Conservation Agriculture and Maize Production Risk: the case of Mozambique Smallholders
An interesting piece of research that looks at risk aversion in conservation agriculture (CA) and conventional tillage. The research compared the maize yields and net returns associated with three farming systems: ‘basin planting’, ‘direct seeding’ and ‘conventional tillage’, based on a 4-yr experiment involving on-farm trials conducted by smallholder farmers (n = 638) in Mozambique. The basin and direct seeding systems are two types of conservation agriculture practices (CAPs). CAPs are based on three core principles: minimizing soil disturbance by direct sowing of seeds into the soil, protecting soil with cover crops or crop residues, and intercropping and/or crop rotation.
Yields and net returns were compared using a non-parametric two-sample procedure. Technologies were ranked according to risk preference criterion. e ranking criteria were based on mean-variance analysis, stochastic dominance, and stochastic efficiency with respect to a function. On average, the CAPs (basin and direct seeding systems) appear to generate higher yields than the conventional farmer practice of conventional tillage.
Naturally, any classification scheme ultimately suffers from loss of detail, and this conclusion is conditional on agro-ecological conditions pertaining to elevation, soil type, and precipitation. Four-year average maize yields were unambiguously higher for the CAPs systems compared to usual farmer practices for high-elevation plots. e results were mixed for plots located at intermediate elevations and undifferentiable for communities located in the lower elevations of the study area. This finding has implications for programs promoting the adoption of CAPs practices with respect to the allocation of scarce financial and personal resources. Farmers experimenting with CAPs in the lower to intermediate elevations may experience, on average, higher yields from implementing CAPs, but the variability of yields may be discouraging. At higher elevations, the yield variability of the CAPs practices (as measured by the coefficient of variation) is lower than yields observed at the other elevations. e lower variability and higher yields translate into statistical differences between yields from the conventional tillage practice and the CAPs.
Read the abstract of the paper (Agronomy Journal, Vol 111, Issue 3 2019 by Kidane M, Lambert DM, Eash NS, Roberts RK & Thierfelder C). Read the full paper.
[Thanks to Amir K, FAO Global CA CoP].
