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SMALLHOLDER FARMER ADOPTION OF AGROFORESTRY: STRATEGIES FOR
IMPROVING POLICY AND EXTENSION PROGRAMS

Background
Promotion of sustainable smallholder agricultural development is a major
strategy for alleviating rural poverty and food insecurity for most African
governments. Despite policy commitment, most countries continue to face
tremendous challenges in overcoming rural poverty and food insecurity in the face
of declining soil fertility. Recent initiatives to integrate Agroforestry and soil
conservation practices into smallholder farming systems may offer affordable and
effective strategies for addressing the problem, yet adoption challenges threaten
to limit the impact on the target beneficiaries.

Effective strategies are required to facilitate smallholder farmer adoption of
appropriate technologies offering great prospects for improving rural livelihoods. Characterization of appropriate policy levers and specific strategies for promoting
technology adoption requires comprehensive understanding of farmers’ decision
making processes and factors. What specific policy strategies can facilitate
adoption of technologies such as Agroforestry that can enhance soil fertility and
farm incomes on a sustainable basis?

Objectives and Methods

This paper summarizes policy insights from two Agroforestry technology adoption
studies conducted in Zimbabwe by a team of researchers funded by Canadian
International Development Agency (CIDA). The studies were done under the
auspices of the Agroforestry: Southern Africa Project (AFSA) of the University of
Zimbabwe’s Institute of Environmental Studies (IES). The brief unravels some of
the adoption challenges facing smallholder farmers. Specifically, the studies
identified factors and constraints that deter smallholder farmers from adopting
effective agroforestry fodder and soil conservation technologies. A study
conducted by Dzuda (2000) focused on soil and water conservation technologies
that indirectly enhance food security and incomes by improving soil productivity.
The second study Moyo (2000) focused on multi-purpose trees (MPTs) which
enhance food security and incomes as a fodder resource in smallholder dairy
production. The databases from these studies are available through IES.

The Key Findings
Results from the first case study suggest that the probability of adoption of soil
conservation technologies increases with duration of exposure of the agricultural
community to a technology. The longer the duration (up to five years), the greater the
rate of adoption... The speed of adoption is highest among smallholder farmers who
possess larger rather than smaller farms, enjoy greater rather than limited contact
with extension staff, are young rather than older, and for households which are
male-headed rather than female-headed.

The second case study on multi-purpose tree (MPT) technologies yielded
important insights to understanding challenges facing adoption of Agroforestry
technologies for improving rural livelihoods through intensification of dairy
production. The studies revealed that MPT fodder technology is most widely adopted
by smallholder farmers with smaller dairy herds of only one milking cow and among
those farmers for whom dairy production contributes significantly to family income
and livelihood.

Policy Implications
This set of results provides a few important generalizations regarding policy
strategies for facilitating adoption of soil conservation technologies and
integration of Agroforestry into the rural farming systems for better livelihoods.

First, adoption would be enhanced if technology promotion programs are of long
duration of at least five years and designed to formally capitalize on diffusion
processes of learning by ‘hearing, seeing and doing’.

Secondly, faster rates of adoption of soil conservation practices are achievable
if extension efforts target younger-, male headed and well-resourced rural
households. Special and deliberate policy attention is required to encourage
adoption of the same technologies among older-, female headed-, and land hungry- households who often constitute the majority of the vulnerable and food insecure
population.

Thirdly, there is a high level of adoption of multi-purpose trees (MPT) as a cheap
source of protein for dairy cattle especially among one-cow holders and even
greater prospects among farmers as they become experienced and larger scale
dairy farmers. This result suggests that MPT fodder technologies should become
part of national policy and extension strategies for intensification and
commercialization of smallholder dairy production.

Thus, with better planning and deliberate targeting of appropriate technologies
to different types of rural farmers, development programs can begin to realize
higher rates of adoption resulting in long awaited positive impacts on rural
livelihoods.

References
1. Dzuda. L. (2000): “Analysis of Soil and Water Conservation Techniques in
Zimbabwe”, MSc Thesis, Department of Rural Economy, University of Alberta, Edmonton,
Canada

2. Moyo, S. (2000): “Discrete Choice Analysis of the Feed Technology Decisions of
Smallholder Dairy Farmers in Zimbabwe”, MSc Thesis, Department of Rural Economy,
University of Alberta

Acknowledgements
The work was supported under: Agroforestry: Southern Africa Project (AFSA)
A Canadian International Development Agency funded Association of Universities
and Colleges of Canada Managed project

For more information contact IES.   

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