers from adopting conservation agriculture. 60 % indicated that limited market and transport facilities discouraged farmers from adopting conservation agriculture in the area. The study also discovered that poor rainfall pattern, poor soil status and high temperatures affected the adoption of conservation agriculture in Chikankata District.