Conservation agriculture increases climate resilience for staple food crops

Abstract

Smallholder farmers in southern Africa are often stuck in a poverty trap that prevents wide scale adoption of sustainable farm intensification technologies such as conservation agriculture (CA). Local adaption of CA components that minimise food insecurity risk with minimal cash inputs would improve adoption. Here we; 1. used experimental results from on-farm trials conducted across Zambia, Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Malawi from 2005 to 2015 to assess the impact of conservation agriculture on maize yields and food insecurity risk; 2. parameterised the APSIM model to explore the effects of individual CA component combinations on maize yield across productivity gradients typical of Sub Sarahan Africa.