Uptake of Conservation Agriculture Technology through Farmer Field Schools in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Mozambique

Abstract

In Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), uptake of sustainable practices such as conservation agriculture (CA) is undesirable and many studies on CA focus on a single context, and yet comprehensive approaches are demanded in the region. The study assessed the levels of usage of CA technologies in Kisangani, DR Congo and Angonia, Mozambique. Structured questionnaires were administered to 192 (384 collectively) in each study site to collect data through a multistage sampling process. Statistical analyses were used to examine possible relationships among the study parameters. The study adopted the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology theoretical framework to investigate how socioeconomic factors influence the uptake of CA as well as the Multinomial Logistic Regression model to predict the influence of farmers’ adoption. The results showed that land size used for CA was a significant predictor in both study sites. The results also showed that farmers’ intention to adopt depended on the services of vulgarisation of the technologies. The results further showed that Kisangani farmers do not use the three CA technologies at the same time, but they use crop rotation (54%). However, farmers use the three technologies (30%) simultaneously and soil cover (38%) in Angonia. For Kisangani policy makers, the results suggest that the effort to promote adoption should be based on an equal provision of extension services in all locations and the current farmer field schools (FFS) approach should be redesigned for their contextualization. For both sites, the results imply that the use of FFS should be adapted and use of farmer to farmer extension service, which can enhance the upscaling of CA to increase food security sustainably.