Conservation Agriculture Research Updates - April 2026

This review article explores the role of farmer agency in enhancing the effect of extension models related to soil health. They want to empower farmers to innovate and adapt knowledge to identify more efficient systems. It reviews several factors that can improve farmer agency including education, economic opportunities, social networks and supportive policies. The paper proposes the need for policies and programs to improve farmer decision-making opportunities and farmer centered learning platforms, digital tools and to strengthen social networks with the hope that adoption and adaptation soil health solutions improves.

This paper reviews the history of agricultural extension in Zimbabwe and presents recent research findings on Ag Extension Officers (AEO) training and gaps in the curriculum. The data suggests that a gap in skills exists because of insufficient AEO training in essential areas including farm management, market access, emerging technologies and being able to support the changing needs of farmers. The authors suggest that the greatest need is for agricultural extension services for new farmers and emerging agricultural technologies compared to well-established farmers and farming methods.

Conventional farming in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA)  is resulting in soil degradation. This paper reviews current practices, challenges, and constraints to the adoption of CA in SSA to reverse this degradation. They show that CA is only adopted on 1.25% of cultivated land in SSA despite 2 decades of promotion. The paper lists 6 possible reasons for this lack of adoption of CA. They also suggest that adoption by smallholder farmers is also obstructed by socio-economic factors due to smallholder farmers’ focus on short term yield increases and their lack of access to markets, loans, and education. They conclude that wider adoption by smallholder farmers in SSA requires CA approaches that are downscaled to fit the existing tillage tools and the specific agroecological and socio-economic farm settings.

There has been a rise in the number of market-oriented farmers, known as `emergent farmers,' who acquire and utilize tractors and associated implements for agricultural production to Zambian agriculture. This study examined the behavioral intentions of Zambian emergent farmers concerning Mechanized Conservation Agriculture (MCA) using the Decomposed Theory of Planned Behavior constructs: attitudes, perceived behavior control, subjective norms, and farmers' background factors by surveying 119 emergent farmers. Factors such as media influence, social influence, technical training, and extension services had positive but insignificant effects on farmers' intention to adopt MCA. Background factors, including overall farm size, farmer's age, area under CA, and years of CA use, showed a positive and significant correlation with farmers' intention to adopt MCA.

This paper looks at the effect of farmer extension channels on adoption of CA using surveys of farmers and extension agents in China. The interviewed 262 farmers and 101 AES workers. Their data suggests that farmers trust their neighbors the most, followed by model farmers, village leaders, retailers, and information communication technology (ICT), but trust AES workers the least mainly because of their availability, accessibility, and relevance.  Gender, age, years of education received, household income, and cooperative qualifications influence trust. The authors conclude there is a communications gap with AES workers that influences the farmers' adoption of CA.

This study looks at the factors that affect the adoption of CA in Southern Africa using a structured questionnaire from 273 smallholder farmers. The results showed that the respondents’ age, access to credit, visits by extension agents, and training
showed a significant influence on the adoption of CA practices by farmers. They concluded that extension agents need to guide and train farmers including illiterate farmers on CA through all inclusive services.

This review article looks at the challenges and research needs for adoption of CA and improvement of crop-soil water conditions in Southern Europe and Northern Africa. This multidisciplinary and participatory study was the basis for the project "Research-based participatory approaches for adopting conservation agriculture in the Mediterranean Area-CAMA". There is an emphasis on smallholder farms. It uses a socio-economic analysis of the reasons that restrict the CA diffusion and legume crop improvement as a component of improved CA cropping systems, and the need for a network of long-term experiments on CA and soil characteristic modification.

The report examines the utility of innovation platforms to improve the adoption of CA practices in South Asia and generate opportunities for rural micro-entrepreneurship in areas with high rates of poverty, small farm sizes and complex labour markets. The identified 37 villages in Nepal, Bangladesh and Eastern India with smallholder farmers and input and output suppliers. IPs were effective in developing trust in communities, among stakeholders, empowering rural youth and women through direct engagement. Ensuring strong ownership was key.

This paper analyzes key stakeholders in the agricultural innovation system (AIS) in Malawi using CA as an example. They analyze roles, organizational capacity and collaboration of stakeholders in Malawi's CA innovation system. NGOs dominate the national CA agenda, while smallholder farmers remain passive recipients of CA interventions. Many CA promoters lack technical and financial capacity, and pursue limited collaboration, which diminish prospects of inclusive stakeholder engagement. Their findings indicate a need to: (1) strengthen understanding of AIS approaches among CA innovation system stakeholders; (2) build stronger partnerships in CA research and development by strengthening stakeholder platforms and social processes; (3) strengthen collaboration advisory mechanisms to facilitate knowledge-sharing, resource mobilization and joint programme implementation with strengthened feedback loops.

This paper looks at various methods for scaling new agricultural uses .practices and technologies and assess their effectiveness. They collected data from 875 smallholder farmers. in central Mozambique. They used a continuous treatment model within the framework of a generalized propensity score matching to empirically assess the effectiveness of community-based extension activities in fostering the adoption of a set of conservation tillage practices . The results show that controlling for socio-demographic factors such as gender of decision maker, land size and access to government services, the area under conservation tillage doubled when respondents had been exposed to targeted extension activities for at least six seasons, from a baseline exposure of two seasons. The study offers an important first step in making an empirical case for multi-year investments in extension activities.

This paper says that despite positive biophysical benefits of CA, low adoption rates have been the focus of several research projects. This study uses a technographic and participatory approach to move beyond the adoption framework and look at how agricultural decision making takes place, how agriculture is performed in the context of project intervention and how practice adaptation plays out in the context of interacting knowledge. The study shows that the assumed model of technology transfer with reference to climate-smart agriculture interventions is not as linear and effective as assumed previously. The study suggests that the following 4 items need to be understood (a) social dynamics and information transfer, (b) contextual costs and benefits, (c) experience and risk aversion, and (d) practice adaptation. Investments should build on existing knowledge and farming systems including a focus on the dynamic decision process to support the 'scaling up, scaling out and scaling deep' agenda for sustainable agricultural innovations.

This is a chapter in the book "Sustainable Solutions for Food Security". Climate change has emerged as a major threat to India's food security with the livelihoods of millions of people at risk. Rising temperatures, erratic rainfall, extreme weather conditions, changing soil fertility, and new pest infestations are major factors contributing to stagnant agricultural growth. The chapter describes how climate-smart agriculture can counter the impacts of climate change, such as the promotion of conservation agriculture, the sustainable management of natural resources and the promotion of climate-smart crops. 

Despite CA being promoted and a possible solution for food insecurity resulting from climate shocks and soil degradation, adoption in Malawi is still low. This paper looked at social capital as a way of approving adoption. The interviewed 1512 smallholder farmers to find out how different social capital elements influenced farmer decisions to adopt CA. Factors that positively affected adoption were group membership, relations with leadership, land size, extension services, livestock ownership, and available credit. Full adoption of CA was limited compared to partial adoption. They conclude that better policy is needed to promote farmer organizations, community engagement, and training programs to enhance adoption.

This paper explored farmer perspectives on adoption of CA in Nepal using a survey with key informant interviews and onsite observations. The paper highlights the economic, environmental, and social pillars of CA’s sustainability. They mention the importance of economic viability for farmers but also positive factors such as increased agriculture-related income, favorable prices, and sustainable productivity that shape farmers’ perceptions. Farmers view environmental sustainability by prioritizing and enhancing the local and global environment, viewing their farming methods as climate-smart and actively working towards reducing greenhouse gas emissions. They conclude that strategic communication is needed to effectively convey the benefits of CA to rural communities.

Sentinel sites that had promoted CA for a long time were used in this paper. The paper attempted to understand what led to the success of CA adoption. They surveyed 620 farmers in Malawi divided into two groups ; those who had contact with host farmers and a control group. Almost a third of the farmers in both groups adopted full CA over a 2-year period, but 57% of the farmers in the treatment area adopted full CA but on 7% in the control group. However, fewer farmers adopted CA for a longer period even in the treatment areas with some dis-adoption. The key adoption factors in the sentinel sites include the availability of training, dedicated longer-term extension support coupled with farmer experiential learning through demonstration plots managed by host farmers. This peer to peer learning over time is critical for sustained adoption.

This article assesses the adoption of CA by smallholder farmers in semi-arid areas of Tanzania. They surveyed smallholder farmers in 4 villages with a random sample of 260 households -- 134 CA adopters and 126 non-adopters. The results show that extension services led to a better quality of CA practices on CA farms. Gender, access to extension services, access to agricultural inputs, participation in farmer groups, and access to credit for agriculture significantly influenced the adoption of CA. Adopters achieved higher yields and higher farm income compared to non-adopters. They conclude that more resources are needed for better extension and mechanization to help scale up adoption of CA together with better monitoring and evaluation to measure impact and sustainability in semi-arid areas.

This study did surveys of extension channels used by farmers to influence adoption of CA in China since this management system can enhance farmer responses to climate change and improve sustainable agriculture. They interviewed 262 farmers and 101 Ag Extension workers (AEW). The result showed that farmers trust their neighbors the most as the agricultural information channel, followed by model farmers, village leaders, retailers, and information and communication technology (ICT), while they trust the AES staff the least. Their results suggest there is a communication gap between farmers and AEW's although AEWs do indirectly affect farmers by increasing their environmental awareness and help with exchange of information between farmers.

This is a paper from the Andean region of Ecuador where small scale farming is on steep slopes and vulnerable to erosion, soil degradation, and productivity loss making the current agricultural practices unsustainable and food security a major issue. Climate change is also going to be a negative factor in this region. Past research on CA in this region suggest that cost savings and better yields make it a better system than CT. Immediate benefits did not arise but at least CA productivity did not decline. On the medium term CA resulted in better soil health (lower erosion) and higher profits than CT. The paper points out that adoption of CA is slow due to lack of any extension, so there is a need improve communication with local farmers and effectively explain to them the benefits of new technology and CA.

This paper looks at the determining factors that influence the adoption of reduced tillage by smallholder farmers in Kenya. The data comes from 300 random selected households of maize dominated farming systems. 437 plot level analysis using Probit regression estimates the decision model.Access to extension information is the key determinant. Household labor availability, land allocated for maize crop, and plot-level characteristics such as soil type, plot size, and intercropping practice followed on the plot are also found to have influenced adoption.

This paper analyzes the impact of community-embedded farmer education programs on the adoption of conservation farming in Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, and Tanzania. They use a multinomial choice model to estimate the relative risk ratios (RRR) that measures the probability of adopting CA. They conclude that The positive role of community-based dissemination programs potentially means that the dissemination of conservation agriculture requires investments by governments and development organizations in community learning sites. Investments in experiential (hands-on) and farmer self-learning in farmer education programs may be critical in enabling the diffusion of better farming methods.

This paper reviews the adoption behavior by farmers from literature. Key influencers on smallholdings, a gender dimension and knowledge network, institutional and policy context are also theoretically presented in relation to CA system. They conclude that there is a requirement for an understanding of the complex network of adopter-CA technology-adoption behaviour and global or national level policy formulation as well as strategic farm-level management.

This paper compared the variation between participatory and traditional agricultural advisory models in training farmers on Conservation Agriculture in Kenya. Data on the assessment criteria used key informant interviews, personal observation and training reports. All advisory models built social networks, enhancing information diffusion, but at different levels. Of the participatory models, Landcare, exhibited greater farmer uptake of Conservation Agriculture and more developed social networks, while the participatory Farmer Field School model performance was similar to the traditional advisory model. Both participatory models were more expensive to deliver than the traditional model.

This FAO training manual is relevant to country level trainers with material covering the basic principles of the use and management of mechanization for smallholder farmers. It is also relevant and useful for training service providers, local entrepreneurs that assist farmers in experimentation and adoption of CA. This manual is designed to provide hire service providers – whether already in the business or intending to start their own hire service business – with skills and competencies in both the technical and the management aspects of the small-scale mechanization business.

This paper used the applied principles of Transformative Learning and Communicative action for potential for innovation technologies like CA in Burkino Faso. In this country CA has not been successfully integrated beyond the trial scale. The stakeholder mapping showed that dominant players and traditional ways of communicating are essential for success. This learning process is recommended for other programs.