Dec. 18, 2015 - Ruminations on CA (my day-to-day)

The opinions expressed below are the author's alone and do not express the views or opinions of his employer, Concern Worldwide.

Just wanted to plop this down, this are some of the things I ponder on the given day-to-day following visits to beneficiaries. It has been an interesting five years, moving one's head from discussions at this level to the visceral day-to-day of the everyman and everywoman farmer. Putting them together is what makes my head spin. 

Sorry for the delay, power has been an issue.

As per D’s email and our discussion, question #2 around the adoption of CA is very interesting but very large, particularly given that CA is three principles that are something of a goal for farmers to achieve by what could be diverse paths (e.g., there are numerous ways to achieve minimum tillage). However, often what tangles up the question of adoption for many CA promoters is why aren’t people adopting “our” way of achieving minimum tillage, soil cover and crop rotation.

A case in point: Why don’t more non-beneficiaries dig basins? Don’t people generally see the improvements from the practice on another’s field? Currently, we target a specific group of beneficiaries (the extreme poor), they receive trainings and inputs, then dig basins in which they apply the inputs and plant the seeds we’ve given them. Typically, those beneficiaries will carry on some of the practices we promote over the longer term, particularly around digging basins for maize production. However, most non-beneficiaries won’t dig basins … as far as we can tell, they are waiting for participation in the programme (e.g. the attention given to beneficiaries in terms of inputs and training). We noted this week that our even better-off lead farmers have almost no concept of “projects”, project lifetime or the hard facts around funding … consequently, they are often confused why projects come to an end before the entire community has been included in a project. Put shortly, we need to examine our approaches to promoting CA as well as the barriers to what we are promoting, otherwise our promotion in and of itself may be a barrier to adoption.

To put a fine point on it, we know that there are considerable barriers that hinder the adoption of certain practices, even within beneficiaries (I know it is not attractive to Accenture, but the preliminary work we’ve done with consumption support suggests that not only are most people food insecure during the farming season, they operate on such an empty tank that it’s amazing they dig any basins). However, I think what we need to take a longer view of:

a.       The various farming systems, landscapes, etc. (agroecology) to understand primarily why people do what they currently do and what would be the most appropriate CA-related interventions;

b.      How knowledge and information is shared among people (e.g., group, individual, parent to child, etc., etc.)

c.       How to approach (a) utilizing those knowledge networks (b) to plan and design your programme. 

As for research question #3, there’s parts that I think are extremely valuable in a business case, which my brain boils down to primarily “Money invested in farmer < Money realized by farmer” and secondarily as “Farmers doing CA GHG emissions < Farmers not doing CA GHC emissions”. We generally would see that, but we have to assume (as is sadly the case now in Western Province) that food aid is not reaching most of our communities; from what I hear on the ground, relief packs are trickling in, but packs are being split between two families. However, we do know that most of our farmers are net buyers of food and/or engage in daily labour “piecework” in hopes of achieving their daily bread. If we’re looking at return on investments, I feel we need to consider those as outcomes vs. an abstract measure of food aid (e.g., does an investment in a farmer in CA mean they spend less money on food and less on piecework in the next season.

Another point on the GHGs specifically to the Zambia, much of the impact of last years’ drought was the sharp uptick in charcoal production across the southern half of the country, which is significant for a country with one of the top five deforestation rates in the world. There is something of an argument as to whether charcoal production is demand-driven or supply-driven given our issues with ZESCO, but I would posit that most farmers who don’t have to make charcoal would not make charcoal, but have little other option in light of their HH needs for food, school fees, etc.  Long and short, what would a reduction in charcoal burning do to our GHG balance / emissions?

Lastly, I would narrow down the scope of the first bullet because we need to be cognizant of the difference between economic demographic levels and how that might influence the opportunity costs, rates of return, etc. What we’re picking up (and is a good example of “everything is obvious [once you know the answer]”) from our consumption support pilot is that crop diversification (and derived from that, rotation) is hindered by lack of seeds on one hand, but also the simple mathematics of hunger on another … e.g., when you have roughly two hours of kilojoules available, you focus all of those on your crops that will provide the most kilojoules (maize and cassava). What I’m saying is that I’d rather we avoid repeating the studies I’ve read that look at “CA” vs. “conventional ag” ceritas paribus, e.g. one that is independent of place, and is not cognizant of a household’s capability to measure and make long-term decisions.

Sorry for going on at length.