FAO project promotes Brazilian technology for low-tillage agriculture in Africa

A new FAO project seeks to boost agricultural production in Kenya and Tanzania by encouraging a shift to conservation agriculture (CA) techniques, which optimizes the use of farm labour and could also help reduce widespread land degradation. CA techniques include reduced or no-tillage (NT) of the soil, and the use of permanent soil cover.

The project will forge links between farming communities in the two countries and Brazilian firms specialized in production of equipment used in CA. Under the three-year, German-funded project, up to 4,000 farmers are to be trained in CA practices through participatory field schools.

Conservation agriculture is based on three principles: (1) minimal soil disturbance, to preserve soil organic matter (2) permanent soil cover (cover crops, residues and mulches) to protect the soil and suppress weeds without the need for chemical herbicides and (3) diversified crop rotations and associations to promote soil micro-organisms and disrupt plant pests and diseases.

Since dedicated CA implements - such as knife-rollers and direct seeders - are not widely available, the project will take Kenyans and Tanzanians to Brazil to study CA technologies and will design strategies for developing a sustainable equipment supply chain in the sub region. Lessons learned will be "up-scaled" and disseminated throughout Africa.

The FAO says conservation agriculture offers Kenyan and Tanzanian farmers a pathway to sustainable agriculture and rural development, which hinges on sustainable land management and better use of available farm labour. In Tanzania, where the economy is based mainly on small-scale farming and livestock, an estimated 44 percent of the rural population lives below the poverty line. In neighbouring Kenya, the incidence of rural poverty is around 50 percent, despite strong recent growth in the farm sector.

In both countries, land degradation is a major constraint on the productivity of labour and other external inputs. The reduction in farm labour availability due to migration, HIV/AIDS and other diseases has forced farmers to abandon traditional methods of land preparation and other farm operations. Many now plant seed directly into unprepared land immediately after the onset of rain.

"While farmers and extensionists often regard such practices as a poor way of farming, planting without ploughing uses less human labour and animal power," says Josef Kienzle of FAO. "Far from being a mere 'coping mechanism', no-tillage cultivation has the potential - if carried out in conjunction with other appropriate agronomic practices - to become an important part of strategies to improve food production and stabilize threatened rural livelihoods."

The benefits of no-tillage on small farms are well known in Brazil, which has pioneered conservation agriculture in tropical and subtropical farming systems. The first prototype NT seeder and a prototype knife-roller for residue management were designed in 1985. In 1992 a provincial government launched a large-scale evaluation of CA systems and ordered 50 seeders and other equipment from a local manufacturer.

Direct seeding was soon recognized as an excellent means of natural resource conservation, which attracted financial support from the federal government for a programme that encouraged farmers to adopt the innovations.

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